Together Trust Archive

Over the next few blogs we’re going to be looking in more depth at the Central Refuge in Strangeways. The following description comes from the ‘Sheffield Reporter’, whose journalist made a visit to the home in May 1881. This was a reconnaissance trip to see if there could be a similar set up for the children of Sheffield, as an alternative to the workhouse or industrial schools. Central Refuge, Francis Street

We’ve spoken before about the five different workshops located in the Central Refuge on Francis Street. These workshops; printing, shoemaking, tailoring, joinery and firewood were created to give the boys a skill and consequently a career for life. Documents of indenture were signed by the boys to a particular trade providing a contract between the apprentice and the Refuge.  Indenture of Apprenticeship

We’ve talked before about the workshops in the Central Refuge on this blog before. But after coming across some beautiful photographs in the archive it is perhaps time to revisit this important part of the charity’s history. Tailoring department

Over the last fifty years the city of Manchester has been undertaking change. The 1960s saw extensive re-development of the city with the slums areas being cleared and new buildings taking their places. The detonation of an IRA bomb in the city centre in 1996 destroyed many buildings (although fortunately no lives were lost) and was a catalyst for the regeneration of many of the run down areas of the city. Today sees a Manchester populated with high rise buildings and new developments, a far cry from the slum areas of old. The Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges and Homes opened up its services in many of these poorer parts of the city. Consequently few of its original buildings remain today. Plan of Central Refuge, 1895  

The newspapers issued on Boxing Day often told tales of Christmas celebrations around the streets of Salford and Manchester, at the various Churches, Charities and Institutions of the city. With the big day just around the corner it’s time to go back to a Victorian Christmas and join the children in their celebrations at the Refuge and homes.  Christmas Collection Appeal Leaflet

I found this photograph within the archive this week. At play at the Central Refuge

“He who plants a tree does well; he who fells and saws it into planks does well; he who makes a bench of the planks does well; he who sitting on the bench, teaches a child, does better than the rest.” - Dean Farrar (Manchester and Salford Boys' and Girls' Refuges and Homes, Annual Report, 1936, p26). I found this in the archive the other day: Reformatory and Refuge Union, Educational Inspector's Report, 1892 It is one of our earliest examples of the education system in place at the Boy’s Refuge at Strangeways. The original set up of the Refuge back in 1870 was to provide food and shelter for those boys found on the streets of Manchester. Within a few months however, it became apparent that education and training was also needed. In 1870 the Elementary Education Act had come into being setting the framework for schooling of all children aged between the 5 to 12 years in England and Wales, although it was not compulsory for children to attend school until 1880. ...

An account of a four year old boy admitted to the Refuge in 1889: “The boy reeled on the floor and had to be assisted to a seat. We thought it advisable to have him examined by a doctor who pronounced the poor little baby-boy to be drunk and ordered an emetic to be administered and the child to be put to bed, as otherwise it might prove fatal. It may not generally be known that making children drunk is at present no offence under the English law.” The Together Trust receives regular enquiries about the young people who have been in its care. Most are people researching their family history, trying to get some semblance of how their ancestors lived. Many are from Canada or America tracing those young children who were emigrated across the seas in search of a better life away from the slums of Manchester. A ragged child