| AdminHistory | Measures to protect children from exploitation in the workplace had slowly been introduced by the state from through a host of Factory Acts and other legislation during the nineteenth century. Similarly, responsibility for their education had been finally taken away from the Church and altruistic employers by the state under the Education Act of 1870. From as early as the middle of the nineteenth century child criminals and later (after the Industrial Schools Act of 1854), children whose parents could simply not support them, or whose parents were considered as being a morally corrupting influence were sent to Industrial Schools to be taught a practical trade and discipline. These schools were later to become Borstals.
With the Local Government Act of 1929 the responsibility of poor relief fell upon the City Council, which in turn set up the Public Assistance Committee to co-ordinate its policy. The Public Assistance Committee ran several homes for aged men, aged women, the infirm and sick, vagrants, the mentally ill, and also children (see BCC/1/CD).
In the 1930s, responsibility for the children’s homes was passed to the Education Committee (see BCC/1/BH). With the creation of the parliamentary care of children committee in 1945, following the death of 13-year-old Dennis O'Neill at the hands of his foster parents and the passing of the National Assistance Act in 1948, the Children’s Act, of the same year, established a Children's Committee and a Children's Officer in each local authority.
The general responsibility of the Local Authority was simply the welfare, health, education and safety of children, with or without homes from birth to the age of 18. The Children’s Committee was one part of this child welfare strategy, but saw its own central function as integrating the work of its own and other relevant committees. Therefore, the Children’s Committee sought representation on its committee from these other relevant committees, namely the Education Committee and the Public Health and Maternity and Child Welfare Committee (see BCC/1/BM), in order to give and seek 'advice…on matters which relate specifically to both departments'. In 1948, the Interim Children’s Committee saw examples of this co-operation as; for education, the provision of schooling, youth clubs, social services (under the Education Act, 1944) and the provision of education for the 'handicapped or maladjusted child'; for health, matter to do with dietetics, the physical development of children, sleep and living space.
The functions of the Children’s Committee, according to the Children’s Act, were to provide and administer residential homes of all types. The committee took over the Erdington Cottage Homes (including annexes at Garth and Caerynwch, Wales), Shenley Fields Cottage Homes, the Working Boys’ Homes, Vauxhall and the Girls Hostel, Bristol Road, Birmingham. It also took over the residential nurseries at Oaklands, Droitwich; Perry Villa, Great Barr; Pype Hayes; Wassell Grove, Stourbridge; Meadway, Stechford; Flint Green, Acocks Green, Red House, Overbury and Hawthorne House.
The committee was also responsible for the boarding out of children (from infancy to 18 years of age) without homes of their own and to provide after care. Further, as a result of the Adoption of Children Act, 1949, the major responsibility for adoption came to the committee from 1 July 1950. These powers were further extended by the Adoption Act, 1958, which allowed the Council to arrange adoption even for children not in their care.
The committee was supported by the Children’s Department, under an appointed Children’s Officer. As a result of the Local Authority Social Services Act, 1970, the Children’s Committee and the Welfare Committee (BCC 1/ were merged into the new Social Services Committee (see BCC/1/DJ). |