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Archiver > UK-WORKHOUSE-HOSP > 2002-01 > 1010148435


From: Eve McLaughlin <>
Subject: Re: [UK-W&H] Frederick Herbert Cook
Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 12:47:15 +0000
In-Reply-To: <000201c1936b$8ba95a40$03000004@terry>


In message <000201c1936b$8ba95a40$>, T Cook
<> writes
>Thanks for everyones help but I have discovered the following on the 1881
>Census:
>
>Institution: "Middlesex County Industrial School" Feltham
> Census Place: Feltham, Middlesex, England
> Source: FHL Film 1341322 PRO Ref RG11 Piece 1327 Folio 130 Page 17
>
>Those at the institution were refered to as 'Inmates' and 'Detained under the
>Industrial Schools Act'.

They had been sent there by a magistrate after being caught up to some
minor kind of no good - scrumping, pinching food off a cart, begging in
the street etc - it had to be minor, not 'proper criminal', since the
lads sent to Industrial school were reckoned to be teachable and
recoverable. The lads were taught a trade and it was hoped they would go
straight when they were released. A lot did, a lot were sent off to
Australia or Canada as young adults, with a skill at their fingertips,
so they could well have prospered.
Feltham became a notorious Borstal, later renamed 'Young Offenders
Insitution', when rather more hardened boys started being sent there,
instead of prison, because they were young in age. The old Victorian
system of separating the 'recoverable' from the 'lost' ended, so the
really bads lads took over and taught the others useful skills like safe
cracking and car ringing. More recently, any 'soft' boys tended to be
bullied physically and some killed themselves rather than stand it.
The records are under Home Office - prison service (and not accessible
for any half way recent years.
--
Eve McLaughlin

Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians
Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society

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