In the earnest hope of encouraging girls in The Village Home to aim at a higher standard of conduct, and at the same time to prevent those who do badly from sharing, as they have hitherto done, in those benefits which only the well‑conducted deserve, the Director has laid down the following conditions upon which alone in future Village Home girls will be placed out in service.

All girls who have reached their thirteenth birthday are placed in one or other of four divisions, according to character and conduct. The conditions of their going out to service are determined by the class in which they stand. A special review of these classes is made every six months, and the names of the girls are transferred from any one division to any other as they have shown improvement or the reverse.

These four classes are as under:

First division:  All girls who on attaining their sixteenth year have a record of conduct and character which has been uniformly good for two years, will be eligible for going out to service at once, or as soon as suitable situations can be obtained for them. They will be furnished with an outfit of the first class, value £5, which will become their own, free of any charge, if they keep their first situation twelve months. Furthermore in the event of their keeping their first situation twelve months with a good character, they will be entitled to receive a special prize.

Second Division: Girls who have frequently given way to ill temper, disobedience, insolence, laziness or other grave faults within two years of their going out to service, can be not be placed in the first division; but if a resolute endeavour is observed in them to overcome their faults, and if, during the last twelve months of their stay in the Village there is decided improvement, they will be placed in the second division, and receive a second class outfit, value £3 10s 0d which will become their own property on the same conditions as in the first division. Second division girls will also receive a prize if they keep their first situation with a good character for twelve months.

Third Division: Girls who up to the time of their leaving for service continue to exhibit bad conduct, ill - temper, self‑will, or insolence can only be placed out in the third division, the Mistress being informed of their faults. They will receive a third class outfit; value £3, the whole of which must be paid for out of their own wages. A girl in the third division will not be eligible for a prize till she has been two years in the service, and has earned a good character.

Fourth Division: Girls who are found to be dishonest, habitually untruthful, violent and uncontrolled in temper, vicious, unclean in their personal habits, will not be sent out to service under ordinary circumstances, nor will they have an outfit, but will be dismissed from the Village in disgrace or sent to a School of discipline.

T. J. Barnardo
Founder and Director

Girls Village Home, Ilford
January 1897

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