The first episode of the ‘House Through Time’ TV programme telling the story of a Georgian terraced house in Ravensworth Terrace, in Summerhill, Newcastle, was shown on 8 April. One of the references in the programme is to three properties in the terrace, numbers 6-8, being established as a Training Home and Refuge For Friendless Girls. The purpose of the Training Home was to provide domestic skills for women considered to be at risk of falling into sexual promiscuity or prostitution. Our blog tells some of the story of Diocesan Society for the Protection of Women and Children and its involvement with properties in Ravensworth Terrace.
Ernest Wilberforce, grandson of the abolitionist William Wilberforce, was appointed the founding Bishop of the newly created Diocese of Newcastle in 1882. Bishop Wilberforce arrived in the Diocese with his second wife, Emily. His first wife, Frances, died of tuberculosis in 1870. The creation of the new Diocese saw a flurry of new church building and a heightened interest in the social and moral welfare of the people of the Diocese. The tone for the latter was set in the speech made by the Duke of Northumberland at the enthronement of Bishop Wilberforce in which the Duke spoke of ‘… the dark shadows of demoralisation and vice which follow in the train of wealth and luxury’ and the necessity to combat these evils.
The early Diocesan Calendars – lists of Diocesan clergy, officials and organisations – are littered with lists of local and national societies and committees with charitable aims, many of them concerned with the wellbeing of females. The Calendar of 1884 carries the following listing:
This is the first reference to the Diocesan Society for the Protection of Women and Children found in the Diocesan Calendars. An account in The Newcastle Courant of 10 August 1883 records the establishment of the Society the aims of which included ‘… the rescue of women and children from danger, the assistance of those who are poor and friendless and the reformation of such as have fallen into sin.’ The article goes on to record a gift of £1000 entrusted to Mrs. Wilberforce as president of the Society from ‘a lady in the south of England’. This news is accompanied by an appeal for other charitable souls to donate to the cause. By the time of the first annual meeting of the Society in April 1884 it had occupied 6 Ravensworth Terrace and twelve girls were resident there. Neighbouring properties 7 & 8 were about to be occupied with number 7 to be used as a training home. The nature of the training is suggested in the report – ‘Some of the girls have been rescued from the most terrible surroundings of vice and misery, and have so much improved in intelligence and good conduct, under kind motherly care and discipline that we may reasonably hope that in a few months they will be ready to take a little servant’s situation’. The same report describes the intended functions of each of the three houses. Number 6 was to become a Receiving House where girls stayed for a short period before being placed in the Training Home at number 7. This property went on to include a laundry, another opportunity for girls to learn useful skills. Number 8 was to become a Ladies Boarding House where the girls could use some of the household skills taught in the Training Home. Both the laundry and the boarding house provided an income to the Society. The lady boarders undertook church work in Newcastle.
There is evidence that the Society arranged the boarding out and emigration of children from Ravensworth Terrace. The same newspaper article reports that three children ‘rescued from the utmost danger in All Saints parish’ have been boarded out with another family. All Saints was the poorest of the Newcastle parishes and likely to have been the focus of much of the Society’s work. There is also evidence that the Society was organising child migration. We learn from the same report that an unnamed 10 year old ‘little destitute girl’ was ‘emigrated’ and that there are plans for a further two children to emigrate. Although not stated it is likely that the emigration formed part of the Home Children Scheme and that the children were sent to Canada.
The Society also sought to bring to court cases where girls under the age of 14 were found to be living in what were described as houses of ill repute. The first case they pursued was that of 11 year old Mary Eliza Orrick who was found to be living in such an establishment in Peel Street, Newcastle. Mary Orrick’s mother was the keeper of the house and Mary and another unnamed girl aged 14 were found soliciting on a nearby street. The Peel Street property was visited several times before the case was brought and it was reported that the police were very aware of the way in which the property was used. Mary Orrick was removed from her mother’s care and ordered to attend an Industrial School until she reached the age of 16.
In 1889 some of the functions of the Ravenworth Terrace houses were re-located to Nedderton in Northumberland. Eventually the House of Mercy was re-established on Salter’s Road, Gosforth, becoming known as St. Hilda’s School which in turn became an Approved School in 1941. The School closed in the 1980’s.
Emily Wilberforce’s efforts to improve the lot of fallen women in the Diocese were marked by the naming of the Wilberforce Diocesan Home of Refuge as a tribute to her efforts. The first home for the Refuge was established in 1903 at 124 Westmorland Road, Newcastle. By 1918 the Refuge had moved to 41-43 Jesmond Road and by 1935 to 54 Clifton Road. It eventually became a mother and baby home caring for unmarried mothers and their babies.
Ernest Wilberforce served as Bishop of Newcastle for fourteen years leaving the Diocese in 1896 to become Bishop of Chichester. He died in 1907. Emily Wilberforce died in 1941.
