Famous Freemasons - DR. Thomas Barnardo
DR. THOMAS JOHN BARNARDO (1845-1905)
Food For Thought
BARNARDO'S HOMES FOR WAIFS AND STRAYS
IFreemason Dr. Thomas John Barnardo was what we might now call an extraordinary ‘social entrepreneur’. But who was he and what did he achieve? He was well known for his homes and training schemes, but what was his contribution to the development of youth work and social work practice?
Thomas John Barnardo (1845-1905) is a classically Victorian figure - evangelical, entrepreneurial and philanthropic. His crusade to ‘rescue children from the streets’ was one the best known social interventions in the last half of the nineteenth century. As Williams (1953: vii) has put it:
'In the short space of forty years, starting without patronage or influence of any kind, this man had raised the sum of three and a quarter million pounds sterling, established a network of Homes of various kinds such as never existed before for the reception, care and training of homeless, needy and afflicted children.'
Thomas John Barnardo (4 July 1845 - 19 September 1905) was an Irish philanthropist and founder and director of homes for poor children. From the foundation of the first Barnardo's home in 1867 to the date of Barnardo's death, nearly 60,000 children had been rescued, and trained for a better life..
Dr Barnardo a young man. three young boys as they came into his homes, Dr. Barnardo reading to two of his boys
ThomasThomas Barnardo was born in Dublin in 1845, the fourth of five children of John Michaelis Barnardo, a furrier, and his second wife, Abigail, an Englishwoman and member of the Plymouth Brethren. In the early 1840s, John emigrated from Hamburg to Dublin. The Barnardo family traced its origin to Venice, followed by conversion to the Lutheran Church in the sixteenth century, but there are also suggestions that they had German Jewish roots.
Thomas's schooling included Sunday school, parish day school and St Patricks Cathedral Grammar School, Dublin. He appears to have had an independent spirit, reading radical writers like Rousseau and Tom Paine. He was seen as a troublemaker as he became bored very quickly. He was also eloquent and argumentative. Tom Barnardo did not pass his public examinations and at the age of 16 was apprenticed to a wine merchant.
Approaching his seventeenth birthday Thomas Barnardo experienced ‘conversion’ on May 26, 1862. He became a strongly evangelical Christian ‘impatient to convert others, urgent for action’. He began teaching Bible classes in a Dublin ragged school and also became involved in home visiting. His mother and brothers were already members of the Plymouth Bretheren - which he also joined. Barnardo became a member of the Dublin YMCA - and often gave talks there. His commitment to social work strengthened. After hearing Hudson Taylor speaking in Dublin about the work of the Inland China Mission, Thomas Barnardo believed his future lay in such work. The Brethren provided him with a small allowance, and the plan was to first study medicine at the London Hospital, to which friends from the Dublin YMCA gave him an introduction.
Thomas Barnardo settled close to the hospital in east London. His first lodgings were at 30 Coburn Street, Stepney in 1866 - He appears to have begun his studies in 1867. However he threw himself into missionary work in the East End visiting beerhouses, penny gaffs (little theatres), and homes - offering cheap Bibles and the word of Jesus. It could be a dangerous pursuit, as more than once he was attacked, suffering two broken ribs on one occasion. He also became involved in the Ernest Street ragged school (off Mile End Road) - and appears to have been a charismatic and engaging teacher. One of the stories associated with this period was of Barnardo’s first encounters with the ‘lays’ around Petticoat Lane where children slept. Thomas Barnardo frequently talked about this night, when he was taken by Jim Jarvis, a local lad, after a ragged school to visit the area. What Jarvis told Barnardo about his life and the experiences of the other children had a profound effect. One of his first steps was to set up a ragged school, while a student at the London Hospital.
Barnardo’s first independent effort was to raise money via an article in The Revival to hold a large tea meeting service for children. His ability to present work to gain funding was already in place - he soon got donations - and held his first meeting in November 1867 (with a remarkable 2347 children attending). Within a few months, Thomas Barnardo had rented two cottages in Hope Place, Stepney - opening a school house for boys in one and for girls in the other. In later life, Thomas Barnardo was to contribute to all sorts of myths about this work - but it does appear to involve a number of elements common to other ragged school initiatives including a penny bank and a shoeblack brigade. He was well acquainted with ragged school work, as we have already seen, having worked in schools in Dublin and east London.
Within a few years the numbers attending the school had grown He rented some canalside warehouses at 46 Copperfield Road, Stepney, and converted them into a school. The Copperfield Road Ragged School opened in 1876 and was aimed at children aged five to ten years. It soon became the largest ragged day school in London. By 1896, the records show that there were some 1,075 children attending the day schools and 2,460 attending the Sunday School. As well as receiving an education, children attending the school could have breakfast and dinner. The day school finished in 1908 - when the London County Council condemned the building as unsuitable for schooling, the Sunday School continued until around 1915.
As well as opening his own Ragged School in Stepney he established Band of Hope meetings for the children. This evangelical work he continued to carry out alongside his medical studies in London and made him ever more aware of the great numbers of homeless and destitute children that were adrift in cities.
Thomas's schooling included Sunday school, parish day school and St Patricks Cathedral Grammar School, Dublin. He appears to have had an independent spirit, reading radical writers like Rousseau and Tom Paine. He was seen as a troublemaker as he became bored very quickly. He was also eloquent and argumentative. Tom Barnardo did not pass his public examinations and at the age of 16 was apprenticed to a wine merchant.
Approaching his seventeenth birthday Thomas Barnardo experienced ‘conversion’ on May 26, 1862. He became a strongly evangelical Christian ‘impatient to convert others, urgent for action’. He began teaching Bible classes in a Dublin ragged school and also became involved in home visiting. His mother and brothers were already members of the Plymouth Bretheren - which he also joined. Barnardo became a member of the Dublin YMCA - and often gave talks there. His commitment to social work strengthened. After hearing Hudson Taylor speaking in Dublin about the work of the Inland China Mission, Thomas Barnardo believed his future lay in such work. The Brethren provided him with a small allowance, and the plan was to first study medicine at the London Hospital, to which friends from the Dublin YMCA gave him an introduction.
Thomas Barnardo settled close to the hospital in east London. His first lodgings were at 30 Coburn Street, Stepney in 1866 - He appears to have begun his studies in 1867. However he threw himself into missionary work in the East End visiting beerhouses, penny gaffs (little theatres), and homes - offering cheap Bibles and the word of Jesus. It could be a dangerous pursuit, as more than once he was attacked, suffering two broken ribs on one occasion. He also became involved in the Ernest Street ragged school (off Mile End Road) - and appears to have been a charismatic and engaging teacher. One of the stories associated with this period was of Barnardo’s first encounters with the ‘lays’ around Petticoat Lane where children slept. Thomas Barnardo frequently talked about this night, when he was taken by Jim Jarvis, a local lad, after a ragged school to visit the area. What Jarvis told Barnardo about his life and the experiences of the other children had a profound effect. One of his first steps was to set up a ragged school, while a student at the London Hospital.
Barnardo’s first independent effort was to raise money via an article in The Revival to hold a large tea meeting service for children. His ability to present work to gain funding was already in place - he soon got donations - and held his first meeting in November 1867 (with a remarkable 2347 children attending). Within a few months, Thomas Barnardo had rented two cottages in Hope Place, Stepney - opening a school house for boys in one and for girls in the other. In later life, Thomas Barnardo was to contribute to all sorts of myths about this work - but it does appear to involve a number of elements common to other ragged school initiatives including a penny bank and a shoeblack brigade. He was well acquainted with ragged school work, as we have already seen, having worked in schools in Dublin and east London.
Within a few years the numbers attending the school had grown He rented some canalside warehouses at 46 Copperfield Road, Stepney, and converted them into a school. The Copperfield Road Ragged School opened in 1876 and was aimed at children aged five to ten years. It soon became the largest ragged day school in London. By 1896, the records show that there were some 1,075 children attending the day schools and 2,460 attending the Sunday School. As well as receiving an education, children attending the school could have breakfast and dinner. The day school finished in 1908 - when the London County Council condemned the building as unsuitable for schooling, the Sunday School continued until around 1915.
As well as opening his own Ragged School in Stepney he established Band of Hope meetings for the children. This evangelical work he continued to carry out alongside his medical studies in London and made him ever more aware of the great numbers of homeless and destitute children that were adrift in cities.
Portrait photo of Dr Barnado, one of Barnado Boys under the Rev. Mayer, and Dr Barnardon attending to paperwork
Barnardo, a powerful orator, made a speech about the problem at a Missionary Conference in 1867. Lord Shaftesbury was in the audience and he was so moved by what he heard that he offered Barnardo help to establish homes for these children. The banker, Robert Barclay also agreed to support the cause and on 2nd March, 1868, Barnardo had raised enough money to open his first home for destitute children. Encouraged by the support of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury and the 1st Earl Cairns, he gave up his early ambition to lead a missionary's life in China, and began what was to prove his life's work. The first of the "Dr Barnardo's Homes" was opened in 1867 at 18 Stepney Causeway, London. From then his humanitarian venture steadily increased until, at the time of his death in 1905, he had established 112 district homes, besides mission branches, throughout the United Kingdom.
The experience of working with children and young people in the ragged school was a key factor in pushing Barnardo towards setting up a home for homeless boys. This opened at 18 Stepney Causeway in 1870. The first 33 inhabitants were all older youths. Some were respectable lads who could afford to pay for accommodation; unemployed young men who were given work in the home (and taught self-reliance); and destitute boys who were clothed, fed, housed and taught simple trades. Barnardo set up a small wood chopping business for the lads (which paid them wages and made a small profit for the home). Thomas Barnardo didn’t simply open the doors and wait for children and young people to appear - he took to the streets to ‘rescue’ children and to bring them to the home. There were, inevitably, problems concerning his right to do this. In spite of this within a year the income and activity of the home had doubled.
He built workshops, fitted workrooms, started a city messengers’ brigade, brushmaking and boot-making departments and a tract department for the sale of improving literature. He opened up a new branch ragged school in Salmon Lane and employed twenty four ‘staff’ including cook, drill-master, trade manager and two schoolmasters in the home and teachers, door-keepers and a sick visitor and a Bible woman in the mission. His hot dinners and soups were famous in Stepney. And both the boys’ work (the woodchoppers sold wood to the value of £765) and the tract shop were ‘driving a fair business’.
Barnardo was also active in the Temperance Society and used to erect mission tents outside public houses. In 1872 Barnardo purchased the lease of The Edinburgh Castle, a gin palace and music hall in Limehouse, and converted it into a coffee house and mission church. This bold gesture brought him the support of wealthy and influential evangelicals who backed his work with children.
In 1873 Thomas Barnardo married Syrie Louise Elmslie - a fellow evangelist and philanthropist. As a wedding present, they were given a fifteen year lease on Mossford Lodge, Barkingside.
This 60 acre site at last enabled Barnardo to open a home for Girls at Mossford Lodge. Numbers grew to just over 50 - but this was a good deal less than expected. What is more, the work itself did not achieve what they, the Barnardos, had sought. The author Rose reports that one night Barnardo overheard the girls talking and was horrified by their ‘vile conversation’. He is reported to have commented later -
“ … in a moment I realized what were the hidden forces of evil at work, undoing all we hoped had been attained. Indeed, I was made to feel, as I listened with horror, that probably I had done harm, not good, and that by our system of aggregating these girls I was but propagating and intensifying evil.”
The girls home was closed - and instead plans were announced for a new Girls Village Home at Barkingside in which girls would be housed in little cottages - each overseen by a ‘mother’. Girls of different ages were to be housed in the same cottage. This sort of approach had been tried in France and by Mary Carpenter in England.
The Girls' Village Home was developed and within three years Barnardo had purchased the lease and owned the land. There he created a 60-acre (24 ha) rural retreat, with the vision of creating a way of life for destitute children that resembled growing up in a village. On 9 July 1876, The Girls' Village Home was officially opened with 12 cottages by the then Lord Cairns. In the same year, a modern steam laundry was opened. Over the years, the number of cottages grew to a total of 66 in 1906, housing some 1,300 girls. The cottages were spread over three village greens next to Mossford Lodge at Barkingside, Ilford, Essex, that had been opened in 1873. It appears that by 1894 a multi-denominational Children's Church was dedicated, and The Girls' Village Home had become a real "garden city". By 1900 there were 65 cottages, a school, a hospital and a church around the three village greens.
In 1874 Dr. Barnardo opened a Photographic Department in his Stepney Boys' Home. Over the next thirty years every child who entered one of Barnardo's homes had their photograph taken. Children were photographed when they first arrived and again several months later after they had recovered from their experiences of living on the streets. These 'before' and 'after' cards were then sold in packs of twenty for 5 shillings or singly for 6d. each. This enabled Barnardo to publicize his work and raise money for his charitable work.
By 1878 he had established fifty orphanages in London. This included his Village Home for Girls in Ilford.
Barnardo also developed a scheme for sending children to Canada. Between 1882 and 1901 he sent 8,046 children, which meant that one-third of one per cent of the Canadian population had come from a Barnardo Home. This scheme though following a long standard British tradition dating back to the 1600s proved controversial. However, It was expanded to include Australia. In all around 18,000 children were emigrated in Barnardo's lifetime.
Thomas Barnardo also began the first comprehensive fostering project in England. He believed that families were generally preferable to institutions as places for bringing up children. For example, a high proportion of children who had been in the workhouse returned there. To deal with this problem Barnardo began to look at the possibilities of ‘boarding out’. This practice, of placing children with respectable families, often away from their own parish, had been used as a means of cutting child pauperism in a number of Scottish districts since the sixteenth century. Thomas Barnardo examined continental schemes as well as the Scottish - and decided that if boarding out (‘fostering’) was to work it had to be well organized and operated to certain minimum standards. The first major scheme began in 1886/1887 when 330 boys were sent to ‘good country homes’ - well away from the slums and pollution that he believed was so injurious to physical and moral well-being.
He chose boys between the ages of five and nine because he believed that it was young children who suffered most from institutional life. From his foster parents he demanded high standards. They should be cottagers and working-class people, living in homes that ‘promised satisfactory sanitary conditions, pure moral surroundings and a loving and Christian influence’. Foster parents must have enough accommodation and be well intentioned.
Foster parents were paid five shillings per week for each child - but he was also keen to avoid making fostering the central income. He stipulated that foster fees should not be the sole income of widows, for example.
Foster parents were required to sign a substantial agreement form. They had to agree:
1. To bring up the said child carefully, kindly and in all respects as one of my family.
2. To provide the said child with proper food, clothing, washing, lodging and school fees.
3. To endeavour to train the said child in habits of truthfulness, obedience, personal cleanliness and industry.
4. To take care that the said child shall attend duly at church or chapel, and shall be taught the habit of daily prayer.
5. To take care that the said child, when of suitable age, shall attend regularly at a public elementary school.
6. To communicate with the lady and gentleman who has charge of the children in the district upon all matters affecting the welfare of the said child; and in the case of… illness to report it immediately … and if necessary at once to call in the assistance of a medical man.
7. To forward to the Director for inspection all letters which may be received from relatives or friends of the said child, before allowing the same to be opened… and not to enter into any correspondence myself with any person who may claim relationship.
8. At all times, to permit the said child to be visited by any person appointed by the Director and to permit no visit from relatives or friends of the child without the Director’s authorization.
9. To restore the said child to any person sent by the Director to receive it, on getting one fortnight’s notice of removal or equivalent payment.
The object for which Dr. Barnardo's institutions were started was to search for and to receive “waifs and strays, to feed, clothe and educate them.
The experience of working with children and young people in the ragged school was a key factor in pushing Barnardo towards setting up a home for homeless boys. This opened at 18 Stepney Causeway in 1870. The first 33 inhabitants were all older youths. Some were respectable lads who could afford to pay for accommodation; unemployed young men who were given work in the home (and taught self-reliance); and destitute boys who were clothed, fed, housed and taught simple trades. Barnardo set up a small wood chopping business for the lads (which paid them wages and made a small profit for the home). Thomas Barnardo didn’t simply open the doors and wait for children and young people to appear - he took to the streets to ‘rescue’ children and to bring them to the home. There were, inevitably, problems concerning his right to do this. In spite of this within a year the income and activity of the home had doubled.
He built workshops, fitted workrooms, started a city messengers’ brigade, brushmaking and boot-making departments and a tract department for the sale of improving literature. He opened up a new branch ragged school in Salmon Lane and employed twenty four ‘staff’ including cook, drill-master, trade manager and two schoolmasters in the home and teachers, door-keepers and a sick visitor and a Bible woman in the mission. His hot dinners and soups were famous in Stepney. And both the boys’ work (the woodchoppers sold wood to the value of £765) and the tract shop were ‘driving a fair business’.
Barnardo was also active in the Temperance Society and used to erect mission tents outside public houses. In 1872 Barnardo purchased the lease of The Edinburgh Castle, a gin palace and music hall in Limehouse, and converted it into a coffee house and mission church. This bold gesture brought him the support of wealthy and influential evangelicals who backed his work with children.
In 1873 Thomas Barnardo married Syrie Louise Elmslie - a fellow evangelist and philanthropist. As a wedding present, they were given a fifteen year lease on Mossford Lodge, Barkingside.
This 60 acre site at last enabled Barnardo to open a home for Girls at Mossford Lodge. Numbers grew to just over 50 - but this was a good deal less than expected. What is more, the work itself did not achieve what they, the Barnardos, had sought. The author Rose reports that one night Barnardo overheard the girls talking and was horrified by their ‘vile conversation’. He is reported to have commented later -
“ … in a moment I realized what were the hidden forces of evil at work, undoing all we hoped had been attained. Indeed, I was made to feel, as I listened with horror, that probably I had done harm, not good, and that by our system of aggregating these girls I was but propagating and intensifying evil.”
The girls home was closed - and instead plans were announced for a new Girls Village Home at Barkingside in which girls would be housed in little cottages - each overseen by a ‘mother’. Girls of different ages were to be housed in the same cottage. This sort of approach had been tried in France and by Mary Carpenter in England.
The Girls' Village Home was developed and within three years Barnardo had purchased the lease and owned the land. There he created a 60-acre (24 ha) rural retreat, with the vision of creating a way of life for destitute children that resembled growing up in a village. On 9 July 1876, The Girls' Village Home was officially opened with 12 cottages by the then Lord Cairns. In the same year, a modern steam laundry was opened. Over the years, the number of cottages grew to a total of 66 in 1906, housing some 1,300 girls. The cottages were spread over three village greens next to Mossford Lodge at Barkingside, Ilford, Essex, that had been opened in 1873. It appears that by 1894 a multi-denominational Children's Church was dedicated, and The Girls' Village Home had become a real "garden city". By 1900 there were 65 cottages, a school, a hospital and a church around the three village greens.
In 1874 Dr. Barnardo opened a Photographic Department in his Stepney Boys' Home. Over the next thirty years every child who entered one of Barnardo's homes had their photograph taken. Children were photographed when they first arrived and again several months later after they had recovered from their experiences of living on the streets. These 'before' and 'after' cards were then sold in packs of twenty for 5 shillings or singly for 6d. each. This enabled Barnardo to publicize his work and raise money for his charitable work.
By 1878 he had established fifty orphanages in London. This included his Village Home for Girls in Ilford.
Barnardo also developed a scheme for sending children to Canada. Between 1882 and 1901 he sent 8,046 children, which meant that one-third of one per cent of the Canadian population had come from a Barnardo Home. This scheme though following a long standard British tradition dating back to the 1600s proved controversial. However, It was expanded to include Australia. In all around 18,000 children were emigrated in Barnardo's lifetime.
Thomas Barnardo also began the first comprehensive fostering project in England. He believed that families were generally preferable to institutions as places for bringing up children. For example, a high proportion of children who had been in the workhouse returned there. To deal with this problem Barnardo began to look at the possibilities of ‘boarding out’. This practice, of placing children with respectable families, often away from their own parish, had been used as a means of cutting child pauperism in a number of Scottish districts since the sixteenth century. Thomas Barnardo examined continental schemes as well as the Scottish - and decided that if boarding out (‘fostering’) was to work it had to be well organized and operated to certain minimum standards. The first major scheme began in 1886/1887 when 330 boys were sent to ‘good country homes’ - well away from the slums and pollution that he believed was so injurious to physical and moral well-being.
He chose boys between the ages of five and nine because he believed that it was young children who suffered most from institutional life. From his foster parents he demanded high standards. They should be cottagers and working-class people, living in homes that ‘promised satisfactory sanitary conditions, pure moral surroundings and a loving and Christian influence’. Foster parents must have enough accommodation and be well intentioned.
Foster parents were paid five shillings per week for each child - but he was also keen to avoid making fostering the central income. He stipulated that foster fees should not be the sole income of widows, for example.
Foster parents were required to sign a substantial agreement form. They had to agree:
1. To bring up the said child carefully, kindly and in all respects as one of my family.
2. To provide the said child with proper food, clothing, washing, lodging and school fees.
3. To endeavour to train the said child in habits of truthfulness, obedience, personal cleanliness and industry.
4. To take care that the said child shall attend duly at church or chapel, and shall be taught the habit of daily prayer.
5. To take care that the said child, when of suitable age, shall attend regularly at a public elementary school.
6. To communicate with the lady and gentleman who has charge of the children in the district upon all matters affecting the welfare of the said child; and in the case of… illness to report it immediately … and if necessary at once to call in the assistance of a medical man.
7. To forward to the Director for inspection all letters which may be received from relatives or friends of the said child, before allowing the same to be opened… and not to enter into any correspondence myself with any person who may claim relationship.
8. At all times, to permit the said child to be visited by any person appointed by the Director and to permit no visit from relatives or friends of the child without the Director’s authorization.
9. To restore the said child to any person sent by the Director to receive it, on getting one fortnight’s notice of removal or equivalent payment.
The object for which Dr. Barnardo's institutions were started was to search for and to receive “waifs and strays, to feed, clothe and educate them.
One of Dr Barnado's carpentary classes,crippled members of one of Dr Barnardo's special homes
The system which the institution developped is broadly as follows: the infants and younger girls and boys were chiefly "boarded out" in rural districts; girls above fourteen years of age were sent to the industrial training homes, to be taught useful domestic occupations; boys above seventeen years of age were first tested in labour homes and then placed in employment at home, sent to sea, or emigrated; boys of between thirteen and seventeen years of age were trained for the various trades for which they might be mentally or physically fitted. Besides the various branches necessary for the foregoing work, there were also, among others, the following institutions: a rescue home for girls in serious danger, a convalescent seaside home and a hospital for the terribly sick.
In 1899, the various institutions and organizations were legally incorporated under the title of "The National Association for the Reclamation of Destitute Waif Children", but the institution was always familiarly known as "Dr Barnardo's Homes." Barnardo laid great stress on the religious teaching of the children under his care. Each child is now brought up under the influence and teaching of the denomination of the parents.
The homes were divided into two sections for religious teaching, Church of England and Nonconformists; children of Jewish and Roman Catholic parentage were, where possible, handed over to the care of the Jewish Board of Guardians in London, and to Roman Catholic institutions, respectively. In 1877, Barnardo was the resident physician at the Smedley Hydro Hotel in Southport. He also opened a children's school in Birkdale while he resided in Southport.
The scale of developments, and existing commitments, was such that an ever more complex fund-raising strategy was needed. Dr Barnardo often overran his resources - and there needed to be temporary cutbacks. The new Council of the Barnardo homes set various budgets and limits on the numbers of children, for example, who could be boarded out. However, Thomas Barnardo was not one to put off by such measures. At times he simply ignored them, at others he redoubled his efforts to raise funds. In this area there were many innovations. Dr Barnardo was one the first to develop organized mass charity giving - with much of the money for his schemes coming in small amounts from a large number of donors. Of particular note here was his founding of the Young Helpers’ League in 1891 - in which more fortunate children were encouraged to give (its membership had grown to over 34,000 when Barnardo died).
All this work took its toll on Thomas Barnardo’s health. By the time he was 50 it was clear he had some sort of heart complaint - and he was required to take a period of absolute rest (although he was not emotionally able to do this). He was soon working again at full pressure but by 1903 was in significant difficulties. Despite periods of convalesce he died on 19th September, 1905.
Williams (1953: 209) reported, on that day: ' … he spent a busy morning with correspondence, had a little sleep in the afternoon, and in the evening partook of a light meal. Then he settled down in an easy chair for a rest by the fireside, and turning presently to his wife, he said, "My head is so heavy. Let me rest it on you". A moment later his spirit quietly passed away.'
When Dr Thomas Barnardo died, there were some 8,000 children in the 96 residential homes he had set up. Around 1300 of these children had disabilities. More than 4,000 children were boarded out, and 18,000 had been sent to Canada and Australia
Barnardo died of angina pectoris in London on 19 September 1905, and was buried in front of Cairns House, Barkingside, east London. The house is now the head office of the children's charity he founded, now just named Barnardo's.
After Barnardo's death, a national memorial was instituted to form a fund of £250,000 to relieve the various institutions of all financial liability and to place the entire work on a permanent basis. William Baker, formerly the chairman of the council, was selected to succeed the founder of the homes as Honorary Director. Barnardo was the author of 192 books dealing with the charitable work to which he devoted his life.
From the foundation of the homes in 1867 to the date of Barnardo's death, nearly 60,000 children had been rescued, trained and placed out in life.
SOURCES USED:
SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_John_Barnardo
SOURCE: http://infed.org/mobi/thomas-john-barnardo-the-doctor/
SOURCE: http://www.barnardos.org.uk/what_we_do/our_history/thomas_barnardo.htm
SOURCE: http://spartacus-educational.com/REbarnardo.htm
In 1899, the various institutions and organizations were legally incorporated under the title of "The National Association for the Reclamation of Destitute Waif Children", but the institution was always familiarly known as "Dr Barnardo's Homes." Barnardo laid great stress on the religious teaching of the children under his care. Each child is now brought up under the influence and teaching of the denomination of the parents.
The homes were divided into two sections for religious teaching, Church of England and Nonconformists; children of Jewish and Roman Catholic parentage were, where possible, handed over to the care of the Jewish Board of Guardians in London, and to Roman Catholic institutions, respectively. In 1877, Barnardo was the resident physician at the Smedley Hydro Hotel in Southport. He also opened a children's school in Birkdale while he resided in Southport.
The scale of developments, and existing commitments, was such that an ever more complex fund-raising strategy was needed. Dr Barnardo often overran his resources - and there needed to be temporary cutbacks. The new Council of the Barnardo homes set various budgets and limits on the numbers of children, for example, who could be boarded out. However, Thomas Barnardo was not one to put off by such measures. At times he simply ignored them, at others he redoubled his efforts to raise funds. In this area there were many innovations. Dr Barnardo was one the first to develop organized mass charity giving - with much of the money for his schemes coming in small amounts from a large number of donors. Of particular note here was his founding of the Young Helpers’ League in 1891 - in which more fortunate children were encouraged to give (its membership had grown to over 34,000 when Barnardo died).
All this work took its toll on Thomas Barnardo’s health. By the time he was 50 it was clear he had some sort of heart complaint - and he was required to take a period of absolute rest (although he was not emotionally able to do this). He was soon working again at full pressure but by 1903 was in significant difficulties. Despite periods of convalesce he died on 19th September, 1905.
Williams (1953: 209) reported, on that day: ' … he spent a busy morning with correspondence, had a little sleep in the afternoon, and in the evening partook of a light meal. Then he settled down in an easy chair for a rest by the fireside, and turning presently to his wife, he said, "My head is so heavy. Let me rest it on you". A moment later his spirit quietly passed away.'
When Dr Thomas Barnardo died, there were some 8,000 children in the 96 residential homes he had set up. Around 1300 of these children had disabilities. More than 4,000 children were boarded out, and 18,000 had been sent to Canada and Australia
Barnardo died of angina pectoris in London on 19 September 1905, and was buried in front of Cairns House, Barkingside, east London. The house is now the head office of the children's charity he founded, now just named Barnardo's.
After Barnardo's death, a national memorial was instituted to form a fund of £250,000 to relieve the various institutions of all financial liability and to place the entire work on a permanent basis. William Baker, formerly the chairman of the council, was selected to succeed the founder of the homes as Honorary Director. Barnardo was the author of 192 books dealing with the charitable work to which he devoted his life.
From the foundation of the homes in 1867 to the date of Barnardo's death, nearly 60,000 children had been rescued, trained and placed out in life.
SOURCES USED:
SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_John_Barnardo
SOURCE: http://infed.org/mobi/thomas-john-barnardo-the-doctor/
SOURCE: http://www.barnardos.org.uk/what_we_do/our_history/thomas_barnardo.htm
SOURCE: http://spartacus-educational.com/REbarnardo.htm