A charitable appeal

Social welfare in past times was mainly at the behest of local philanthropy rather than central government with the rich financing the poor whenever the inclination took them. The records are full of generous gestures by the aristocracy, the landed gentry and tradesmen, all of whom enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle whereas the majority who had little faced a precarious existence and death came early and often ignominiously.

Disability usually went untreated unless patrons could be found among the wealthy and appeals often appeared in the local newspapers or were printed on small cards and circulated to prospective benefactors and, if successful, the victims found their plight eased through charity, often the lifeline that rescued them from a life of withdrawal and sometimes ridicule.

The card pictured above makes such an appeal in May 1847 on behalf of a ten-year-old boy, Benjamin Hollingworth, son of a farm labourer from Pickworth, near Bourne, who had been blind from birth. Several supporters or subscribers had already been found, including the vicar, the Lord of the Manor, a local magistrate and several titled ladies, and others were being sought in an attempt to raise sufficient funds to send him to the School for the Indigent Blind that had been opened in London fifty years before.

The object of this institution was teach children with impaired vision various trades by which they could earn money and so enable them, wholly or in part, to provide for their own subsistence. The school had opened in 1799 in premises at St. George's Fields in Southwark, London, and was extremely successful, returning 30 blind people to their families and enabling them earn from 7s. to 18s. per week. Admissions were originally confined to children over twelve and under eighteen who were physically fit, reasonably strong and had nimble fingers that were needed for the work which was taught, namely the manufacture of threads, linens, mats and baskets, and, as a report from the period described, "the ability evinced by many of the pupils was truly amazing".

There were other similar schools in Britain, including an important one in Liverpool, but the Southwark institution is particularly noteworthy because its origins survive to this day under the auspices of the Royal School for the Blind, now a registered charity based at Epsom, Surrey.

Research revealed that Benjamin was indeed awarded a place at the school where he was trained as a shoemaker and his name is included in the 1851 census return for the institution where he was living at the age of 14. Life as a cobbler, however, did not suit him and by 1861 he had moved north to Huntingdon with his wife Hannah and was earning his living as a wandering musician. She was eight years older, having been born at Whitby in Yorkshire, and by 1871 they were living at Kingston upon Hull but they later moved to a lodging house at Gainsborough where Benjamin was still working as a musician but he is believed to have died in 1890 at the age of 56 and so he obviously overcame his disability and appears to have lived as happy a life as the times permitted.