Together Trust Archive

As tonight is Halloween we thought we’d delve headfirst through the dust and dirt to find tales of some ghostly visits from the archive... In 1920 the Together Trust purchased 22 acres of land in Cheadle, Cheshire in order to take children out of the slums of Manchester into the cleaner air of the countryside. With the land came Belmont House which was formally the residence of the Milne family. The Milne’s were well known in Manchester due to their Department Store, which was set up on Deansgate and known to many as Kendal Milne (now House of Frasier ) since 1836. Belmont itself was built around the 1800s and adapted by Alfred Waterhouse in 1864, a famous architect best known for his design of the Natural History Museum in London and Manchester Town Hall . 

To please our American readers we are setting sail across the sea to land in Massachusetts, to reveal a story involving the famous American evangelist, Dwight Lyman Moody , 12 orphan boys from Manchester and a brave child’s fight to save his pal. The Refuge   had been partaking in the emigration of some of Manchester’s orphan children since 1872, across to the spacious, clean lands in Ontario, Canada. Here they would live with the local farmers, working the land if they were boys or helping out in domestic duties if girls.

Today we dabble our feet in the water and move off dry land to the port of Birkenhead, following in the footsteps of hundreds of Manchester boys in the late 18th and early 19th century. Their destination? The Indefatigable ! A training ship moored in the River Mersey, which aimed to prepare boys for a life in the Merchant Navy.        Illustration from the Illustrated London News is of the training ship Indefatigable.

I give various talks about the Together Trust’s history to groups of people who want to know more about the charity. One of the more familiar names of the various different homes we have run is that of Bethesda, which was open from 1890 to 1958 in Manchester and 1959 to 1999 in Cheadle, Cheshire. Having little time to devote solely to this service during these talks I thought it was time to put the original Bethesda in the spotlight... The Bethesda Home for Crippled and Incurable Children, 1904

Helping people in need for over 140 years 
 Venue: The John Rylands Library ,
150 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3EH FREE ENTRY From Monday 4th July 2011 to Saturday 10th December 2011   Drawing on its extensive archive as one of the North West region’s founding charities of social care and special education services, the Together Trust marks its 140th anniversary with a major exhibition from its formation as the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges and Homes in 1870 through to the present day.

Leonard Kilbee Shaw Today we are focusing on the life and work of one man – Leonard Kilbee Shaw – who was the founder of the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges and Homes and the hero of our story….

 The Old Refuge Yard, Strangeways, Together Trust Archive, PH/4/15