Hay Mills Foundation Trust
Charity 1158434
Overview
Summary
Hay Mills Foundation Trust appears to be a place-based industrial heritage intermediary: it is not primarily preserving a single collection, but attempting to reconnect dispersed archives, artefacts, workplace histories and community memory around Hay Mills. Its operating model seems to combine volunteer-led archival work, public interpretation and local engagement. The organisation’s distinctive contribution may be making the social history behind a long-running manufacturing business accessible, linking local identity to industries and events far beyond the neighbourhood.
Operational geography
Evidence and reasoning
Supporting evidence
Tyseley and Hay Mills
Confidence: medium
The charity’s current Charity Commission activity description identifies engagement with the local community around the heritage of the Hay Mills site, while its charitable objects are specifically focused on preserving and developing the heritage, culture and community of Hay Mills and adjacent areas. Its website also locates its volunteer archive team and heritage work at Hay Mills. The available evidence does not explicitly identify the ward.
- Charity Commission Register of Charities, Hay Mills Foundation Trust (charity 1158434), accessed August 2026
The current activity description says the Trust engages with the local community to promote the history and heritage of the Hay Mills site. Its objects concern a centre for preserving and developing the heritage and culture of Hay Mills, adjacent areas and its community. - Hay Mills Foundation Trust website, accessed August 2026
The website describes bringing the manufacturing history of Webster & Horsfall to life at Hay Mills and says volunteers worked from James Horsfall’s historic schoolroom at Hay Mills.
Remaining uncertainties
- The Trust’s website prominently describes work connected with a 2020 exhibition and uses language such as 'in our first year'; it does not provide a dated current programme, timetable or confirmed current operating address in Hay Mills.
- The Charity Commission currently records Birmingham City as the area in which the charity operates, but the available activity narrative evidences a Hay Mills-focused heritage role rather than delivery across Birmingham as a whole.
- The Trust works with the Library of Birmingham Archive Department and states that some archives and artefacts are retained at the Library of Birmingham and other locations. This is a material archival partnership, but the evidence does not show that the Trust currently delivers public services or maintains a staffed operational site at the Library.
- The registered contact address should be treated as a correspondence address rather than evidence of operational activity.
Additional evidence needed
- The trustees’ annual report and accounts for the year ended 31 March 2025, particularly any narrative on projects, premises, volunteer activity and public access arrangements.
- A current programme, venue list or confirmation from the Trust identifying where volunteer cataloguing, public presentations and community engagement are presently delivered.
- Confirmation from the Library of Birmingham Archive Department of the current practical arrangement: whether the Trust undertakes work or provides public access at the Library, or whether the Library is solely a repository and technical partner.
Areas of work
- Education/training
- Environment/conservation/heritage
Who they help
- The General Public/mankind
How they help
- Provides Advocacy/advice/information
- Provides Services
Discoveries involving this organisation
The Atlas has not published any Discoveries involving this organisation yet.
Observations
A heritage connector rather than only a custodian
The Trust appears to be assembling a coherent public story from material held across multiple institutions and locations, rather than directly holding a unified collection itself.
Why it matters
This suggests its value may lie in coordination, interpretation and access: roles that can make fragmented industrial heritage more usable to residents, researchers and partner institutions.
Show evidence
“The archives and artefacts are retained at Hay Mills, Library of Birmingham, and several other locations.”
Source:Organisation“It is the purpose of the Trust to bring all this history together, to record and catalogue all the material and to give open access for the general public.”
Source:Organisation
Volunteer participation is part of the preservation model
The Trust appears to rely on volunteers not only for outreach but for core archival work, making participation a means of both preserving heritage and building local ownership of it.
Why it matters
This may create a route for people to contribute skills and gain historical knowledge, but it also raises questions about the resilience and capacity of a volunteer-dependent model.
Show evidence
“With the help of volunteers, cataloguing the Archive material for Webster & Horsfall and Latch & Bachelor held by City of Birmingham Library Archive Department.”
Source:Charity Commission“In our first year we are looking for volunteers to help us do that by joining our team.”
Source:Organisation
Local heritage is framed through global industrial connections
The Trust appears to use Hay Mills as an entry point into wider histories of industrial change, presenting a local manufacturer’s records as evidence of connections to sectors such as mining, health, telecommunications and food production.
Why it matters
This framing may help the organisation avoid treating heritage as nostalgia alone, instead showing how a neighbourhood’s working history shaped and was shaped by wider economic and technological change.
Show evidence
“Webster and Horsfall has influenced world history in subtle but remarkable way.”
Source:Organisation“It has served the mining, food, surgical, construction and telecommunications industries.”
Source:Organisation
- Whether the Trust has continued activity beyond the 2020 exhibition and early volunteer-recruitment period.
- Which local communities participate, benefit or remain underrepresented in its heritage work.
- How it works formally with the Library of Birmingham, museums, Webster & Horsfall or other archive holders.
Remaining uncertainties
- Recent annual reports, accounts or activity updates showing current programmes, staffing, volunteer numbers and reach.
- Evidence of partnerships, archive-access arrangements and participant feedback from local community engagement.
Additional evidence needed
Charity Commission profile
Activities
With the help of volunteers, cataloguing the Archive material for Webster & Horsfall and Latch & Bachelor held by City of Birmingham Library Archive Department. Preparing exhibitions and presentations to mark the 300th Anniversary of Webster & Horsfall in 2020. Engaging with local community to promote the History and Heritage of the Hay Mills site
Charity objects
TO ADVANCE EDUCATION AND FACILITIES FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT BY THE ESTABLISHMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF A CENTRE FOR THE PRESERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE HERITAGE AND CULTURE OF HAY MILLS AND THE ADJACENT AREAS AND ITS COMMUNITY AND ALL RELATED ACTIVITIES AS THE TRUSTEES DEEM APPROPRIATE.