There are many version of this story while some are of the mind this event never happened and was one of Thomas Barnardo's stories that he wrote for his many magazines. I will defend their right to be wrong as I believe it did happen because from this one event Dr Thomas Barnardo had an ever open door policy.

So here it is as written by Thomas Barnardo. The true story of John "Carrots" Sommers from a report that was written about 1874 Thomas had many times preached from John Chapter 6 verse 37 'Him that cometh to me I will no wise cast out' which translated to our language means  ' no destitute sinner ever refused admission'  Thomas likened it also to the inscription over the main door of Stepney 'No Destitute Boy Ever Refused Admission. see foot note.

WHAT of the grim tragedy of John Sommers, otherwise 'Carrots,' whose history, made public some time ago, unpleasantly brought to the minds of those who 'sit at home at ease' a picture of the woes of child waifs living all unnoticed in our great cities?

Poor little Carrots'! Only eleven brief years had passed over thy head, yet surely thou didst know in this short span a long lifetime of trouble! Of relatives, John Somers (called 'Car rots' by his fellow street‑arabs on account of his red hair) had but one living, and that one a mother at least so she called herself, and so she may have really been; but if affectionate care for her offspring be a natural trait in a mother's character, then most certainly Mrs. Somers did not prove her maternal relation to the poor wee laddie.

Carrots ' never knew his father, and she whom he called Mother' turned him adrift to do for himself at the mature age of seven; that is, just four years before the termination of his long‑short life. The boy had been, during these four years, successively a newsboy, a shoe‑black, a vendor of cigar lights, and anything and everything that a little homeless street boy can be to pick up a living.

Being an ill favoured child, his appearance was against him, and by all I can gather from the boys who knew him, he seldom made, enough to pay for a lodging house shelter after satisfying the daily cravings of hunger and thirst. So it came to pass that poor ‘Carrots’ often 'slept out,' his favourite places of resort being Covent Garden Market and the Queen's Shades near Billingsgate Market. Sometimes his mother appeared and asserted her maternal 'rights' by fixing him upon the ground with her knees, whilst both hands rapidly searched his pockets and abstracted whatever coins were secreted there. If successful in her search, she left him howling over his loss, whilst she sought the nearest gin shop; but should her search prove fruitless, an oath and a blow expressed her sense of disappointment, unless, indeed, struggling from her unwelcome embraces, the poor boy succeeded in evading her brutal chastisement.

When first I visited the 'Shades' in the early dawn, 'Carrots' was there. By the offer of a halfpenny to each I succeeded in counting out seventy three destitute lads from the various shelters of old barrels, crates, and packages, in which they had been ensconced; yet I thought I had seldom seen a more unpleasant specimen of boy life than 'Carrots' exhibited. Having out of this large number selected five of the most forlorn lads to fill an equal number of vacant beds in our Home, my memory vividly recalls the earnestness with which ' Carrots' pleaded to be taken in, and how gratefully he accepted my promise of admission for that day week.

But a few mornings later, as some of Rawlinson's men were moving a large sugar hogshead lying with its open head to the wall, they disturbed a sleeping boy, by whose side lay another, also apparently asleep. When touched, the latter moved not when spoken to, he did not answer; and when, finally, stooping down, the kind hearted porter took the form of the little lad in his arms, only then did he perceive that 'Carrots,' for it was he, was dead!

At the coroner's inquest, medical testimony declared that the deceased had succumbed to the combined effects of hunger and exposure, and the jurymen who viewed the little pinched up face and fleshless body, unanimously found a verdict of 'Death from exhaustion, the result of frequent exposure and want of food.

Thus much from the statements of the press and of the good natured policeman who carried the little corpse to an adjoining public house, and who added to his sad communication the sentence, that ' most of the boys as came round began to blubber as soon as they saw the body.' So even poor deserted ' Carrots' was missed, although 'Fatherless, motherless, sisterless, brotherless, friends he had none.' Poor forlorn little lad! I think I see him on that sad, sad evening of a bright May Day, creeping supperless into the empty cask, his heart crushed with its sense of loneliness and dire need. I wonder whether Carrots' cried as most children do when distressed? or had the feelings of a child been long banished from that young breast in its grim struggle for life? Or did he pray to the Great Father as he nestled down for the last time beside his little mate? 'Did poor "Carrots" love Jesus?' I asked a tiny boy, who knew him well, and had formed one of the crowd of mourners who dropped a few real tears to his memory.

Law, sir, we never hears of Him, nor of nuffin' good, except cussin' and swearin', down here,' was the reply. 'You, at least, shall hear something better,' I mentally resolved, as I yielded to his solicitation to be taken in. And so, homeward bound, I mused upon the Master's words, spoken so long ago', beside the Galilean Sea: I Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men'; and my heart responded, as I thought of 'Carrots': 'Yea, Lord, I would fain follow Thee into all waters, fishing for such souls as these, whilst life holds out, not mindful of anything but this, that Thou hast said, Follow Me."

T. J. Barnardo.

Note: In 1874 Thomas opens an all night shelter at 10 Stepney Causeway called the ever open door with the slogan 'No Destitute Boy Ever Refused Admission.'  In 1876 with the establishment of The Girls Village Home the slogan was amended to 'No Destitute Boy or Girl Ever Refused Admission.' but this was then changed to:

No Destitute Child Ever Refused Admission

Pencil drawing of Stepney 1880s

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