Work in progress

In 2019, the Together Trust secured a generous grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to support the charity’s 150th anniversary celebrations and community projects in 2020. As part of this grant we are digitising and making accessible the charity’s annual reports dating from 1870-1919.

Our annual reports are currently being digitised by TownsWeb Archiving

Some of the bound volumes containing the annual reports at Manchester Central Library

Manchester Libraries have kindly allowed the Together Trust to loan some of the only known copies of these reports which are extant in Manchester Central Library’s Rare Book collection. The reports are rich resources for late Victorian and early twentieth century child welfare, philanthropic and social history studies, and will be available to access online for free by the end of 2020.

The annual reports will also enable family history researchers to find out more about the charity’s work and homes, as will – if not more so – our charity magazine The Children’s Haven which is currently being digitised at the Borthwick Institute (part of the University of York), which has previously undertaken digitisation of the Together Trust’s admission books. This monthly magazine was the organ of the charity, detailing the activities of the homes and emigration branch, as well as stories of those it helped and cared for. 

The Children's Haven features regular news on its work and homes as well as updates on some of the children in its care.

The Christian Worker, another of the charity’s magazines which preceded The Children’s Haven, is also being digitised at York. This publication has particular interest to those interested in the global Christian missionary movement of the late nineteenth century; something which the charity’s founders and committee were involved and interested in. The core role of the charity was not to advance its missionary record when admitting and undertaking the care of children in need, however – the charity was considered ‘inter-' or 'non-denominational’ and admitted cases ‘without distinction of creed’, yet Christian teachings did form part of a young person’s education in the homes.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the digitisation of our very fragile photograph albums has been completed, and we are looking into ways to share these to the benefit of all of our researchers. This project has enabled us to digitally capture the portraits of many of those who passed through the charity's homes before emigrating to Canada, or moving on to new situations. Unfortunately, time has not been kind to several of the photographs, with a number of their subjects rendered virtually invisible. This vital work has saved the rest of the images from this fate, by providing a digital record which we will ensure the longevity of through the migration of digital file data, should current file formats become obsolete (this is known as digital preservation).Work is also under way to index each of the individuals whom we are lucky to be able to identify – family history researchers take note!

One of the unfortunate images that has deteriorated over time

Depiction of a newspaper hawker before admission

Alongside depicting the young people and emigration parties destined for Canada, the photograph albums also show the interior of the Central Refuge workshops, and interiors and exteriors of many of the Cheetham Hill homes. The final of the six photograph albums documents the journey of Gilbert Richardson Kirlew, a member of the charity's committee, to Canada in 1894, where he met several of those whom the charity had emigrated.

From G. R. Kirlew's photograph album

All of this work is helping to preserve our archives and open up new avenues of research and engagement for many years to come. Watch this space...