Inside the Bethesda Home

We are returning to Bethesda on George Street this week to coincide with UK Disability History Month (UKDHM) 22 November – 22 December 2013. The aim this year is to explore the history of attitudes and how disabled people's lives have been marked by change.

Bethesda, 1900

Before 1890, when Bethesda was first opened by the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges and Homes, there was virtually no provision for children with disabilities. In fact the home was the first of its kind in Manchester. The building was originally owned by a Mr. Matthew Ferguson and was formally known as 'Woodside Cottage'.

The Manchester Courier described the home at its opening:  

“On each side of the Central Hall are large day rooms for the children, warm and well-lighted and rooms of a similar character are provided on the first floor, in which are excellent beds on which the little inmates will sleep. The ascent of the children to these rooms will be facilitated by a hoist and the same apparatus will also be serviceable in other ways. The domestic arrangements are all that could be desired. In front of the institution is a large area for recreative purposes and under an amble veranda which stretched from the building are seats upon which those of the inmates who are debarred from active exercises can sit and enjoy the fresh air and warm sunlight. The heating and ventilating of the apartments is on a remarkably complete scale.”

New Annexe 1904

As well as being a favourite service of many of the committee members the service also received many donations from the general public. In the early days many of the children admitted were often those dismissed from the hospitals as ‘hopeless cases’, being made to return to the slums. Consequently the home’s object specifically referred to those cases ‘unsuitable for the ordinary hospitals.’ Many of the cots assigned to the children were endowed by the public, some in memory of loved ones. These cost £800 a year, the equivalent of around £17,000 in today’s money. Despite this cost however each new cot that was bought was financed by the local community.