Tag: Missions

A London Boy’s Saturday

Source: Unnamed schoolboy, quoted in T.E. Harvey, A London Boy’s Saturday (Bournville: The Saint George Press, 1906), p. 13

Text: Saturday last, I woke at seven o’clock, cleaned my boots, had a good wash, then had my breakfast, wished my mother and father good bye for the day. At eight o’clock I started to go to work at Cardwardine and Co., on one of their vans, delivering flour around Bermondsey. At three p.m. we had our dinner, and at four o’clock started on our journey. At eight p.m. I had finished my work, I called at the Leysian Mission and saw Cinematagraph [sic] scenes. I returned home at ten p.m. I had a wash, had my supper and thanked God for keeping me safe through the day and then went to sleep.

Comments: Thomas Edmund Harvey (1875-1955) was Deputy Warden of Toynbee Hall, the university settlement in London’s East End. A London Boy’s Saturday report on a survey he undertook in 1905 on how London children spent their free time, which was based on evidence from essays submitted by children as a school exercise. This boy is described as being “of better off sort”. The Leysian Mission was a Methodist institution based in City Road, and ran a range of social, medical, entertainment and evangelical activities.

A London Boy's Saturday

Source: Unnamed schoolboy, quoted in T.E. Harvey, A London Boy’s Saturday (Bournville: The Saint George Press, 1906), p. 13

Text: Saturday last, I woke at seven o’clock, cleaned my boots, had a good wash, then had my breakfast, wished my mother and father good bye for the day. At eight o’clock I started to go to work at Cardwardine and Co., on one of their vans, delivering flour around Bermondsey. At three p.m. we had our dinner, and at four o’clock started on our journey. At eight p.m. I had finished my work, I called at the Leysian Mission and saw Cinematagraph [sic] scenes. I returned home at ten p.m. I had a wash, had my supper and thanked God for keeping me safe through the day and then went to sleep.

Comments: Thomas Edmund Harvey (1875-1955) was Deputy Warden of Toynbee Hall, the university settlement in London’s East End. A London Boy’s Saturday report on a survey he undertook in 1905 on how London children spent their free time, which was based on evidence from essays submitted by children as a school exercise. This boy is described as being “of better off sort”. The Leysian Mission was a Methodist institution based in City Road, and ran a range of social, medical, entertainment and evangelical activities.

’Twixt Aldgate Pump and Poplar

Source: H.M. [Harold Murray], ’Twixt Aldgate Pump and Poplar: The Story of Fifty Years’ Adventure in East London (London: The Epworth Press, 1935), pp. 102-110

Text: It is an unforgettable experience to enter the Stepney Hall when in the semi-darkness you hear those astonishing children shrieking with laughter at some comic antics on the screen or, as a contrast, find them holding their breath as some hero or heroine is seen in a perilous position. When there is a chase after the villain – what a chorus goes up! Time after time, with indescribable feelings, I have sat among those children and marvelled at their discipline, their good behaviour; most of all at their high spirits, their capacity for seeing the funny side of everything. Only one or two workers are there, quietly walking to and fro in the dark, occasionally asking for a little less noise, never having any trouble. For a short space the little ones are lifted out of the drab life of the mean streets into all sorts of romantic exciting worlds. Then when the satisfying show is over, out they troop, in good order, to the unromantic, everyday life of the slum.

Comments: Harold Murray was a clergyman. His book is a history of the East End Mission, a mission run by the Methodist Church located in Commercial Road, Whitechapel, London. This passage describes the films shows put on for children by the Reverend F.W. Chudleigh at Stepney Hall in the 1920s/early 30s. Chudleigh had been organising film shows for children since 1909.

’Twixt Aldgate Pump and Poplar

Source: H.M. [Harold Murray], ’Twixt Aldgate Pump and Poplar: The Story of Fifty Years’ Adventure in East London (London: The Epworth Press, 1935), pp. 102-110

Text: It is an unforgettable experience to enter the Stepney Hall when in the semi-darkness you hear those astonishing children shrieking with laughter at some comic antics on the screen or, as a contrast, find them holding their breath as some hero or heroine is seen in a perilous position. When there is a chase after the villain – what a chorus goes up! Time after time, with indescribable feelings, I have sat among those children and marvelled at their discipline, their good behaviour; most of all at their high spirits, their capacity for seeing the funny side of everything. Only one or two workers are there, quietly walking to and fro in the dark, occasionally asking for a little less noise, never having any trouble. For a short space the little ones are lifted out of the drab life of the mean streets into all sorts of romantic exciting worlds. Then when the satisfying show is over, out they troop, in good order, to the unromantic, everyday life of the slum.

Comments: Harold Murray was a clergyman. His book is a history of the East End Mission, a mission run by the Methodist Church located in Commercial Road, Whitechapel, London. This passage describes the films shows put on for children by the Reverend F.W. Chudleigh at Stepney Hall in the 1920s/early 30s. Chudleigh had been organising film shows for children since 1909.