Together Trust Archive

To celebrate the lives and achievements of people with disabilities as part of UK Disability History Month (20 November- 20 December) I’ve had a look into the Trust’s archive to explore Bethesda, the Charity’s first home for children with disabilities opened in 1890. The service provided care and later education, but I was interested to find what extra-curricular activities and recreations were available to the children and how these changed. The Bethesda home was located on the edge of Broughton Park, Salford. The home’s name meant ‘House of Mercy’ and annual reports from the 1890s stated the aim for Bethesda was to provide, ‘ a combined home and hospital.'   Residents came to Bethesda from local hospitals where no further treatment could be provided and where families didn’t have the facilities to provide care. For other children, their health conditions were the result of poverty and/or neglect. From 1905 Annual Report Crafts were undertaken from the early days of the service....

We are returning to Bethesda on George Street this week to coincide with UK Disability History Month ( UKDHM ) 22 November – 22 December 2013. The aim this year is to explore the history of attitudes and how disabled people's lives have been marked by change. Bethesda, 1900

As we continue to celebrate UK Disability History Month we look back at how our Bethesda Home used to help some of the children who were under its care. Bethesda group, c.1910

The 22nd November – 22 December 2012 is UK Disability History Month (UKDHM) . This is an annual event which strives to ‘raise awareness of the unequal position of disabled people in society and to advocate disability equality’, as well as ‘developing an understanding of the historical roots of this inequality’. The Together Trust has a long history of working with children and adults with disabilities and as we celebrate UKDHM this month we will be looking back over our next few blogs as to how our work in disability began. Bethesda family c.1900