History
It was founded by Daniel Cooper in 1853 to protect women and children against prostitution (Louise A. Jackson, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England, 2000)
By 1871 it had taken in 7000 women, and turned another 10000 away (Lionel Rose, The Massacre of the Innocents: Infanticide in Britain, 1800–1939, 1986)
By 1885 it had ten homes; in 1883 38 of the 494 women and girls received into these homes came from the provinces or abroad (Charity Organisation Society draft report, 21 April 1885; A/FWA/C/D53/1, London Metropolitan Archives)
Its avowed aims then were that it undertook “the reformation of openly immoral women, and the guardianship of young girls exposed to danger” (Charity Organisation Society draft report, 21 April 1885; A/FWA/C/D53/1, London Metropolitan Archives)
Its Secretary in the 1890s was C. Stuart Thorpe
In 1955 it was amalgamated into Fegan’s Homes, now Fegans Child and Family Care (opens in new window)
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What was reforming about it?
It “began to shift the agenda from juvenile prostitution to what we now term sexual abuse, campaigning to raise the age of consent in order to protect children over 12” (Louise A. Jackson, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England, 2000)
A less positive assessment is provided by Lionel Rose: “The Society’s prime aim was the rehabilitation of the mother, not the welfare of the child, and the effect of this and similar agencies was simply to re-channel the circumstances of the infant’s death” (Lionel Rose, The Massacre of the Innocents: Infanticide in Britain, 1800–1939, 1986)
Where in Bloomsbury
It had eleven homes by 1861 (Sampson Low, The Charities of London in 1861, 1862)
One of these may have been located at 45 Burton Crescent (although not in 1881, when the census shows this just to be an ordinary lodging-house)
45 Burton Crescent was the headquarters of the Society in the early twentieth century, according to letters and other documents dating from before 1910 until the 1920s (copies of documents held in the Charity Organisation Society records, A/FWA/C/D53/1, London Metropolitan Archives)
Website of current institution
The successor institution is Fegans Child and Family Care, www.fegans.org.uk (opens in new window)
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Books about it
Paula Bartley, Prostitution: Prevention and Reform in England, 1860–1914 (2000)
Archives
Records relating to its investigation by the Charity Organisation Society are held in London Metropolitan Archives, ref. A/FWA/C/D/53/001; details are available online via Access to Archives (opens in new window)
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