The Memorial Cross of Miss Louisa P Skinner
In every great city of wealth, you can also find great poverty if you know where to look. Our next Everton Cemetery Grave story, focuses on circumstances, and a time, which we now look back on, as one of the great injustices of the day.
There has always been poverty in our city, and the bottom rung of poverty… were the beggars of the city. In this time of our history, begging was a criminal offence, and as such, when located, this unfortunate level of society, would find themselves at the start of an uncertain future, in the city’s work/poor-houses, along with other destitute’s in and around the city, who threw their lot on the charity of the Parishes within Liverpool.
We make our way over to Section CH3 of Everton Cemetery, to find a lone, stone cross memorial to Miss Louisa P Skinner… Liverpool’s first and longest serving Matron, of The Liverpool Girl’s Industrial School, to be found on Northumberland Terrace / Everton, now long gone…
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The Irish potato famine of the 1840’s saw a large influx into the city, of poor families fleeing the hardships of life under English landlords and the great potato blight, leading to imminent starvation.
During this time of great Irish migration into the city, The Liverpool merchants and population, saw cases of begging on the city’s streets, especially amongst the children of the migrants, rise to epidemic levels, and as such, The City Fathers, held a meeting at the Town Hall, to discuss this alarming issue.
In England, the 1857 Industrial Schools Act was intended to solve problems of juvenile delinquency, by removing poor and neglected children from their home environment to a boarding school. The Act also allowed magistrates to send disorderly children to a residential industrial school. A later Act (1876) led to non-residential day schools of a similar kind.
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It was decided, that a large Industrial School, would be built, in The Kirkdale District of Liverpool, to house and train these neglected and in some cases destitute (ragged) children. The boys would be trained in the building occupations, to hopefully be entered into apprenticeships, at the age of 14/15 years of age, and the girls would be trained in domestic skills including needlework, washing and cooking, so as to prepare them, for employment into the many service jobs within the merchant and business houses in the city. All the children, would also be taught basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills, to help them in their future life. So in 1856, The Kirkdale Ragged Industrial School was founded.
The Kirkdale Industrial School
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Louisa P. Skinner, was born in 1846, and makes an appearance in the 1851 census at the age of 5, living with her mother Maria and 5 other siblings in Aylesbury. By the age of 25, in 1871, Louisa has obtained a position as an Assistant Matron, in an ‘Orphan Asylum’ sited at Marylebone/London…
In the mid 1870’s, after negative reports on the treatment of juveniles (especially girls) at the Liverpool Industrial School, the authorities decided that girls should have their own separate school, run by an all female staff. It is to this end, that Miss Louisa P. Skinner, applied, and was accepted to the position of the first Matron at the Liverpool Girls Industrial School, sited on Northumberland Terrace / Everton. On 5th January 1878, Miss Skinner began her employment as Matron (Head-Mistress).
The Girls Industrial School – Northumberland Terrace/Everton
The remit of the school, was still to train girls in the domestic arts, for employment into local houses, as servants, census records of the day, show girls as young as 6 years of age at the school, and some from areas as far as Yorkshire and Cumberland (now Cumbria). However, an alarming fact unearthed, is that when times were slow for employment prospects within the locality… children from the Industrial Schools, were commonly sent, under the British Child Migration Scheme, to all corners of the Empire, to act as servants, and hopefully populate these countries, with good British white stock.
The first reported British children, to be migrated, were in the early 1600’s sailing to Virginia/US, but this practice really took off in the 1800’s to mid 1900’s, with the last batch as recently as 1970. By this time, there were over 130,000 British children migrated abroad, to mainly Australia and Canada, but some to New Zealand and South Africa.
Two great video’s to watch about the Child Migration Scheme
On the 7th August 1901, Louisa Penelope Skinner, died at the School, after serving 23 years as Matron, and at the age of 55 years. Her role at the school is inscribed on the memorial.
There were a number of successive Matrons, appointed after Miss L. P. Skinner, but in 1928, the school closed, and another part of the city’s history faded.
A great book on the Child Migration Scheme
There was a BBC radio 4 series I heard, some years ago in 2003… Called the ‘Child Migrants’ by Charles Wheeler (4 x 30 minute episodes) you can listen to the episodes here…
My grandfather was placed in the Industrial school on Everton Terrace in 1890 when he was orphaned at the age of 9 years. His older sister and brother were only teenagers and unable to care for him and his younger brothers (they, I think, had to go into the workhouse). It seems there are no residency records we can access? The school appeared to give these boys a good grounding and my grandfather did go on to serve in the army and have a happy marriage. Before I came across this part of his life it was clear from family stories and history that supporting the family was very important to him. As a couple of his sister-in-law’s passed away in childbirth he made sure the children were looked after and he and my grandmother fostered 3 nieces alongside their own children.
Really good of you to take time to comment… There are ‘Workhouse’ records, on microfishe at the Liverpool Archives, up on the third floor of the Central Library… this could be the place to search for his records…
Thank you. Hopefully, I will be able to take a trip up there and have a look.
Hello Mal.
I would say that both of your Industrial school pictures are of the boys school, which was between Everton Terrace and Netherfield Road.
and not on your map.
Regards
Phil.
You are tight of course… I did find photos of the girls schools and they were a much small affair, sited on a row of terraced houses… I have always meant to change the photos but never got around to it lol
my grandfather was an ‘inmate’ at the Industrial School at 1 Everton Terrace after he was orphaned aged 8 and is in the 1911 census aged 14. He was rescued by his older sister when she got married a year later. The experience seemed to do him no lasting harm although he was lifelong teetotaller and non smoker and attributed this to his chaotic home life before being orphaned.
He joined the Kings Lpool Reg in 1914 (so was underage), was wounded twice at Mons and Ypres, captured in 1918 and got several medals. He went on to have ten children, was a home guard in WW2, and died aged 88 in 1985 much missed by his large family. As a lifelong LFC supporter and season ticket holder he never missed a home game and the highlight was when Bill Shankly unexpectedly visited him at home towards the end of his life.
My grandmother went from Fazakerly Home Cottages in 1913 to 57 Shaw Street, Liverpool. Her “trade” was listed as Kirkdale. DId that mean she was admitted into the Kirkdale system, or was Kirkdale a “shorthand” for her entry into an Industrial School. Four months later she was on a ship, on her own, to Canada. Did that facility at 57 Shaw Street handle her emigration? We know the family she initially worked for in Canada was on the same ship but her room was not with them. She was not part of a group of children like others in the British Home Child System. (My grandfather was.)
Thank you.
I believe my great grandfather was living at Kirkdale Industrial School at the time of the 1871 census. He would have been about 11 at that time. Would love to find out a bit more.