Surroundings that Baffle Description

Reading about the circumstances under which children came into the Charity's care it's clear why the Charity became increasingly involved in child protection cases, helping to bring some of these cases to court by opening a department specifically for child protection work in 1884. This branch of the Charity was in 1885 named the Manchester and Salford Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

In 1889 a new bill, the Prevention of Cruelty to, and Protection of, Children Act, was passed and the Charity's magazine, The Christian Worker, in January 1890 recounted a case under this new bill at Manchester Police Court in which five siblings aged 11 and under were found by one of their officers 'shamefully neglected.' Conditions were described in the magazine as follows:

'In a corner of the wretched room where this family of seven lived, without fire or light in the midst of winter, were a few rags, filthy in the extreme, which served them all for a bed. In short, to use the policeman's words, who went into the room with food for the children, "The surroundings baffle description."'

The parents were sent to jail and the children removed to the care of the Refuge. The Charity had long been campaigning to ensure in these circumstances children were not later returned to 'vile and dangerous surroundings,' having reportedly had cases whereby parents demanded the return of their children on being released from prison. The 1889 bill allowed the Court to order the child to be removed from the parents custody and crucially for parental rights be given to a relation or other fit person named by the Court until the age of 14 for boys or 16 for girls. In the above case the magistrate used these powers to place responsibility for the five children with the Charity.

The circumstances described in this particular case mean the children can be identified from the Charity's admission books as Ada (11), John (9), Alfred (7), Florence (4) and Margaret (2). The admission book explains the details of the children's entry into the Charity's care:

Ada and Margaret sailed for Canada in 1892 and the contrasting reports of Ada and Margaret sent back to the Charity demonstrate the very different experiences of those emigrated to Canada.

As a teenager Ada would have been expected to undertake domestic work once placed in Canada. Her reports were initially positive and she writes to the Charity stating she had been placed in a good home. Later reports on her progress note she was not interested in house work or learning to sew and preferred the outdoors. Accounts refer to Ada needing to control her temper and by aged 18 she had been placed in seven different homes. 

Margaret would have been only aged around five when travelling to Canada and reports back to the charity refer to her being placed in an, 'exceptional home and surroundings with every comfort and kindness'. She attended school and church and took music lessons. The reports back to the Charity state Margaret was treated by the family as a daughter. 

In 1895 the work of the child protection branch of the Charity was passed to the newly established National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). The Charity's Annual Report of 1895 explains that the new arrangement:

' ...in no way affects or limits our work in behalf of homeless, neglected or suffering children, it merely hands over the enforcing of the law in cases of cruelty to the National Society.'

The Charity's book providing an account of their first 50 years records that between 1885 and 1894 they dealt with 9,922 cases involving the welfare of children. This department only lasted a relatively short amount of time considering the Charity's long history however it demonstrates the Charity's willingness to step in to perform a necessary role before this work was taken on nationally.