The King visits Birmingham

On arrival in Birmingham, The King toured the Oratory of St. Philip Neri following the canonisation of Cardinal John Henry Newman, seeing historic items in the library and viewing the Cardinal’s personal items in his room, which has remained untouched since his death.

The Birmingham Oratory was founded by Cardinal John Henry Newman in 1848 after he joined the Congregation of the Oratory in Rome. The current church building was opened in 1909 in his memory. 

John Henry Newman was created a cardinal in 1879 but chose to stay at the Oratory until his death in 1890 and was canonised at the Vatican in 2019, which His Majesty attended, when he was Prince of Wales.

Mr Daniel Joyce, curator of the Newman Museum, accompanied His Majesty on a tour of the building including the sacristy, where some of Cardinal Newman’s vestments were on display. 

In the library, The King was shown historic items such as The Polyglot Bible (1657) with a dedication to King Charles II; the library’s oldest book, from 1474, the handwritten manuscript of ‘The Dream of Gerontius’; and Cardinal John Henry Newman’s viola (c. 1800). 

Later, The King officially opened the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital (MMUH), where he met medical professionals, volunteers and patients.

The hospital opened its doors on Sunday 6th October 2024 and is one of the biggest to open in England in the last decade.

MMUH reconfigured two hospitals - City Hospital and Sandwell Hospital - which allowed the combination of two workforce rotas and investment in new roles to establish a new seven-day service model, where consultants are based on wards every day, supported by a junior medical workforce.