Disability History Month: Barnardo’s publishes 125-year-old photos of disabled children

The UK’s largest children’s charity has released previously unseen photos of disabled children in their care, going back more than a century – along with their stories

‘Unkindness to these little unfortunates from the other boys or girls is a thing quite unknown to us’ (Barnardo’s)

The late-19th century was not a good place for a child. One in seven infants died in England and Wales, and even more would later be killed operating dangerous machinery or getting stuck up a chimney, before Acts of Parliament were brought in to prohibit child labour.

And in Victorian London’s East End, where Thomas Barnardo set up his first home for boys in 1870, there was also post-Industrial Revolution overcrowding, filth, poverty and disease to contend with. Poor children suffered from rickets, curved spines, respiratory diseases, inherited syphilis and a variety of deformities.

But Barnardo prided himself on welcoming children of all abilities and health into his care. In 1877, he wrote: “Given the destitution and when accompanied by disease, deformity or ill-health…. We will render assistance.”

He disapproved of segregation between abled and disabled children, declaring instead that all young people could benefit from integration. “Unkindness to these little unfortunates from the other boys or girls,” he wrote, “is a thing quite unknown to us.”

Barnardo believed that “the presence of a child maimed for life, or marked by some serious deformity, draws out only kind deeds and gentle thoughts from the roughest boys and wildest girls”.

Knowing the reality of the world around them, however, he also made sure disabled children learnt marketable trades. The boys practised tailoring; the girls learnt embroidery. At Barnardo’s school for deaf, blind and disabled girls in Hackney, the children also wove Persian rugs, sewed tapestries and hand-painted lace.

To this day, Barnardo’s is still committed to supporting disabled children and those with special educational needs, working with all ages from pre-school to adolescents.

When Barnardo died in 1905, there were 7,998 children in the care homes – and some 1,300 were disabled. These previously unseen photographs, going back more than 125 years from the charity’s records, tell some of their stories.