Wood Street Mission: improving the lives of poor children in Manchester and Salford
The Wood Street Mission
The Wood Street Mission, originally known as the Manchester & Salford Street Children’s Mission, was founded in 1869 by Alfred Alsop, to provide spiritual and practical support for poor children in the slum areas of central Manchester and Salford. In 1873 the Mission moved to its present site on Wood Street (adjacent to the site where, a few years later, Enriqueta Rylands would build her Library). The Mission, supported by wealthy philanthropists, provided the practical necessities of life — food, clothing and shelter — for hundreds of poor children and their families alongside administering to their spiritual needs via church services and Sunday schools. By 1876 it had established itself as one of the most prominent institutions in Manchester
The Charity’s founder Alfred Alsop was an evangelical Christian who preached in the slum districts of Manchester. He quickly realised that only when the needs of the body were met could he begin teaching the word of God. As the ‘summary of work done’ below demonstrates by the turn of the twentieth century the charity was a mix of evangelical Christianity and social work, offering assistance to convicts, those suffering ill health and ‘unfortunate’ women. In the year spanning 1 October 1899 to 30 Sept 1900 an impressive 2,150 pies and 13,893 free suppers were distributed by the Mission.
The archive of the Wood Street Mission includes minute books, annual reports, cuttings books, account books, registers of donors and recipients of charity, wages books, visitors books, diaries and photographs. It offers a vivid record of the social history of Manchester and Salford and the efforts to alleviate poverty and social deprivation in and around the city.
Besides spiritual succour, food and shelter, the charity also heartily believed in wholesome recreation. In the last decade of the nineteenth century a holiday camp was built at St Anne’s on Sea near Blackpool and each year hundreds of poor children were taken to the seaside. As the advertisement below demonstrates these trips were entirely paid by charitable donations.
Poor housing and an inadequate diet affected the health of children raised in slums. Soldiers recruited from the industrial cities and town for both the Boer and First World War revealed alarming levels of stunted growth and ill health. The postcard below references the need for ‘Building up the new generation’, while the Union Jack flags appealed to patriotic endeavour.
The ‘arts and craft’ style buildings that made up the St Anne’s on the Sea camp were a world apart from the slum terraces of Manchester and Salford. For poor children the seaside trip provided not only sight of the sea but also a glimpse of a better life.
Sea bathing and exercising on the sands was seen as both rational recreation and conducive to good health. As the group activity pictured below illustrates the St Anne’s on Sea camp experience was quite different to the hedonistic excesses of day trippers further down the ‘golden mile’ in Blackpool itself.
These seaside postcards were also an important way of raising the profile of the Wood Street Mission and attracting new donors. Note how the names of the key philanthropists involved in the charity are displayed on the board
Artefacts from the Wood Street Mission Archive teach us about poverty, child destitution, philanthropy and civic culture over the last one hundred and fifty years. From Victorian notions of charity to contemporary experiences of child poverty, much remains the same. In recent years the Charity has focused on literacy as a mechanism for lifting children out of poverty as they reach adulthood. Current work carried out by the Wood Street Mission can be found here
A long standing tradition which endures to this day is the Christmas Toy Appeal. This photograph from the 1970s shows volunteers collecting toy and tinned food to be distributed to needy families with children. Philanthropy and the support of local people remains central to the Wood Street Mission’s success.
Discussion Points
How do activities of the Wood Street Mission today differ from the work it did in the nineteenth century?
Why has childhood poverty proved so difficult to eradicate?
Additional Resources
You can read an overview description of the Wood Street Mission Archive here. There is a full catalogue available in Elgar of the Wood Street Mission Archive. Please note that in January 2020 there was a deposit of additional material from the Mission. This has not yet been catalogued.
You can view a photographic album that documents Wood Street Mission in the 1920s here
The full text of Mark Crosher’s PhD ‘Thesis Poverty, charity and memory in post-war Manchester : the work and operation of the Wood Street Mission, 1945–1990’ can be accessed here
See also a series of blog posts on the Wood Street Mission
You might be also interested in another collection held at the Library: Manchester Settlement Archive
Return to ‘Made in Manchester’ home page
Images reproduced with the permission of The Wood Street Mission and The John Rylands University Librarian and Director of the University of Manchester Library. All images used on this page are licenced via CC-BY-NC-SA, for further information about each image, please follow the link in the caption description.
