photo of Children's Church taken about 1900

While the age of this photo is not confirmed it must have been taken prior to 1907

The Queen Mother visited Barkingside The Girls Village Home on June 29, 1935.

Mr. Fred Chaplin, a former choirmaster at The Children's Church, The Girls Village Home, Barkingside, wrote in 1998:

I was in my first year of teaching and saw an advertisement in the Ilford Recorder. At my interview with the then Village governor, Miss Picton - Turbervill, she said “But you're not 21 yet. Do you think you can look after a choir of over 60 girls?'” That was in April of 1934. I was choirmaster till the war broke out.

Men from local church choirs were very good to join us when we wanted to do some items in four parts and male voices were necessary. We did a number of broadcasts. I believe there was Children's Church on the BBC some Sunday afternoons. I also managed to get an extra evening allowed so that the girls could do sight - reading and extra choir training.

Once a month all the girls from The Village packed into the church for community hymn singing when the cottage mothers had the Sunday afternoon off. Mr. Turvey was the organist and was most helpful. Happy days. I hope many of the girls kept up an interest in singing.'

 The choir leaving the church after practice in the 1930s.

The War Years

On  Monday 28th September 1938 with war believed imminent, just before the Munich crisis the Home Office gave Barnardo's a stark message: 'Get the children out.' Some  1,500 children in the Village had to have places found for them. This presented a major administrative challenge for the staff of Barkingside. They  made an immediate SOS to all its supporters and telegrams and telephone messages poured in over the next two days, offering temporary homes in safer areas of the country. By the Wednesday night the huge enterprise was completed. The Village was practically empty. Fortunately, the emergency was a false alarm and the girls were back within three weeks, but it became the grand rehearsal for the real evacuation that would take place 10 months later. The photo above shows Emily Fox, aged 14 who is standing on the left.

In July 1939 the government made detailed plans again for the evacuation of children. Dr. Barnardo's was directed to take most of their children from Barkingside to Suffolk, and Norfolk instead of to the West of England as in the abortive evacuation at the time of the "Munich" crisis consequently many of the children went into premises on or near to the East Coast. Some went into private homes, others into large houses where the family and the Barnardo children had to live side by side, they shared the kitchen the bathing and other domestic arrangements.

Back at Barkingside the village home had been taken over by the Ministry of Health and was accepting people from the mass evacuation of Gibraltar and later people who had been bombed with no place to live.

Marjorie Stokes nee O'Rourke sent her memory into the guild of leaving the Girls Village Home in 1938 click hear for her version of events.

In 1940 with the fall of France and Dunkerque in May of that year a 20 mile wide belt of land around the East and South coasts became a "defence area" Barnardo's were compelled to move the children to the North and North West. Accommodation was found in Scotland, in Yorkshire and in Shropshire. Children, staff, furniture, school equipment had to move for the second time in twelve months.

AT the start of the war and till its end Barkingside the Girls Village Home was receiving children from Europe, (click to read) as the war dragged on  the village fell further in to disrepair. Most of the cottages were under requisition by the Ministry of Health so Barnardo's had no control over who used the cottages. The bulk of the Cottages were occupied by bombed out families of doubtful trades and habits. The grounds were unkempt and stripped of their former beauty, the greens being used to grow food as instructed by the Ministry of food.

During the war quite a few Dr. Barnardo Homes suffered severely from air raids. The Boys Garden City had the most with 30 incidents. Stepney Causeway's  20 to 26 top floor was gutted by fire and came in with 13 incidents of bombs / firebombs. Barkingside is recorded as having had 16 bomb munitions landing within its grounds but no records V1 buzz bombe hitting the grounds. The facts record a VI hitting the village home June 1944. Kingston is recorded  with 8 incidents while Babies Castle had  7 recorded bombs landing within its grounds. Goldings in Hertfordshire had a land mine explode killing the band Master Mr. William. "Pompey " Battell . In total Dr. Barnardo's had 187separate incidents including this one at Feltrim.

One night a  V1 rocket Buzz bomb is said to have hit the village home in which a member of staff Miss Linney was badly burnt according to The Barnardo Guild Magazine. Miss Linney was defiantly badly burnt this was a fact, but the story of the buzz bomb could be one of those stories that has grown over the years from just a cottage fire, that was started by a candle, or the one that has the most credence, Miss Linney fell or was pushed into an open fire as a child. If anybody knows the truth or further information about Miss Linney please email Regarding a V1 Buzz Bombe hitting the village I can confirm a V1 hit the Village Home 30th June 1944 according to the Ilford Recorder. Click Here to read more.

I have since heard from a Cottage mother Jenny Harris Nee Cannon of Craven Cottage who was taking one of her charges to the cloths store, the boy asked her how Miss Linney had got so badly burnt, unbeknown Miss Linney was directly behind and had heard the conversation. Miss Linney explained she had fallen into a fire as a child and went on to explain why it was bad to play with matches.

While I do not have any conformation on Miss Linney's whereabouts during the war years but we know TVH children and staff had been evacuated from the village and control had been taken over by the Ministry of Health along with the Australasian Hospital. Below is one story I found in our Guild magazine. Told by Sister Tinton (Dorothy) click here to read

1941 Miss Hon MacNaughton and Miss Picton Turberville retired as Governors of The Girls Village Home. After they arrived in 1920 they had been responsible for the introduction of the Guide movement within the home and later craft classes of one kind and another, club activities, the organising of folk dancing. That had all finished in 1939 when the girls were evacuated. Miss Chavasse took control of the Girls' Village Home in 1941 then as Chief Executive Officer, she assumed responsibility for the whole of the girls' side of Barnardo's work. She quickly won the confidence and trust of all her staff, and faced the difficulties of war‑time with great courage.

Photo above shows the girls of Barkingside displaying a Victory V marks the end of the war.

It was about 1935 when the first boy slept within the village walls, boys up to the age of five would be allowed to stay with their sisters, so they would no longer be split up at an early age, this continued until 1938/9 when The Girls Village Home was closed for the duration of the war.

With the coming of the Second World War, the children were evacuated to the countryside which was far away from the childs parent. For the first time, Barnardo's were able to do research on  the effects that separating children from their families had. This research gave rise to the 1946 Curtis Report on the Care of Deprived Children, which stipulated that, the practice of removing children from their families and institutionalising them was unnecessarily cruel. It also recognised that children were important to the future of the Britain and that it should be the responsibility of the nation to look after their well-being. The Curtis Report was directly responsible for the 1948 children's act, which made it legally the case that children's lives were the responsibility of the Local Authorities. This lead to the slowing down of children being sent to Australia and refocusing on trying to keep families together and to provide children with as normal a home life as possible. While this is recorded as fact, the truth is the effects of the Act did not affect the children in care until the early 60s.

In 1945 Miss. G. M. Fisher was given the task by Miss Chavasse of getting the village back up and running with ten cottages. The Girls Village home was no longer a home just for girls with the occasional young brother. Barkingside had became a mixed home and was renamed The Village Home. Of the sixty cottages, most were either un-habitable or had what were termed 'Bombed Outs' in 1947 the number had risen to twenty cottages under the control of Dr Barnardo's, but the Village Home was getting back to its former glory.

Lt Col S. Atkins wrote of Miss fisher " I feel that at this stage Miss Fisher did her greatest work. The Village was a sorry travesty of all that it had been when she left it five years earlier. The bulk of the Cottages were occupied by refugees or bombed out families of doubtful trades and habits. The grounds were unkempt and stripped of their former beauty; materials were scarce and labour scarcer. The Child Care Act then in force had unleashed a horde of eager amateurs full of well‑meaning, but often impractical, advice."

The reception centre was moved from Woodford Bridge and took its place on the original green at Barkingside, this was behind the doctors memorial on the left adjoining Horn Road. Most of this land has been sold. The other green that no longer exists today, that now has houses and the corner of a large Tesco super market became the Residential Group that had Married couples or a cottage mother forming small family groups. The green that today holds After Care and the cottages loaned to the Anchor Housing Association was the Nursery Group with younger children.

The photo below is recorded in the Guild magazine to have been taken in 1945 and shows boys in abundance. Personally I think the photo is of a later period, late 50s  as I can see an Iron fence which was removed for the war effort, or did we keep it?.

The photo above shows the village library winter 1945
NB Please read above re fence!

My name is Eva Green nee Frost. I was in 'Wild Violet Cottage'  with Miss Laurie and mother Bicker.  I remember my time there very well.  I left for Australia on October 10th 1947 from Tilbury docks on the SS Ormond arriving in Sydney at Wooloomooloo on November 17th 1947. Before arriving at Barkingside I had been at Lilleshall Hall, Shropshire.

The photo above was taken in  Wild Violet cottage that is me with the sailor hat on.  Mother Laurie can be seen on the right of the photo, she sent me this photo from Scotland after she had retired. Miss Bicker is on the left. we were all dressed up for a concert we put on. I loved it as I had the chance to sing, I remember we sang White Christmas and lots of other songs. These are memories I treasure.  Eva Green nee Frost.

In 1946 The Curtis report was published which would change child care. After the war the government set up a committee chaired by Dame Myra Curtis to look into the plight of the children who had been made homeless or parentless during the past six years as there was 125,000 such children. Soon after this the 1948 Children's act took on board most of what had been published in the Curtis report along with the fact, the children should be the responsibility of the local authority. At this point I feel Dr. Thomas Barnardo would have been jumping for joy had he been alive, until he realised as he did in 1875 they did not have the qualified staff to implement the changes. Dr Barnardo's had been out front again with opening a staff teaching school at Woodford Bridge in 1941 The Village home Barkingside would still have a part to play.

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