Together Trust Archive

We have often considered the impact of the First World War on the Manchester and Salford Refuges on this blog with solemn remembrances of the care leavers and staff who died, celebrations of their bravery, and the economic effects on the day-to-day running of the charity. Yet the war affected the charity in other ways, as it led to higher numbers of admissions to the charity's residential homes.

Continuing our exploration of the illustrations created for the Manchester and Salford Refuges, we’re putting a spotlight on an image depicting the events of the 1923 Belmont Garden Fete . Some readers may have seen this little cartoon before.

Like many archives across the UK and Ireland, we have been sharing stories and images from the archive on Twitter for Explore Your Archive 2020.

This week's blog has been compiled by Robert Atherton, a student at Poynton 6th form, who has been on a week's long placement as an archive student at the Together Trust. Alongside various other duties, Robert has been cataloguing some of our case files from the 1930s and has picked out one file to research and compile a blog on.

We’ve spoken before on this blog about the Remand Home that was set up in 1910 as part of the Children’s Shelter on Chatham Street. The archives reveal separate admission books for the Remand Home from this date, although magistrates were using other homes belonging to the charity from 1896 to house boys who had been convicted of a crime. Ra ilings on the roof top of the Remand Home

Last week’s blog centred round the will of Leonard Kilbee Shaw and the distribution of his final assets. A portion of this went to his adopted son, Robert , who we have mentioned once before in this blog. Robert is an interesting character, not least because of his mysterious beginnings and unknown connection to Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, prior to being adopted by them. We know little about his upbringing and consequent life. However, the release of new documents can often start a new trail to discovery.  Records

I came across a ration book in one of our files today. Dated from the 1950s and still containing a lot of its coupons, it’s a good representative of life in the UK after World War Two. Every young person that was in the Belmont Homes during that time would have been issued with a ration book. So what were these and what were they for? Ration Book 1953-1954