How New is the New Philanthropy?

In a Radio 4 programme airing on 19th December at 8pm Professor Hugh Cunningham considers the history of philanthropy and charitable endeavours and what we can learn from this today. I’ve been interviewed about my research on the archive of Dr Barnardo’s Homes, where I looked at the thousands of photos of children entering care. These photos showed the children not as ‘waifs’ or street urchins but as members of struggling families; families who were trying to do the best for their children against terrible odds. Most of the children entering Barnardo’s Homes before 1900 were older boys, which makes us wonder what happened to the younger brothers and sisters. From the case histories that have been published, it seems that parents (most often widowed or deserted mothers) would do all they could to keep young children and girls at home or with relatives, and sending older boys somewhere that promised them vocational training. That might be Barnardo’s, the Church of England Children’s Society, or a Naval Training Ship (which took boys  aged 11). A key aim was to keep children out of the ‘workhouse’ – even if parents ended up there. The status of the children is expressed in the clothes they wear in the photos: they enter wearing outfits that may be scruffy, but which are often chosen so that brothers match each other. As they leave Barnardo’s they are photographed in tailored suits, or naval jerseys which indicate they have been educated and are ready for employment. Workhouse boys were rarely photographed, but seem to have been dressed in generic working men’s outfits (often handed-down and badly fitting) and to have been trained only for dead-end labouring jobs. What interests me is that poor families understood the different meanings of these clothes; rather than protesting at the emphasis society placed on ‘respectable’ dress, the photos show that they were doing all they could to make their children look ‘respectable’.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b018b8s5/