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Thomas John Barnardo (4 July 1845 – 19 September 1905) was an Irish, Christian [1] philanthropist and founder and director of homes for poor and deprived children. From the foundation of the first Barnardo's home in 1867 to the date of Barnardo's death, nearly 60,000 children had been taken in.
Sep 15, 2024 · Thomas John Barnardo was a pioneer in social work who founded more than 90 homes for destitute children. Under his direction, the children were given care and instruction of high quality despite the then unusual policy of unlimited admittance.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Why We Got Started
- No Child Should Be Turned Away
- Barnardo’s Girls’ Village
- Supporting More Than 8,500 Children
- The Start of Our Fostering Work
- Our Early Work with Child Migrants
- Supporting Families After World War II
- Radical Social Change in The 1960s
- New Challenges and New Supporters in The 1970s
- Celebrating 150 Years of Changing Childhoods and Changing Lives
Thomas John Barnardo was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1845. As a young man he moved to London to train as a doctor. At the time, poverty and disease were so widespread that one in five children died before their fifth birthday. After a cholera epidemic swept through London’s East End, leaving 3,000 people dead and many children orphaned, Barnardo kn...
In 1870, Barnardo opened his first home for boys where the boys were able to live and learn carpentry, metalwork, and shoemaking, and get help getting into apprenticeships. When the home first opened, there was a limit to the number of boys who could stay there. But when an 11-year-old boy was found dead of malnutrition and exposure two days after ...
In 1873, Barnardo married Syrie Louise Elmslie, who would end up playing a very important role in our development as a charity. As a wedding present, they were given a lease on a 60-acre site in Barkingside, east London, where the couple opened a home for girls. Syrie was especially keen to support girls who had been driven to prostitution. Protect...
Barnardo went on to open many more children’s homes. By the time he died in 1905, the charity had 96 homes caring for more than 8,500 children, including children with physical and learning difficulties. Barnardo’s experience of caring for his daughter Marjorie, who had Down syndrome, strongly influenced his approach to the care of children with di...
Although he was famous for his children’s homes, Barnardo believed that children benefit the most from growing up in a supportive family setting. As early as 1887, he introduced the practice of ‘boarding out’ children to host families – an early form of fostering. This wasn’t a popular idea in Victorian England, but Barnardo was determined to give ...
Barnardo’s was one of many children’s charities that sent some children to start a new life in Australia or Canada from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s. At the time, this was a popular policy supported by the British government, who believed that the children would benefit from opportunities they wouldn’t have in the UK. We now know that i...
World War II was a turning point in Barnardo’s development and in the history of childcare in the UK. The disruption brought by the war caused a lot of harm on children who ended up separated from their families. As a result, Barnardo’s began working more closely with families. For example, we offered financial aid to families when a parent couldn’...
The 1960s were a time of radical social change: single parenthood was more acceptable, contraception was more widely available which meant fewer unwanted pregnancies, and a growing welfare system meant that fewer families needed to put their children into care. That meant that the need for children’s homes was decreasing, so we began to focus less ...
In the 1970s, we kept expanding our fostering and adoption services and we created family centres to support families in disadvantaged areas. In the 1980s and 1990s, we developed new ways of working with children and young people, including pioneering work supporting survivors of child sexual abuse and children affected by HIV and AIDS. One of our ...
We celebrated our 150th anniversary in 2016 with events throughout the year, including a garden party held at Buckingham Palace hosted by Her Majesty Queen Camilla (then Duchess of Cornwall). We also published a book called ‘150 Voices’ which tells the stories of 150 people who’ve been supported by us over the years.
Thomas Barnardo tells the story of his life, descibing the events that led to him setting up schools and homes for London's street children. The story is told...
Thomas John Barnardo was born in Dublin on July 4th, 1845, the son of John Michaelis Barnardo, a Prussian-born furrier, and Abigail Matilda O'Brien. The couple had married in 1837 after the death of John's first wife, Elizabeth, who was Abigail's sister and the mother of five young children.
Thomas John Barnardo (1845-1905) is a classic Victorian figure – evangelical, entrepreneurial and philanthropic. His crusade to ‘rescue children from the streets’ was one of the best known social interventions in the last half of the nineteenth century.
Thomas John Barnardo was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1845. As a young man he moved to London to train as a doctor. When he arrived, he was shocked to find children living in terrible conditions, with no access to education.
