Small Acts of Kindness

 

Some of the services offered by the Trust within it's first 50 years were short lived and others served more as small acts of kindnesses and so often get overlooked when considering the number of services the Charity undertook during this period. The following initiatives offered when the Charity was based in central Manchester and Salford were targeted to identify and help the young and vulnerable residents of the city who didn’t have any protection. While these services may have been small, they were all part of the Charity’s mission to offer assistance to those most in need, whether it was a safe place to sleep or a hot drink.

Boys' Rest 1881-1888

The Old Victory public house in Angel Meadow was converted by the Charity into a Coffee Tavern and lodging house for young people during these years, known as the Boys' Rest.

M189/9/1/1 Boys' Rest

The Angel Meadow area where this lodging house stood was notorious, the Charity’s magazine described the area as being full of squalor and misery. The 1883 Charity Magazine stated Angel Meadow; ‘...abounds in thieving dens and infamous plague spots, common lodging houses and gin palaces.’ The Old Victory public house apparently had a notorious reputation as a ‘resort of thieves’.

Street children slept in common lodging houses on nights they had the funds to pay. Lodging houses in the Angel Meadow area were cheap and young people with nowhere else to go would meet what the Charity called ‘degrading influences’ there. The Boys' Rest offered an alternative for those too old or unwilling to reside at the Charity’s other homes offering, ‘a wholesome spot in a dark locality’ according to the Annual Report in 1910 which looked back at this earlier period of the Charity’s history. Beds cost three pence a night and were conducted on principles of cleanliness and good moral influence. An average of 17 beds per night were occupied according to the 1884 Annual report .

Work to extend the Charity’s buildings around the Central Refuge, particularly on Great Ducie Street, with facilities including accommodation for older boys in work, meant the Charity was able to offer more beds in their main location and so the Boys' Rest was closed in 1886. The Manchester City Mission, another Charity, occupied the building to ensure it didn’t revert to its previous use of a disreputable pub.

The Charity’s magazines of the 1880s refer to similar ventures offering reputable female lodging houses, apparently run by separate charitable organisations on Angel Street, in Cheetham Hill and in Piccadilly.

Coffee Supper

The Charity established an initiative to find out more about neglected street children sleeping rough or in the kind of common lodging houses described above. Workers at the Charity would walk the streets of Manchester between 6 and 8’o clock in the evening giving tickets to 120 or so street children inviting them to supper at the Central Refuge in Strangeways at 9 o’clock. After being provided with supper the children were shown around the Refuge including the dormitories, school room, band room, workshops, swimming baths and dining room. The Charity magazine refers to this practice occurring in 1883 resulting in several applications to the Refuge. Each case was investigated to ensure only those children most in need were helped, resulting on this occasion in some 30 destitute children being admitted into the Charity’s care.

It’s clear that the Charity obtained information from the boys who attended the supper, learning the numbers attending school and those in work. In 1886 the Charity magazine recorded concerns about the numbers over school leaving age without work being left in poverty on the streets. At this time children were only required to attend school up to the age of 10.

Boys' Own Tea Party

A tea party was given annually by the boys of the Central Refuge for street children worse off than themselves. The Central Refuge boys saved pocket money to provide the treat. There was a regulation number of guests each boy could invite although this was exceeded in some cases when the boys enthusiastically brought along more children than their allocation strictly allowed.

To find their guests it seems the Central Refuge boys left the building at an appointed time with instructions to bring back a couple of children found wandering alone who might enjoy some food.

This initiative is referred to Charity magazines in the 1880s and 1890s. The1889 magazine refers to the Central Refuge boys serving coffee, bread, butter and current cake to their guests shortly after Christmas and then supplying each with a toy from under the Christmas tree.

The timetable for the December 1894 tea party, including entertainment, is described in the magazine below:

M189/8/1/13 Christian Worker, January 1894

The children of the Central Refuge would have been in the same position as the street children they were treating before their own admittance to the Charity’s care, which may well have been only months or even weeks before. The fact that it appears to have been so easy to find neglected children to invite for tea shows the extent of poverty visible on Manchester’s streets at this time.