Together Trust Archive

 As I was searching the 1925 edition of the Charity's magazine, the Children's Haven, for something completely unrelated I came across an article about a staff reunion held at Bethesda to celebrate the golden wedding of an employee, a Mr Crick. As well as detailing the gifts received by Mr and Mrs Crick on their anniversary (two Chesterfield chairs), the article provides a list of past and present staff members in attendance. Many of these staff  had worked for the Charity for decades which led me to see if I could find out anymore about some of those individuals named. The reason for the staff reunion of December 1925 was the occasion of Mr and Mrs Crick's golden wedding anniversary where Mr Crick declared if he had his time again he would choose, ' the same girl for a wife '. The image below from The Children's Haven edition of 1927 allows us to put a face to the names. Having been in charge of the boot making and boot repair departments since around 1901 wher...

I have recently been exploring the charity's magazine, begun under the title The Christian Worker in 1879 and later becoming The Children's Haven in 1895 it was designed to promote Manchester and Salford Boys' and Girls' Refugees and Homes to the local community and encourage donations. There was a proliferation of newspapers and magazines from the mid-nineteenth century influenced by increased literacy in the population, a rise in consumer spending and a reduction in the cost of production. The charity recognised that a magazine was an effective way of communicating their work and seeking support from the local community, much as the Trust's social media accounts do now. There's one regular feature in the magazine sometimes called 'Notes of a Month's Work' or 'Leaves from the Diary of a Refuge...' which describe the circumstances under which children arrived at the Orphan Homes. These stories often describe young children in dire circumstanc...

On 2nd April 1896 a group of 173 boys, under the care of the Reverend Robert Wallace and his wife, journeyed aboard the Scotsman from Liverpool to the Marchmont Receiving Home in Belleville, Canada. Of the 173, approximately 70 boys were from the Manchester and Salford Refuges and Homes. It took eight days for the ship to arrive at the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia. On 14th April, Revd. Wallace reported the following: From The Children's Haven ( CH ), May 1896

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.