Talk by Dr Kate Brooks, senior lecturer in education history and heritage at Bath Spa University, in March 2023. Report by Stephen Griffiths.
What a tonic it is, in these gloomy and troubled times, to hear about the gloomy and troubled times of 150 years ago. How anyone can complain about their lot these days I don’t know – oops, there’s me whining again. In the days when there was something to complain about, Charles Dickens wrote a weekly magazine focussed on social injustice called Household Words. One week in 1857 he featured the amazing orphan homes built at Ashley Down in Bristol by George Muller.
George Muller was a Prussian evangelist who came to Britain in 1829, and soon moved to Bristol to work at Bethesda chapel, providing day schools and Sunday schools. He and his wife started taking orphans into their rented house and before long were accommodating 130 children in adjoining properties. When the neighbours complained about the noise and the ‘disruption to public utilities’ George decided that a separate, purpose-built home was required. In 1849 the new home opened on Ashley Down and by 1870 there were five vast buildings on the site housing over 2000 orphans.
George was a founder of the Plymouth Brethren and a charismatic friend not only of Charles Dickens but also fellow Prussian sugar baron Conrad Finzel and lords Shaftesbury and Salisbury. Through his prayers and contacts he raised well over £100 million in today’s money to build and run the homes. The five huge homes on Ashley Down became a must-see tourist attraction and charabanc tours were arranged. It was said that visitors to Bristol came to see the zoo, the house for fallen women, and the Muller orphan homes. They were famous around the world. In 1863 a group of Maori chieftains came to visit. Many books were written about George and the homes, and they even inspired a ballet.
So far so good. And if you saw the photograph of the orphans in their uniforms parading on the annual outing like a very extended von Trapp family you might well ask, ‘Where’s the doom and gloom’? But remember this is Victorian England, and not all is happy philanthropy. Many people questioned whether children should be educated above their natural station (ie. to read and write). It was incumbent upon Mr. Muller to make his orphans useful to society and not merely, as Scrooge would say, ‘increase the surplus population’. All too soon you would have to leave and make your way in the world.
Dr Brook’s great-grandfather, known in his day as orphan 458, was one of the ‘lucky’ ones. Both his parents had died within 2 weeks in a Cholera epidemic (that great provider of orphans) and he was taken out of the workhouse into the orphanage. On his dismissal from the orphanage he was classified in the first category, ‘recommended’. He left with an apprenticeship, some money, and a bible. About a third of dismissals were in the second category, ‘able but unrecommendable’. These children would be sent out to industry (labouring or dress-making in sweat-shops) or service. The majority of girls ended up as kitchen maids or ‘maids of all work’.
Reserve your sympathy for those in the third category, ‘unrecommended’. Alongside the ubiquitous scrofula and consumption, the trauma of being orphaned and institutionalised accounts for the numbers of bed wetters, stutterers and mutes in this category,. Most of these children would end up back at the workhouse where they had started. But hey, let’s not overdo the woe. Many of Muller’s 10,000 orphans led average lives becoming vicars, teachers, writers, mothers and fathers. George Muller strongly influenced Dr Barnardo, and his work inspired countless others. His funeral procession in 1898 brought Bristol to a standstill.
The Muller homes at Ashley Down are well worth a visit and now house a museum, college and private apartments.