Together Trust Archive

The Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges and Homes, as regular readers to our blog will know, sailed across to Canada twice a year with parties of children. These parties were heading for a new life out of the city slums, on to the rich farming lands of Ontario. Their journey has already been well documented throughout this blog .    In the corn at Marc hmont

Our Heritage Lottery Funded project ‘Deep Pockets and Dirty Faces’ is back in full swing again. Over the summer we’ve been busy working on our new film ‘A Journey to Canada’, where our young people have partaken in new experiences and worked in front of the camera, to produce a historical documentary based on the Together Trust’s past . We are really excited to reveal the result of this work, which will be shown for the first time during two live performances at the Together Trust Centre in November.  Film Introduction ‘A Journey to Canada’ builds on previous work completed by young people at the Together Trust, who have been learning about the experiences of orphans who used to live in the charity’s homes in the early 1900s. The film centres round young people today experiencing activities that would have been undertaken by these 19th century orphans, embarking on their journey to Canada to start a new life. We are now working on two live performances in which to showcase

As a charity archive we have many things to be grateful for. Firstly the fact that our ancestors have so lovingly preserved our records of old and passed them through the generations. There is a wealth of social history at our hands which contribute substantially both to the history of Manchester and to the history of childcare. We are also lucky that we have the means to continue to care for this collection today. Like many charities however, the Together Trust does not have the facilities to do this onsite. Archives need special conditions to ensure they are preserved for as long as possible. These include factors like stable temperatures and humidity, dust and pest free environments and protective packaging. Without these, archive materials can deteriorate at a faster rate, making access difficult. Records storage