Historians of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British child social care have commonly focused on the “negative and oppressive” (21) aspects of welfare institutions, emphasizing the disciplinary regimes, moral judgments, and reform objectives of both state actors (such as Poor Law Unions and industrial schools) and charitable organizations (such as Barnardo's). In her first book, A Home from Home? Children and Social Care in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, 1870–1920—based upon her PhD research at the University of Manchester, UK—Claudia Soares aims to disrupt this narrative through an analysis of the Waifs and Strays Society (now The Children's Society), an organization founded in London in 1881 “to provide care and protection to outcast, friendless and destitute children of the Church of England faith” (10). By 1905 it cared for over 3,400 children across 93 institutional homes. Soares contends that research has hitherto failed to take into account institutions’ perceptions of their core purpose—that of caring for children—and have thus missed the significance of ideas about home, family, and belonging to welfare practices. Using 1,479 case records of individual children admitted to the Society between 1881 and 1920, including close reading of over 500 files of notes and correspondence, she “unearths new possibilities to interpret the lived experience of institutional inhabitants” (4).
Supplemented with the Society's promotional literature and periodicals, staff handbooks, and administrative records, her analysis focuses on the affective dimensions of care as opposed to “the traditional narratives of misery and cruelty that have dominated many histories” (4). This is a fresh and engaging approach that centers the subjectivities of welfare recipients in the voluntary system and aptly demonstrates the capacity of institutional records to explore the agency of children.
In chapter 1, Soares establishes the centrality of the family unit to the ideals and practices of the Waifs and Strays Society, arguing that the organization wished to “manufacture a sense of family” (46) in the institutional setting. However, this first required that birth families be found inadequate, in order to justify the removal and retention of children outside their former homes. Very few of the children in Soares’ sample were orphans—most had living parents or close family who placed them with the institution as a result of poverty. An irony of her argument is that, in constructing their own institutional bonds of love and care, the Society had to limit (and sometimes sever) continued contact with a child's parents. Soares does an excellent job of explaining the complex social and political context in which this institutional family was perceived as better placed to care for children, while acknowledging the prejudicial tactics that were sometimes used to achieve it. Chapter 3 explores in greater depth the tensions and conflict that arose between the Society and families over issues such as letter-writing, visiting, and the return of children. However, chapter 2 emphasizes the emotional labor that the Society's carers undertook to produce an institutional family that, Soares argues, went beyond social reform and moral obligation. She demonstrates how the discourse and rhetoric of family was deployed throughout the organization: the Society's founder was universally referred to as Uncle Rudolf, while children were encouraged to call their carers mother and father. Evidence of loving relationships between caregivers and children is brought to the fore through a microhistorical approach that focuses on the everyday lives and habits of the institutional home.
In chapter 4, Soares suggests that the production of family was also material, evident in the creation of homely and domestic environments. Drawing upon photographs and descriptions of children's homes, Soares argues that the Society “borrowed components from the middle-class domestic ideals of comfort, beauty, authority, privacy, responsibility and division” (108). This chapter is illustrated by the images described, which helps the reader to assess the claims being made. Chapter 5, which highlights the treats and enrichments children were provided, including pets and holidays, is similarly supported by photographs and extracts from the case files. Finally, in chapter 6 Soares reappraises the provision of aftercare once a child had left the Society's custody, whether through emigration to Canada, employment, or return to their relatives. Excellent use is made of periodicals and letters, which trace ongoing concern and interest in children's lives by individual carers and an institutional interest in the so-called success of former residents. At times the distinction between the individuals and the institutional isn't as clear as it might be. Much of Soares's argument rests on the optimal translation of the Society's published policy and guidance into practice, rather than the more mixed reality of children's experiences of care. While there are many examples of loving relationships provided, these must be tempered by the less positive and the unrecorded. Soares is also largely dependent on images of children and homes that were published in the Society's own publications and campaigns, which are likely to reflect an ideal and often staged perspective. In providing a counterpoint to a dominant negative narrative, the conclusion arguably makes claims too far in the other direction. We should not lose sight of the ways in which affective practices were used to manipulate and control children or how far love and care were contingent on a child's conformity to the Society's expectations.
Nevertheless, Soares provides a meticulously researched and absorbing insight into the practices and principles of the Waifs and Strays Society. She also offers a reappraisal of late Victorian and Edwardian child social care that is overdue, giving credit to voluntary welfare organizations in their pioneering work with children suffering from abuse, neglect, and poverty. In both the prologue and epilogue Soares suggests that this new perspective could be operationalized in twenty-first century social work. Indeed, the relevance of questions of love and family is particularly acute in the context of a recent review of child social care in England and Wales. Although we should be wary of making unhelpful comparisons between then and now, or of suggesting that we might learn from the past, history can and should open up debate on issues in the welfare system. Soares currently has a British Academy Fellowship to continue her work on affect and institutional care, expanding to take in Australia and Canada, and I look forward to seeing her research develop in this area.
