Thomas John Barnardo is born this year to John Michaelis Barnardo and Abigail Matilda Barnardo nee O'Brien who resided at 4 Dame Street, Dublin.

Thomas John Barnardo arrives in London this year. The exact date is recorded as the last week in April.

Thomas was down at the docks to see his friends off to China, they set sail on the Lammermuir. Thomas registers with the London Hospital but misses the entrance exam. Thomas is recorded as working at the London Hospital in this year and helping the people suffering from cholera.

Thomas helps out at a ragged school in Ernest Place, Bancroft Place, Mile End Road. E Thomas becomes the superintendent, but resigns within two months .

After classes at his ragged school a waif called  Jim Jarvis, took Thomas Barnardo around the East End showing him children sleeping on roofs and in gutters. (roof gutters) Thomas provide a home for Jim Jarvis ( Gillian Wagner confirms the date as 1869/70 and the story was recorded to paper in 1900))

Thomas writes a letter to the Prime Minister Disraeli asking for support.

Thomas with other medical students acquires what is said was an old donkey stable at Hope Place, Bull lane, Stepney  it was in fact a converted Victorian warehouse that had been used as a costermonger to house his donkey. Prior to this it was a cottage, this became his first ragged school recorded as Hope Place, Limehouse E14 and the start of his East End Juvenile Mission at a cost of 12s. per week.

Thomas travels to France to make ready for the Evangelical Exposition Paris.

Thomas assists at the bible stand at the Evangelical Exposition, By the 24th they had distributed 170,000 bibles about this date Thomas meets Lord Shaftesbury for the first time.

Thomas Starts his East End Juvenile Mission, which later is re-named as Dr Barnardo's Homes.

Thomas passes the preliminary medical examination for Durham University.

Thomas gives a free tea meeting to 2,347 rough lads and girls in the assembly rooms over the Kings Arms Mile end Road.

Thomas passes his entrance exam for The London Hospital. Assists during the cholera outbreak in the East End.

Thomas speaks at the Missionary Conference that was held at the Agricultural Hall, Islington he speaks of his ragged school and the night time outing with the young Jim Jarvis, the talk was a big hit and was published in The Times. Thomas also this night receives his first public subscription of 6¾d

Invited to dine with Lord Shaftesbury who is concerned about Barnardo's talk regarding the waif's sleeping rough. They go out to visit the waifs at night, also attending was the Rev J. H. Batt.

Thomas falls seriously ill and has to stop work for two months.

::::      Sept

The banker, Robert Barclay agreed to support Thomas Barnardo.

Thomas starts afresh with two cottages in Hope Place, Stepney under the title of East End Juvenile Mission. Wood chopping and Shoeblacks are taught. These are not homes and no child sleeps in overnight.

Thomas again offers himself as a candidate for the China Inland Mission, but is advised to pursue his medical studies further before going

Receives a letter from Samuel Smith MP offering £1,000 if Thomas gives up his quest for China and looks after the waif's of The East End.

He starts his training at the London Hospital in Whitechapel as a full-time medical student aged 23.

He lodges with a Mrs Johnson at 5 Bromley Street. This would cause Thomas some small problem in later life.

Thomas leaves 5 Bromley Street after giving the normal notice.

He opens his first home for boys at 18 and 20 Stepney Causeway in the East End of London on a 99 year lease @ £57.00 per year on the property. The home starts off with 35 young lads, later the home houses 60 boys in 5 bedrooms.

One evening, an 11-year old boy, John Somers (nicknamed 'Carrots') was not taken in because the shelter was full. He was found dead two days later from malnutrition and exposure. from then the home bore the sign 'No Destitute Boy Ever Refused Admission'. Thomas decides not to limit the number of children he helps.

Thomas had begun to earn a small income from his writing and from preaching. His evangelical efforts also started to be on a large scale. In the summer of this year he set up a huge tent outside the Edinburgh Castle public house, a notorious local gin palace and reportedly some 200 people a night would profess conversion. Attendances at the tent affected the numbers using the public house and it was put up for sale.

Thomas buys the Edinburgh Castle, a large building in Limehouse. He turns it into a coffee house and mission church accommodating more than 3,000 people at one time  He receives important support from rich evangelicals.

The Edinburgh Castle, Mission Church and coffee palace in Rhodeswell Road, Limehouse, East End was officially opened

Thomas marries Syrie Elmslie, they are given Mossford Lodge, Barkingside on  lease for 15 years as a wedding present.

This is where he set up the home and took on twelve girls who reside in the converted coach house next to Mossford Lodge.  .

Thomas opens the first in a network of "Ever Open Doors" the first all night refuge at 10 Stepney Causeway E1 and adopts the slogan No destitute boy ever refused admission.

Sets up a photographic studio,  Children were photographed when they first arrived and again several months later after they had recovered from their experiences of living on the streets. These 'before' and 'after' cards were then sold in packs of twenty for 5 shillings or singly for 6d. each. This enabled Barnardo to publicize his work and raise money for his charitable work.

The Barnardo's first child is born and they call him William Stuart.

Thomas starts his own magazine, The Childrens Treasury.

Union Jack Shoeblack Brigade affiliated with the homes.

Hope Place closes and Thomas acquires a Victorian warehouse on the Regents canal Copperfield Road as the new free day and Sunday school. Now the home of the Ragged School Museum.

Started to build 11 cottages

Thomas qualifies as a doctor at the  Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh.

Syrie presents Thomas with his second son Herbert.

Nos 20 to 26 Stepney Causeway condemned by the parish Authorities. Thomas arranges an overdraft to cover the works, this plunges the homes into dept until after the death of Thomas Barnardo.

In the same year, Thomas and Syrie open the Girls' Village Home in Essex  plans are drawn up for four more cottages  Based on French and German models of care, the Village was very different from the large scale institutions of the time.

The new steam laundry opened by The Countess Cairns

The Night and Day Magazine started the organ of the institutions.

Thomas was involved in a bitter personal dispute with fellow evangelists in Stepney. This led to a trial, mounted by the Charity Organisation Society, where Barnardo was accused of financial malpractice, cruelty to children, lack of moral and religious training and of keeping children against their will. After four months and the testimony of 112 witnesses, Thomas was acquitted of all charges. As a result of the case, he became a public personality and his supporter base broadened considerably. 

The arbitrators, pronouncing their verdict, stated: "This use of artistic fiction to represent actual facts is, in our opinion, not only morally wrong as thus employed, but might, in the absence of a very strict control grow into a system of deception dangerous to the cause on behalf of which it is practised. Nor has evidence been wanting in this inquiry, that in one or two cases it has been applied to an extent that we....strongly reprobate." Thomas stops selling the before and after photographs.

The first committee is set-up with Thomas as the Hon Director and Lord Cairns as President. He sets up a council of trustees to look after the charity's money and to make policy. The charity becomes more famous, and receives more and more money. The Organisation becomes known as Dr. Barnardo's Homes.

Thomas had established over fifty orphanages in London. The ever open door was now causing concern for Thomas, he would have to find a way to relieve the situation. He thought they would have better prospects overseas.

Dr. Thomas Barnardo elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Girls' Village Home in Essex all of the thirty cottages proposed in 1876 have been completed. The village had its own school, a laundry and church, and a population of over 1,000 children, that eventually house more than 1,500 girls.

Maud Gwendolen Syrie Barnardo 'Queenie' born on this date in Hackney.

The Childrens Treasury magazine was loosing money, Thomas stops the publication on which he depended to a large extent for his income.

Thomas sends the first 51 boys to Canada as part of an 'emigration programme'. The programme is to settle children in colonies overseas. The programme is not a success. He believed that the child would benefit from a fresh start, away from the overcrowded slums of the East End also it cost about £12 a year to look after a child in Britain. To send one child overseas was a one-off payment of £15

The summer of this year Peterborough millionaire George A Cox offered Thomas Barnardo his choice of various homes he owned in Peterborough to establish a home for the destitute children of England. Having selected Hazelbrae he began preparing the home ready for the children. Today a Heritage plaque recognising the home stands on the grounds of the former Hazelbrae Home.

Thomas begins a scheme of 'boarding out', sending 330 boys, to 'good country homes' - well away from the slums and pollution that he believed was so injurious to physical and moral well-being. 

Thomas opens two refuges for the children of prostitutes. Most people at the time saw prostitution as a sin, but Thomas understood it as part of a lager system of economic and social exploitation of women. Thomas is questioned by H division police regarding him fitting the profile of Jack The Ripper but there is no evidence against Thomas. But two facts, one of him being a Doctor and the second he is seen late at night in his private carriage, but if he did need a alibi the one he had was sound. He writes a letter to The Times and has a meeting at his Stepney Home

Thomas begins another scheme, boarding out the babies of unmarried mothers. While the mothers live and work in one family, their babies are looked after by a fostering family nearby.

Maud and Henry have a son Henry Mounteney Wellcome who was sent to foster parents at the age of about three. He was considered to be sickly at the time.

Thomas is travelling in a train that is wrecked while travelling between Liverpool and Birkdale, Thomas  escaped with severe bruises and shock.

19th Sept Dr. Thomas Barnardo dies aged 60. of angina at his home, St Leonards Lodge, Surbiton.. At the time of his death, the charity runs 96 homes and looks after more than 7,998 children in his residential homes, more than 4,000 were boarded out, and 18,000 had been sent to Canada and Australia. The organisation was £249,000 in dept.

23rd Sept Thomas Barnardo's coffin is rested at the Peoples Mission Church, Edinburgh Castle. till the 27th Sept His funeral cortege is brought from Liverpool Street to Barkingside station on the old GER. At Barkingside. Thomas's coffin is one of only two people who have travelled via train by this date. The cortege was re‑formed, and proceeded into the Village. The service is held in The Village Church.

4th Oct The interment took place in the grounds of the Village on a spot in front of Cairns House, which in his lifetime had been indicated by Thomas. He rests amid his work. The field of battle is the warrior's worthiest grave!

Tributes poured in from across the globe and the world's press united in praising a man who had in forty years transformed the lives of nearly 60,000 boys and girls. The Times wrote: 'It is impossible to take a general view of Dr Barnardo's life‑work without being astonished alike by its magnitude and by its diversity, and by the enormous amount of otherwise hopeless misery against which he has contended single‑handed with success.

Hundreds of girls are sent to Canada under the Barnardo Emigration Scheme.

Under the name Syrie Maugham she became a well known interior designer , particularly famous for designing an all white room, in contrasting shades of white and other pale colours, with mirrors and contrasting textures.

The Dr. finally been dropped. From this date the charity will be known as Barnardo's. This has been an emotive subject for most Old Boys and Girls as we were all brought up in Dr. Barnardo's Homes, we were Barnardo Children which most of us are quite proud of.

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