Together Trust Archive

After the last few days of snow and ice I felt a need for my thoughts to turn to warmer days and the approach of spring (a little premature but a delightful thought all the same!) And what better way to do that then to revert back across to Birkdale and have another look at our dear old summer camp and the thousands of children who were given a much needed break by the seaside. Summer Camp, Birkdale, 1900s

We told a story all the way back in 2011 about twelve lads who set sail from our orphans homes across to Northfield in Massachusetts under the guardianship of the well known preacher Dwight Lyman Moody . The recent digitisation of our orphan home books by Borthwick Archives , at the end of last year, has revealed more information about the younger children who entered our homes, including the individual circumstances of the Moody party. 

Somehow we find ourselves in 2015. I was reminded yesterday on Twitter (quite ashamedly) that the charity had turned 145 years old. England has changed a great deal in those 145 years but unfortunately not quite enough for the Together Trust to no longer be needed. It seems apt today to have a look at how the Refuge was viewed back in 1870 when it first began and how it fulfilled a need, long felt in Manchester, of providing a home and temporary employment for the destitute lads of the city.  First Home, Quay Street