‘A Pest to Society’: The Charity Organisation Society's Domiciliary Assessments into the Circumstances of Poor Families and Children

Abstract

This article examines the work of the Charity Organisation Society (COS) in assessing applications for children's admission to care in the late nineteenth‐century. It is based on an archive study of records kept by the ‘Waifs and Strays’ Society in England and Wales between 1882 and 1899, in particular 270 family assessments conducted by the COS. The focus was on parental behaviour rather than children's needs, with a strong narrative of taking children away to relieve parents of a burden. The research illuminates contested assumptions about childhood in the period, with resonance for current issues in policy and practice.

‘A troublesome girl is pushed through’: Morality, biological determinism, resistance, resilience, and the Canadian child migration schemes, 1883–1939

“…When UK child migration schemes to Canada were justified in the face of public opposition to these schemes in Canada itself, the moral framing of supplying Canada with ‘honest’ and ‘industrious’ youth and the notion that certain children were capable of redemption were often used to silence the critics (Lynch, 2014). This also fits with Smiles’ (1859; 1871) references in his books Self-Help and Character to self-control and character, both terms that are used in current research around resilience in children (e.g. Luthar, Cicchetti, and Becker, 2000; Sims-Schouten and Edwards, 2016).…”

“…This meant that children were subjected to judgements about their mental ability and related behaviour, with little regard for their early experiences of abuse and neglect, or for the fact that many suffered abuse in the land of opportunity. Instead, the focus was on individual accountability and responsibility, which strongly resembled the 'deserving/ undeserving' paradigm promoted by the New Poor Law and the harsh related philosophy of self-care and self-responsibility (Sims-Schouten, Skinner, and Rivett, 2019;Skinner and Thomas, 2018). In judgements around 'deservedness', related stigmas around poverty and 'bad' behaviour were rife.…”

“…The latter half of the 19th century saw the rise of the child rescue movement and philanthropic voluntary agencies providing institutional care and support for the poor, destitute, and orphaned young (Sims-Schouten, 2020;Skinner and Thomas, 2018). By the mid to late 1800s, there were a multitude of institutions in Britain that were used as a substitute for children's 'natural' homes, from orphanages (although it should be noted that these institutions also catered for children who were not orphans) to a wide range of other establishments run by charities, religious groups, workhouse authorities, local councils, and single individuals, serving particular purposes, such as moral protection and penal confinement (Higginbotham, 2017;King, 2003;Skinner and Thomas, 2018). At the same time, initiated by religious and charitable organisations, the child migration movement started to take off.…”

“…Roughly 3200 Fegan boys ended up in Canada, between 1884 and 1915 and from the end of the First World War until 1939; most of the boys were placed on farms. The Waifs and Strays Society was established in 1881 by Edward Rudolph, with the goal of setting up homes for destitute children in connection with the Church of England, which, as far as possible, would provide children with a family environment rather than an institutional one (Higginbotham, 2017;Skinner and Thomas, 2018). Over 20,000 children from across England and Wales were cared for by the Waifs and Strays Society between 1881 and the end of the First World War.…”

“…While some children and young people who were included in the child migration schemes on the surface appeared to adjust and showed ‘strength of character’ in light of the challenges faced, other children expressed resistance towards emigration by running away and being hard to manage (Moss et al , 2017). ‘Strength of character’, compliance, and resistance could be explained and analysed in light of ‘self-help’, ‘character’, and ‘resilience’ (Smiles, 1859, 1871; Ungar, 2002, 2004) and can be used as tools for understanding the outcomes of the processes and use of decision-making by child rescue charities and schemes.…”