Funding the homeless children of Manchester

Now I have to confess I had only a vague idea how the children’s charitable institutions were funded during the late 19th and early 20 centuries.

And yet their reliance on voluntary contributions and their own drive to raise revenue gets to the very heart of how we looked on the welfare of the sick and needy before the establishment of the Welfare State.
They were not alone of course on relying on charity.  The annual Rose Queen procession here in Chorlton was just one of a number of fund raising events that local hospitals used to garner funds. http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/chorlton-carnival-most-considerable.html

The Manchester and Salford Boys and Girls Refuges, had from the start relied on money from local businesses to set up their first home for boys on Quay Street off Deansgate in 1870, and by the end of the century the cost of running all their activities ran to £10,000 a year.  This was “made up of the freewill offerings of thousands of contributors, from the penny of the little child for the benefit of little children less happily placed, to the legacy of £10,000 for endowment purposes.”*

It is an interesting insight into the way philanthropy worked, “One morning a letter was opened which contained a cheque for a thousand pounds from a widow lady for a special object; the next letter opened was also from a widow and brought six penny stamps with a slip on which was written ‘Half of all I have in the world.’”**
Just how far the proportion donated came from the poor is an interesting question and one which might prompt the cynic to ponder on the degree to which the poor helped the poor.  Or for that matter the relative proportions of sacrifice made by the wealthy and the not very wealthly.

As I write this I am looking at a donation card issued by Barnado sometime in the late 19th century.  Entitled “Card for Self Denial” it very much plays on the Christian idea of denial and asks “What can you give up for Christ’s Sake during the week.”  The “ABC of Self-Denial details what can be given up like the C for Comforts.- Buses and tram rides, 3rd class instead of 2nd or 1st and Tobacco or F for Food. – One week of moderate fare.” 

And what would strike us as very modern and target aware, is how it details just what a sum of money would buy.  So “£10 will pay for the complete outfit and passage money one child Emmigrated to Canada”, while “£3.10 will cover the entire cost for one year of boarding out a child in the COUNTRY”

Now it would be very interesting to know how these were distributed.  I suppose they would like Christian aid envelopes today have been available in the churches, chapels and missionaries.  And like Christian Aid, Barnado singled out a specific week in August.

It does indeed strike me as very modern as were the advertising campaigns run by the Manchester and Salford Boys and Girls Refuges.  These appealed for everything from a donation for the running of their homes like this one which appeared in the Manchester Times in 1877 for the Orphan House Cheetham Hill, "£10 a year or 17 shillings per month will support or educate an orphan or homeless boy" to raising money for summer holidays.  It is a topic covered by the Trusts own blog at http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/orphan-homes-at-cheetham-hill.html#uds-search-results

Here then is a rich field of research.

Pictures; Donation Card from the collection of Lori Oschefski, and the summer holiday appeal courtesy of the Forward Trust