Firstly, I apologize for the grainy nature of the picture, it comes from the 1917 edition of Highways and Hedges, the book of the National Children’s Home in its day. The governess in the picture is my granny, my maternal grandmother, who was the granddaughter of a Methodist Local Preacher, and her great grandfather was a Methodist Minister serving in and around East Anglia, mainly in Norfolk. My gran was born illegitimately in Great Yarmouth in 1892 and lived with her young mum, supported by her grandfather, until he went blind, quite suddenly and could no longer keep them, the choice was the workhouse, or the Children’s Home and in 1901 as a nine-year-old my gran was taken to the National Children’s Home in Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield. From there, she was sent to the village of Calverley in the borough of Pudsey in West Yorkshire to work as governess for the three children of Mr and Mrs Hammond Heap a Local Lawyer and Methodist Local Preacher.
As a family, we have always owed a huge debt of gratitude to Rev Thomas Bowman Stephenson who, moved by the plight of homeless orphans in London in 1869 renovated a stable in Church Street Waterloo with the help of Alfred Mager and Francis Horner and took just two boys off the streets and gave them a home. Over a hundred and fifty years on The National Children’s home had evolved and re-shaped to meet the changing demands of the modern world. Gone are the huge orphanages and today, the charity is more project based with fewer children living in institutions. My Granny lived until just short of her eightieth birthday and from the age of nine, she never saw her mother again, which I find incredibly sad. I know from letters I have read in recent years that my great grandmother died in the village of Seething in South Norfolk, still longing to be reunited with her only daughter, she never had any more children.
We can all too easily sit in complacency and thank our lucky stars that the world has moved on and we no longer have a huge problem of children living on the streets of our cities, or in slum conditions, we can feel pleased with ourselves that we no longer have the need for workhouses, and we have a welfare state where we look after those in need. But before we wallow too much in self-gratification, let us remember the poverty crisis we are facing as a nation. In recent days I have heard in several different places, people quoting the words of Jesus when he emphasized the importance of loving our neighbours and Rev Graham Thompson, our new President of The Methodist Conference mentioned in his inaugural address to the Methodist Conference in Telford that our neighbourhood gets bigger as global communications grow.
What I think is wonderful about the history of the National Children’s Home, is that while the great and good of the Christian Church in London were concerned about the poverty in nineteenth century London and were possibly tucked away in their Churches, Chapels, and meeting rooms praying, the likes of Thomas Bowman Stephenson got out there and did something. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not for a moment suggesting that we shouldn’t pray that things might be different, there are times that I think we only pray as a last resort. My point is that prayer alone is not enough, it must always be supported by action, I will always be thankful that Thomas Stephenson started something, which has changed the lives of literally thousands of children and families.
The picture above is important to me, I only ever knew my granny as an old lady, she looks so pretty, and contented and as a family we owe a debt of gratitude to the children’s home, yet I can’t help but think how much pain would have been save if she could have only lived with her mother in the bosom of her family in Norfolk. Of course, if that had happened, I possibly wouldn’t be writing this today. We can’t re write history, but we can change things for the future, prayer and action can improve the situation.