Kingswood Reformatory
Opened in 1852, rebuilt and reopened 1892. It was intended for the reformation of boys convicted of criminal practices. Money for their upkeep originally came from voluntary contributions, except for 7shillings a week for boys sent by the Government. Later it came from the Treasury and the County or Borough authorities. Boys were detained there for 3 years or more.
Children were sent from the following Institutions as well as from the Workhouses:
Park Row Industrial School for Boys - opened in 1859
Carleton House Industrial School for Girls - opened in 1874
Clifton Day Industrial School - opened in 1851
Red Lodge Reformatory for Girls - opened in 1854
Kingswood Reformatory for Boys - opened in 1852
St James Ragged School. opened 1846 by Mary Carpenter, it eventually became
St. James Back Day Industrial School.
The Bristol Emigration Home for Girls - opened in 1881 by Annie Macpherson at 9 Bishop Road, St Pauls. The home moved to Parkfield House, Beaufort Road, then in 1891 to Leigh Road South, 3 Aberdeen Road and finally in 1901 to 25 Richmond Terrace, Clifton. This home also accepted boys under 8 years of age. Both boys and girls were prepared for emigration.
John Wesley heard of the troubles of Kingswood and did much to help the people and began his mission by erecting a small Chapel called The Old School in 1746. It stood in 12 acres of land off Two Mile Hill Road. Realising the need for education, he built a School nearby to house 100 boys, who were principally the sons of Methodist Ministers. This School proved to have been a great influence in the district, but in later years it was moved out to New Kingswood, Bath, where it is now one of the important Schools of Methodism.
In 1852 this building and land were for sale. Standing as it did in these acres, it was exactly the type of School that Mary Carpenter (one of our great Bristol Reformers) needed for her Agricultural Reformatory school, her idea being that the young offenders should not go to prison but should be sent to a school where they would have to work and where the influence of those in charge would help them to become good citizens. Mary Carpenter was helped in this venture by Lady Byron and Mr. Scott Russell who made it possible for her to have the use of the premises and so one autumn evening, a cart laden with bedding, with a small boy perched on the top of it, could be seen slowly making its way through the grounds to the house. This small boy on the cart was the first inmate of the Reformatory School.
Mary Carpenter’s idea proved so effective that Reformatory Schools were started in various parts of the country and they revolutionised the prison system for dealing with young offenders.
She began to study the situation in other countries - and some of the key reform programmes that had been developed. In 1851 Mary Carpenter published her essay on reform schools: Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes and for Juvenile Offenders and called a conference in Birmingham to discuss the institutional care of young offenders. There was a lot of interest in her proposals and in 1852 she opened her own reformatory for boys at Kingswood to experiment with and publicize her ideas. Two years later she started a reform school for girls close by in Red Lodge (an Elizabethan building that had fallen into disrepair). She was also active on the writing front, publishing in 1853, Juvenile Delinquents, their Condition and Treatment.
Her work was influential - in part affecting the writing of Youthful Offenders Act 1854 (which recognized such schools). Later her lobbying helped lead to the passing of the Industrial Schools Acts 1857, 1861, and 1866. Mary Carpenter also opened a workmen's hall and was later to publish a book on the convict system (1864}.
In addition to this field of work, Mary Carpenter was well known for her interest in Indian affairs, and in the space of ten years (between 1866 and 1876) made four visits there. She was especially concerned with the education of women and penal policy. In 1870 she founded the National India Association (1870) and pressured British governments for reform. She was an advocate of higher education for women and became convinced of the need for women to be involved in public life.
Mary Carpenter remained single, but adopted a daughter in 1858. She died in 1877.
A child, under 14 years of age, could be sent to an Industrial School for begging, wandering, consorting with thieves or prostitutes or because the parents deemed him/her uncontrollable. If a child was found gulity of a more serious offence or had been before the courts previously he/she was usually sent to a Reformatory School. Sometimes these institutions were used as both Industrial and Reformatory School, for example Feltham. Both institutions gave basic education to the inmates and taught them a trade such as shoemaking, tailoring, wood chopping, carpentry and farming, for the boys and, cookery, laundry and house chores for the girls.
KINGSWOOD BOYS REFORMATORY SCHOOL, BRISTOL
Founded in September 1852 by Mary Carpenter and Russell Scott. Certified 4th October 1854 for 150 boys. Re-certified July 1892 for 120 boys.
Initially the boys were in a former Wesleyan College, and later in a purpose-designed building. It became an Approved School from 1933.
Auxiliary Home - Fairlawn, Montague Hill, Bristol certified 9th June 1903 for 20 boys.
STAFF
1866 - Mr Barker and his wife; schoolmaster Mr Hallett
1867 - Superintendent Mr Barker and his wife; schoolmaster Mr England
1868 - Superintendent Mr Barker and his wife
1869 - Superintendent Mr Barker
1872 - Superintendent Captain Knox; schoolmaster Mr Williams; assistant Mr Herditch
1884 - Superintendent Colonel N. Lowis; matron Mrs Cock; schoolmaster Mr Cock
1891 - Superintendent Mr R.W. Jerram; head schoolmaster Mr C. Hicks; matron Mrs Hicks; assistant teacher Mr A Babington; cook and bandmaster Mr G. Bowler
1893 - Superintendent and matron Mr & Mrs S.E. Whitwell; (Mr Whitwell succeeded Mr Jerram as superintendent) schoolmaster Mr Verity; assistant schoolmaster Mr Rex; cook and bandmaster Mr Bowler; farm bailiff Mr Jas. Wheatley; general assistant Mr Millman; nurse and laundress Mrs Millman.
1897 - Superintendent Geo. Whitwell; Schoolmaster William Verity
1900 - Superintendent and matron Mr & Mrs George Whitwell; assistant matron Miss Currie; head schoolmaster Mr D. Whitehead; assistant schoolmaster Mr E.A. Saunders, appointed 12th December 1899 to succeed Mr Fort who left in October 1899; carpenter and manual instructor Mr Roberts; shoemaker and gymnastic instructor Mr Andrews; tailor Mr Thompson; bandmaster Mr Churchill
1903 - Superintendent and matron Mr & Mrs George Whitwell; schoolmaster Mr H.M. Williams; Mr E.C. Whitehouse, assistant schoolmaster left 4th July 1902 and was succeeded by Mr B Andrews (1st class Army cert.) 15th July 1902.
The year was 1852, two years prior had seen the death of the 'father' of the British Police Force, Sir Robert Peel. Internationally, a fairly insignificant year, although independence had been granted to the Transvaal, while on the Home Front, Aberdeen, Disraeli and Russell seemed to have had trouble in forming a stable Government. It is against this background that the Kingswood story starts, in an England where the popular theory was that a delinquent boy was an abnormal creature, full of vice and depravity and the correct way of treating such a child was to administer severe retributive punishment.
Up to 1852 boys and girls were being sent to prisons, there was no other way to deal with young offenders, a typical case — taken from James Acland's News Pamphlet, 1827:
'Justice Room, Failand Inn: George Marshall, a boy of 13 years, was charged with having stolen a small bunch of lilac from a shrubbery in the neighbourhood of Pill. The offence was proved and, indeed confessed. The magistrates ordered him to pay the costs and then be discharged. The lad's mother declared she had no means of paying the four shillings and stated that she had a daughter at the point of death. The magistrate directed the clerk to make out the commitment of the prisoner for six weeks to the treadmill.'
'Fortunately there were some kind people in court, if not on the bench — who made up the cost and the boy of thirteen did not go to prison to work on the notorious treadmill. One of the magistrates was a clergyman, the Rev. W. Lewis!'
Later records show that a child who had set fire to a barn was convicted of felony and duly hanged. It was said at the time that the act had been committed 'with malice, revenge, craft and cunning' that child was eight years old!
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