The children behind the postcards

In my search to find photographs of orphanages and children's homes long since forgotten, I very occasionally find postcards sent to or from children who were living in an orphanage.

In such cases it is hard to resist the temptation of finding out about the circumstances of the child and their family.

Telling the stories behind the postcards helps to bring the history of residential childcare into focus and bring the stories of these children back to life.

To dear Maisie
with best wishes

from

Cousin Dorothy

PS. We shall be coming to see you next Wed. weather permitting.

Maisie's story

Dorothy wrote to her cousin Maisie on 23^rd October 1909. Maisie’s address was Reedham Orphanage in Surrey.

When Dorothy wrote the card, she was 14 years old. Maisie turned 11 on the 25^th October. Hopefully her card arrived in time.

It seems that Maisie was in Reedham Orphanage in Surrey because she was an orphan. Her mother died, aged 25 when Maisie was just a few months old.

Maisie's father, Thomas, was able to keep working as he could employ a housekeeper to help with Maisie and her two older sisters.

Tragically, six years later, Maisie's father also died. He was aged 41.

Maisie's oldest sister went to live with an aunt in Greenwich, while Maisie and her other sister went into Reedham Orphanage in 1904.

Having cousin Dorothy to write to her and visit, must have been a great comfort to Maisie and her sister. At the time the postcard was sent, they had been in the orphanage for five years.

Dorothy, just three years older than Maisie, may have had some inkling of the loss of Maisie's parents. When she was a child, her parents were away - her father was master on a ship and her mother travelled with him. Dorothy lilved with her grandfather (also Maisie's grandfather) in Peckham.

In adult life, Dorothy married and had a family of her own. Maisie worked as a stenographer back in London but died in 1943 not having married.

Dorothy and Maisie's grandfather was a photographer of some repute. Above is one of his photographs. His son, Maisie's father, was also a photographer. The two men both died within months of each other in 1903 and 1904.

Lois's Story

Dear Mama

Do come to see me Saturday.

I do want to see you ever so much.

I give my love to you all. I can't say much so goodbye from Lois

xxxxxxxx

xxxxxx for all

The postcard Lois sent to her mother was of the Yarrow Home for Convalescent Children in Broadstairs. Perhaps this was also where she was staying.

When the convalescent home was founded in 1895 by Alfred Fernandez Yarrow (a wealthy shipbuilder) it was known as The Yarrow Home for Convalescent Children of the Better Classes. When Lois wrote in 1910, it appears to have lost the odious 'better classes' distinction.

Lois was eleven years old when she wrote the card to her mother in Bexleyheath. Lois was the youngest of a family of three girls. Their father was a clerk in an ordnance factory.

The card certainly suggests she was missing her family and perhaps wanted to say something she felt she could not. Being sent to the coast to recuperate from illness must have been an upheaval for children who were not feeling well and home sickness was common.

Stays in convalescent homes often only lasted a few weeks. Lois was certainly back with her family by early 1911.

The convalescent home, on Ramsgate Road, was one of several in Broadstairs and functioned until the 1960s.

For more on convalescent homes

Horace's Story

This is where I abode, my residence

is the second villa.

Received letter today.

Fondest love.

Horace

xxxxx 

This one was a tricky one to research as it was hard to find the link between Emily in Newport (to whom the card was addressed) and Horace in Cleadon, Sunderland more than 300 miles away.

The postmark is not clear, but it appears to be April 1917 (the Cottage Homes at Cleadon are thought to have opened in 1909 so we can rule out April 1907). This would mean that Emily was 24 and Horace was 21 at the time of the exchange.

Why a 21 year old man was in Cleadon Cottage Homes is a mystery. It was a long way to travel for work... and he was too old to be a resident?

Horace's father had died some years earlier but Horace was working as a grocer in his father's greengrocery business, now run by his mother. It would seem this is where he met Emily, alsowho was also working as a grocer's assistant.

In 1921, Emily married Horace so the distance did not harm Horace's fondest love.

Frank's Story

Dear Sister

I have asked the superintendent if he could let me have a half-day out and he said yes. I am coming on Saturday afternoon and asked Charlie if he could wait for me to go to the football match. Give my love to to all. Yours truly Frank xxxxx

Frank was born into a large family - he had eight siblings - in Small Heath. In the early 1900s, however, tragedy struck the family and there were a number of deaths.

In 1904, his father died aged 41. The following year, one of his sisters died aged 19. In 1907, aged 43, his mother died. In 1908, one of his younger sisters died aged 10. Diseases such as tuberculosis were very infectious - perhaps it was such a disease that took four of his family.

Orphaned when he was eleven, Frank ended up in the Cottage Homes of Aston Union in Erdington. 

At the time of writing the postcard, Frank was 15 and perhaps close to the time when he could leave the cottage homes. This might explain why, when he asked the superintendent, Arthur Wayne, who ran the cottage homes, for an afternoon out it was granted. It was not a normal practice for children to be allowed out.

Frank also arranged with his younger brother, Charlie (who lived with their sister) to go to the football with him.

Elsie's Story

Dear Elsie.

Mother wishes you a very happy birthday.

Amazingly, I have seen two postcards sent to Elsie. This one postmarked 1916 and another 1921. Both were sent to Elsie at a children's home on Nether Street, Church End, Finchley.

The first was from her mother for her birthday and the second from her grandmother saying happy Christmas,

Because of Elsie's unusual surname and knowing her grandmother's surname, I am confident I have been able to locate her in official records.

She was born in 1908 in north London. When she was four years old, her father died. It is likely that it was around this time, in 1912, that Elsie went into the children's home.

This suggests that the first card we have, from her mother was to mark her eighth birthday and the second card, from her maternal grandmother, she received when she was thirteen having been in the home for around nine years.

More on this home