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In 1866 and society has failed in its most important commodity, the children of Gt Britain, they were left to fend for themselves. Thomas could have gone to China as he had planned. But we have him as our founder a true icon of the 20th century that has pointed many children to achieve a better life within a normal family group. Today we might question some of Dr. Barnardo’s methods, we must also remember that the problems facing him were immense, and the solutions he chose were followed in the belief that they genuinely offered the best chance of a better life for children. And, of course, we must realise that he was a pioneer with a vision years ahead of his time. Thomas was a man fired by his faith in God and his vision to save children from poverty and hopelessness. He could be stubborn, even aggressive in the pursuit of what he believed was right, but he was also affectionate and sentimental. His limitless energy inspired others to support his work. Desperate to rescue abused children,
Thomas thought nothing of kidnapping them! Until the late 1880s parents
had absolute rights over their children and Barnardo’s practice of
‘philanthropic abduction’ to save children from parents who were violent
or cruel, led to him appearing in court 88 times by 1896. The publicity
created by three cases in particular was in part responsible for a change
in the law in 1891, which put the welfare of the child above the rights of
the parent. Despite the almost comic invention of
his defence, Barnardo was cleared of most charges and the Times newspaper
of that day assured the public that his homes were "real and valuable
charities, worthy of public confidence and support". However there
was condemnation of his methods, which the court said were not only
"morally wrong but might, in the absence of very strict control,
grow into a system of deception dangerous to the cause on behalf of which
it is practised". Thomas Barnardo had many critics, as with most public people. Life is such, that the more publicity you gain, the more enemies you attract. Many tried to destroy Barnardo and his efforts to help the destitute of this country, and it is evident, from our own experiences, that they failed. During our research we have read of many individuals that attempted to alienate the general public against Thomas Barnardo and his work, he has been accused of many things, including falsifying records, sexual abuse, and doing what he did for personal monetary gain. Barnardo was unusual for his time in working with ostracised groups such as unmarried mothers and prostitutes. While most people of his day had little sympathy or understanding of the problems of prostitution, Thomas saw it as part of a larger system of social and economic exploitation of women and took a constructive approach to the problem. Hence, during Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror in the East End, he set up two refuges for the children of prostitutes. A Baptist Minister accused him, in blunt
terms, of faking his records. He wrote: The system of taking, and making
capital of, the children's photographs is not only dishonest, but has a
tendency to destroy the better feelings of the children. Barnardo's method
is to take the children as they are supposed to enter the Home, and then
after they have been in the Home some time. He is not satisfied with
taking them as they really are, but he tears their clothes, so as to make
them appear worse than they really are. They are also taken in purely
fictitious positions. A lad named Fletcher is taken with a shoeblack's box
upon his back, although he never was a shoeblack (street shoe cleaner)
Unfortunately, Thomas enthusiasm sometimes got the better of him and some
of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ publicity shots of the children were found to
be contrived, and Barnardo wisely abandoned the practices in 1877. But
still continued to take entry photographs as
mine in 1958. Today, the Barnardo’s archives hold more than half a
million pictures dating from 1874. Barnardo's Today
Indeed, there were a number of charges laid against Thomas during the late 1870s. Among these were that he ran his charity for personal monetary advantage; that he consorted with women of dubious moral virtue (the 'Mrs. Johnson' affair); that he was not legally entitled to call himself 'Doctor' and had forged an entitling letter from the University of Giessen (though Thomas was later admitted as an FRCS in 1879); that he was the author of the 'Clerical Junius' letters criticising George Reynolds and Frederick Charrington, Barnardo's main critics; that he used faked photographs to 'prove' the affectivity of his work; that his missions extended to both the 'deserving' and the 'undeserving' poor and thus encouraged mendicancy and subverted the Poor Laws; that he was guilty of cruelty and neglect towards the children in his homes. By the time Thomas Barnardo died on 19th September 1905, there were nearly 8,000 children in his residential homes, more than 4,000 were boarded out, and 18,000 had been sent to Canada and Australia. I would like to leave you with this information that Thomas started his work in the slums of London in 1872 we jump some 16 years to 1888 Queen Victoria was in the 52nd year of her reign. The British Empire was at its height and prosperity was to be found everywhere, except in the East End ghettos of London, which included the Whitechapel district. Located near the Docks of London, Whitechapel is just outside the Roman city wall that marks - even today - the boundary between the City of London and the metropolitan boroughs. This is a report of the day: The London Dock area was a cesspool of human suffering and degradation, a melting pot of immigrants and indigents. Poverty, squalor and violence are a part of everyday life. Death stalks the young and innocent. half of the children born in London this year are condemned to die before their fifth birthday. Their killers are disease and starvation. Thousands of people are packed into cramped, rundown tenement buildings, usually one family to a room. There is little or no running water and the stench of human waste permeated the air. Other accommodations included doss-houses, where coffin-like beds can be had for four pence a night. Or for a penny, a person could sleep sitting upright on a bench by leaning on a rope stretched across the room to support his or her weight. Many women turned to prostitution from necessity. Most people escaped the misery of their wretched existence by seeking solace and comfort in a gin bottle. It was in this dismal place of humanity that one of the world's most infamous murder mysteries of JTR was about to unfold. Thomas is questioned a Lime House Police station as he fitted the profile but the evidence against him was slight and tenuous to say the least.. Please remember this is 10 years after Thomas stops selling his photographs of the children. I hope this information puts things in to context. Thomas was sure what he was doing was the best thing for the children so much so he even went to Gaol in 1889 as reported on Thursday 20th July: In the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, Dr Barnardo appealed against the decision of Queen’s Bench granting attachment for contempt of court in not producing a child called Martha Tigh, who had been taken from her mother’s home at Bristol, and placed in one of the appellants homes. Dr. Barnardo made arrangements for sending the child to Canada, and when the mother demanded its return he handed it over to a lady who took it to France. Steps having been taken in the English Courts to obtain the return of the child, Dr. Barnardo wrote to the lady, who refused to return it because she believed that it had been ill-treated by its natural guardians. - The Master of the Rolls in delivering judgement said Dr. Barnardo, in his zeal for his own benevolent objects, had overlooked the rights of the people and the law of the country. Having done so he must take the consequences, and he was accordingly committed to prison. Barnardo's today have moved on and gladly we have no need of the homes of yesterday due mainly to modern contraception and a better welfare state that enables families to be kept together. But we still have problems today that Barnardo's take an active role, hence the logo Giving children back their future and this is all thanks to Dr Thomas John Barnardo along with his wife Syrie Louise Barnardo n'ee Elmslie
The Goldonian Web has provided information gleaned from various sources; however, there are both supportive and non-supportive evidence for and against Thomas Barnardo. I'm convinced that most of us that had the experience of being a Barnardo Child would agree that our lives have not been as bad as they may have been without that support and guidance of Dr. Barnardo's. At the same time, let us not fool ourselves into believing that the past was one of our own choosing. While viewing any information that Goldonian web has published please place any information on a set of imaginary scales and you will find like us that the good far out weighs any alleged bad reports of the day, a true icon of the 20th century |
The
case was so important because the status of photography was, at the time,
a medium by which some kind of visual "truth" was supposed to be revealed.
The idea that Barnardo had staged many of his photographs destabilised a
Victorian notion of what it was to be an "authentically" poor child. A
deliberately manipulated photograph of a child was considered not just an
assault on notions of representational truth, but also an assault on the
innocence of the child itself.
use
photographs that have been touched-up manipulated to make people sit up
and notice to the work Barnardo's are doing today. Which is no different to
what Thomas was doing prior to 1877.
On Wednesday 4th October the actual
interment took place and he was laid to rest in the grounds of the Village
on a spot in front of Cairns House, which in his lifetime had been
indicated by Dr. Barnardo. He rests amid his work. The field of battle is
a warrior's worthiest grave.