The Day Nursery

 

One of the lesser-known services of the first 50 years of the Charity’s history was the Day Nursery in Ancoats which operated for over a decade from 1887. The service was aimed at local working women who could pay two-pence a day for their child to be fed and cared for while she went out to work. An invaluable resource in industrial Manchester and an example of how the Charity operated services to meet a particular need of the times.

The Nursery was originally located on Butler Street in Ancoats and it was at the request of the Day Nurseries Association that the Charity took over the service which moved within the first year to a premises a short distance away on the corner of Canning Street and Carruthers Street. 

The Day Nursery, Ancoats ref: M189/9/1/5

The Charity magazine refers to the dangers of mothers being obliged to earn a wage and their children being injured after being left either uncared for or with unsuitable carers such as other young children or the very elderly. On the opening of the new premises women working in local mills were encouraged to inspect the nursery and a brief address was given in a local hall with music provided.

Monthly attendances at the nursery ranged from around 100 children to over 300 by 1892. When mill work was slack or there was sickness in the neighbourhood numbers would fall. Children were received from 6am and the Charity magazine of 1888 refers to an age range of between 6 weeks to 5 years. A description of the nursery from the Charity Magazine ‘the Christian Worker’ in 1893 referred to the smaller children sleeping in swing cots. The circumstances of some of the mothers using the service was also described, including a widow originally from Cornwall who had two children and no other support in the area and a mother obliged to work following her husband’s illness. The article refers to the charge of two-pence being a stumbling block for some families.

The Ancoats population had reached a peak in the mid -1800s when mills and warehouses attracted residents, often living in poor housing and sanitary conditions. Later in the century the Ancoats population began to fall and perhaps as a consequence, the Day Nursery service closed in 1898. According to the Charity's Annual Report, the needs of the Ancoats community had by this time reduced.

To read more about the Together Trust's history, Andrew Simpson's book 'The Ever Open Door' can be purchased through our enquiry page.