Soho Road

Handsworth Council House, Soho Road, Handsworth. This fine redbrick seat of local government was built in 1877, by architect A. E. Henman.

A library was added in 1880, the books being provided by public subscription.


Soho Road 1948

I was interested to see the various posts on Handsworth, which included a mention of Booth's hairdressers at 157 Soho Road and a post from one of the forum members who was born at 156 Soho Road, which must have been directly opposite.

I was a pupil and friend of the late Leslie Webster Booth, the famous British tenor, who was born at 157 Soho Road in 1902, and the brother of Edgar John Booth who took over Booth's hairdressers from his father, Edwin Booth. I would be most interested to learn more about Booth's hairdressers, which I believe was a ladies and gents hairdressers long before the "Unisex" hairdressers became the vogue about 20 years ago. I have done my best to keep the names and voices of Webster Booth and his wife and duettist partner, Anne Ziegler alive. I have written several books about Webster and Anne and run the Booth-Ziegler Yahoo Group.

If anyone wants to know more about them, my blog is http://boothziegler.blogspot.com and I would certainly like to hear your memories of them, particularly Webster's early days in Handsworth. Regards, Jean

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