| RefNo | CA41 |
| Title | Sheffield City Council, Social Services: Public Assistance Committee and Sub-Committees; Children's Homes and Children in Care |
| AdminHistory | Sheffield City Council, Social Services: Public Assistance Committee (later Social Welfare Committee) and related sub-committees:
The City Council’s Pubic Assistance Committee took over the functions of the Board of Guardians on 1 Apr 1930 following the abolition of the latter. The minutes included in this collection are typescripts circulated to members of the Committee and are generally fuller than later minutes (CA-PAC and CA-SWE).
Sub-Committees of the Public Assistance Committee included: Central Public Assistance; House; Central Laundry; Ladies; Contracts and; District sub-committees. Minutes of the Maternity and Child Welfare Sub-Committee [of the Health Committee] (also included in this collection) include information on fostering and adoption cases.
The Health Committee (ref. CA-HEA), rather than the Public Assistance Committee dealt with cases of poor children and administered children's institutions such as Herries Road Children's Homes; Scattered Children's Homes; Boys' Working Home; Fulwood Cottage Homes and the Girls' Training Home. The nursery block at the Fir Vale Institution was also overseen by the Health Committee.
In 1942 the Public Assistance Committee became the Social Welfare Committee. These minutes include reference to the Firvale and Grenoside Institutions. They also refer to the mentally disabled and also to maternity and child welfare issues. With the passing of the National Assistance Act in 1948 the Social Care Committee took over the functions of this committee. At the same time the National Health Service Act of 1946 transferred some functions to the new National Health Service.
Sheffield Poor Law Union: Scattered Homes:
It was recognised quite early that children needed to be cared for separately from adult workhouse inmates and in 1888 the ‘boarding out’ of 40 young children was undertaken. The ‘isolated homes’ (or ‘scattered homes’) system was devised in 1893 by John Wycliffe Wilson and essentially represents the beginnings of foster parenting as a form of child care. Children were placed in ordinary domestic homes ‘scattered’ across Sheffield. A central headquarters home was set up at Smilter Lane (now Herries Road), Fir Vale and included three children’s homes known as Rose, Hawthorn and Ivy to house various children.
Fulwood Cottage Homes, Bole Hill Lane (later Blackbrook Road), Lodge Moor, Sheffield (Ecclesall Bierlow Poor Law Union):
In 1903, the Ecclesall Bierlow Union built a children’s home off Blackbrook Road, Fulwood, called Fulwood Cottage Homes. The home consisted of 21 separate houses which could accommodate over 300 children who were cared for by foster mothers and attended local schools. In 1930, the Fulwood Cottage Homes came under the care of the Public Assistance Committee of Sheffield Corporation (the predecessor to Sheffield City Council) and by 1940 were absorbed (along with the Sheffield Union Scattered Homes) into the City of Sheffield Children’s Homes. The home closed in 1960, becoming Moorside Approved School. |
| Description | MINUTES:
Public Assistance Committee (from 1942 the Social Welfare Committee) (draft minutes), 1935 - 1948 (CA41/1)
House Sub-Committee, 1930 - 1948 (CA41/2)
General Sub-Committee, 1930 - 1948 (CA41/3)
General and House Sub-Committees (agenda papers and draft minutes), 1935 - 1942 (CA41/4)
Maternity and Child Welfare Sub-Committee [of the Health Committee] (extracts of minutes), 1930 - 1948 (CA41/5)
CHILDREN'S HOMES:
Sheffield Union, Scattered Homes, 1894 - 1950s (CA41/6)
Ecclesall Bierlow Union, Fulwood Cottage Homes, 1905 - 1945 (CA41/7)
Children’s homes and remand homes, 1931 - 1993 (CA41/8)
OTHER SOCIAL SERVICES FILES:
Desertion cases (photograph albums) (indexed by name), 1904 - 1908 (CA41/9)
Evacuation of the homeless, 1939 - 1943 (CA41/10)
Lord Mayor of Sheffield’s 'Good Neighbour Flood Appeal', 1958 (CA41/11)
Files of Director of Social Welfare, 1936 - 1950 (CA41/12)
Miscellaneous items (CA41/13) |
| Date | 1894 - 1989 |
| Extent | 113 items |
| AccessStatus | Restricted |
| AccessConditions | Adoption records, Reformatory Schools and other Social Services/Childrens and Young Peoples records containing personal data (exempt under the Freedom of Information Act s.40 and s.41, Data Protection Act, Statutory Instrument 2000 No.415, Adoption and Children Act 2002): access to personal information in these records less than 100 years old (75 years for children's home registers) will only be made available with the permission of the relevant City Council department.
Poor Law and Public Assistance Institutions (exempt under the Freedom of Information Act s.40 and Data Protection Act): access to personal information in these records less than 100 years old is restricted.
(Sheffield City Archives and Local Studies Library, Access Policy v1.2, 2018). |
| Level | Collection |
| RelatedMaterial | Sheffield City Archives:
Sheffield City Council, Health Committee, 1849 - 1974 (CA-HEA) [draft minutes are restricted]
Sheffield City Council, Public Assistance Committee, 1929 - 1942 (CA-PAC) [draft minutes are restricted]
Sheffield City Council, Social Welfare Committee, 1942 - 1948 (CA-SWE) [draft minutes are restricted]
Records of Fulwood Cottage Homes, Bole Hill Lane (later Blackbrook Road), Lodge Moor, Sheffield, 1902 - 1960 (CA612) [restricted access]
Education Welfare Census: children's homes and foster houses and their schools, c.1960 - 1973 (CA102/1233) [restricted access]
The National Archives, London:
Records of the Home Office and Department of Health and Social Security: Approved Schools and Remand and Voluntary Homes, 1897 - 1990 (BN62).
These files relate to Home Office Children's Department and successors and successors inspectors' visits to approved schools and remand and voluntary homes run by local authorities and various voluntary bodies. General files deal with routine visits to the homes; full inspection files deal with all aspects in depth. Special visits were made to investigate unrest among staff and absconders, and cases of indecency. The sub-series of records relating to Sheffield County Borough includes inspection files relating to: The Dene, Remand Home for Girls, 104 Upperthorpe; The Grove, Reception Home 23 Broomgrove Road; 12 Moorland Drive Children's Home; 33 Blackstock Road Family Group Home; Shirecliffe Remand Home for Boys, Shirecliffe Lane; 2 North Hill Road Family Group Home etc. Refer to TNA ref. BN62 for more detail.
See also:
Dunn, Marjorie P., For the Love of Children: A Story of the Poor Children of Sheffield and of Fulwood Cottage Homes (Sheffield, 1988)
(Sheffield Archives: DUN LOCAL; Sheffield Local Studies Library: 362.7 SST).
The Children of the State: Sheffield’s Successful Experiment reprinted from ‘The Councillor and Guardian’, 1898 [and] The Scattered Homes for Children: historical sketch…presented by the Children’s Homes Committee to the Sheffield Board of Guardians, 20 March 1907 (Sheffield Independent Press, 1907) [Facsimile reprint of both issued in one volume, 2006] (Sheffield Local Studies Library: 339.1S). |
| CustodialHistory | These items were transferred to Sheffield City Archives by Sheffield City Council's Social Services Department in two lots (Acc. Nos. 43627-43636 and 2006/13) in 1972 and 2006. |
| AcquisitionSource | These items were transferred by Social Services in 1972 and 2006. |
| ArchNote | Catalogue prepared by Cheryl Bailey, Mar 2018. |