Children in Care, 1834-1929: The Lives of Destitute, Orphaned and Deserted Children
I wish I had had this book when I was lecturing on social policy. Not that it replaces any of the standard textbooks, but it gives an extra dimension to the history of the ‘New Poor Law’ of 1834, which became Public Assistance in 1929.
The book had its origins in a study of 300 children cared for by a local charity in Norfolk in the 1870s which later became part of the Waifs and Strays Society, now the Children’s Society. At first taking local children, the charity was soon taking children from Poor Law Unions throughout the country and providing specialist institutional and foster care as an alternative to the workhouse. Steer has now expanded this into a survey of the changing provision for deprived children under the 1834 Act – residential schools, cottage homes, sponsored migration and foster care. Adoption did not become a significant form of provision until the Adoption Act of 1926, too late to get more than a passing reference in this work.
Unusually for such research, the case studies are not anonymised, but the children given their actual names. The Poor Law with a human face.
