Lee Cottage Home for Girls, Scole, Norfolk
The Lee Cottage Home for Girls, on Rectory Road, Dickleburgh, was founded in 1883 by £300 from a Miss Mayo who paid for the renovation and subsequent annual rental of the property. The home was supervised by Mrs Louisa Brandreth, the wife of the parish's Rector, who had also overseen Dickleburgh's Rose Cottage home since its opening in 1878.
On January 23rd, 1884, the home was certified by the Local Government Board to receive up to 25 girls placed there by the Boards of Guardians who administered the poor relief and workhouse system.
Girls at the home, aged from 7 to 12 at their date of admission, were expected to go into domestic service. As well as attending the local school, they were given training in skills such as needlework, housework and laundry work. They also contributed to the cleaning of the home and mended their own clothes.
In July 1888, the running of both Lee Cottage and Rose Cottage was taken over by the Waifs and Strays Society.
Lee Cottage Home for Girls, Dickleburgh, c.1887. © Peter Higginbotham
The home closed in 1895 and the residents transferred to the Lowestoft Church Home.
The Lee Cottage home, now renamed The Gables, is now in private residential use.
Former Lee Cottage Home for Girls, Dickleburgh
Records
Note: many repositories impose a closure period of up to 100 years for records identifying individuals. Before travelling a long distance, always check that the records you want to consult will be available.
- Index of the Society's first 30,000 children's case files ordered by surname.
- Index of the Society's first 30,000 children's case files ordered by date of birth.
- The Children's Society Records and Archive Centre is at Unit 25, Springfield House, 5 Tyssen Street, London E8 2LZ (email: archives@childrenssociety.org.uk). Files for children admitted to its homes after September 1926 were microfilmed in the 1980s and the originals destroyed. Some post-1926 files had already been damaged or destroyed during a flood. The Society's Post-Adoption and Care Service provides access to records, information, advice, birth record counselling, tracing and intermediary service for people who were in care or adopted through the Society.
- The Society has produced detailed catalogues of its records relating to disabled children, and of records relating to the Children's Union (a fundraising body mostly supported from the contributions of children).
Bibliography
- Bowder, Bill Children First: a photo-history of England's children in need (1980, Mowbray)
- Church of England Waifs and Strays' Society [Rudolfe, Edward de Montjoie] The First Forty Years: a chronicle of the Church of England Waifs and Strays' Society 1881-1920 (1922, Church of England Waifs and Strays' Society / S.P.C.K.)
- Higginbotham, Peter Children's Homes: A History of Institutional Care for Britain's Young (2017, Pen & Sword)
- Morris, Lester The Violets Are Mine: Tales of an Unwanted Orphan (2011, Xlibris Corporation) — memoir of a boy growing up in several of the Society's homes (Princes Risborough, Ashdon, Hunstanton, Leicester) in the 1940s and 50s.
- Rudolf, Mildred de Montjoie Everybody's Children: the story of the Church of England Children's Society 1921-1948 (1950, OUP)
- Stroud, John Thirteen Penny Stamps: the story of the Church of England Children's Society (Waifs and Strays) from 1881 to the 1970s (1971, Hodder and Stoughton)
Links
- Hidden Lives Revealed — the story of the children who were in the care of The Children's Society in late Victorian and early 20th Century Britain.
- The Children's Society
Except where indicated, this page () © Peter Higginbotham. Contents may not be reproduced without permission.
