waifs and strays

Hidden Lives Revealed: A Virtual Archive - Children in Care 1881 - 1918

background but no names yet other than the census years

"Hidden Lives Revealed focuses on the period 1881-1918, and includes unique archive material about poor and disadvantaged children cared for by The Waifs and Strays' Society. The Society cared for children across England and Wales - in both the densest urban conurbations and some of the smallest rural villages.

The Waifs and Strays' Society looked after about 22,500 children between its foundation in 1881 and the end of World War One. The Waifs and Strays' Society became the Church of England Children's Society in 1946 and is now known as The Children's Society.

Our site features a range of archive material, most not previously accessible by the public, as well as articles and learning resources that help interpret these stories for a modern audience. No other Internet archive gives you the opportunity to browse through such unique material - a kind of resource which has the type of information not recorded elsewhere.

This site features the full contents of around 150 case files of children in the care of the The Waifs and Strays' Society from Victorian and Edwardian times. Even though some of these cases are from over 100 years ago, they have been fully anonymised to prevent the children's identification. Each case is summarised, and linked to pages about the actual homes they lived in.

Photographs from The Children's Society archives illustrate some of the grinding poverty of the time, and also show how children's lives were turned round when they entered the Society's care.

Also featured on the site are the full browsable and searchable texts of various Society publications - these include the supporter magazines Our Waifs and Strays and Brothers and Sisters as well as the organisation's Annual Reports."