| Description | Birmingham Union founded its Boarding Out (within Unions) committee in 1910, following on from a Local Government Board Order of 1909. This Order was itself an amendment to the earlier 1889 Boarding of Children in Unions Order, which lay down the procedures to be followed by the Guardians. Prior to 1909, the Boarding Out of Children was restricted to those children who had either been orphaned or abandoned by their parents. The emphasis was also on younger children, and in order to administer the system the Guardians were encouraged to form a Boarding Out committee.
The 1909 Order made the creation of such a committee mandatory, and widened the range of eligible children to include all those who were in the Guardians' care. Furthermore, the committee was to ensure that regular visits to those homes within the Union where children were maintained were carried out - previously, such visits were only made to children who were cared for outside the Union to which they were charged.
The surviving volume of minutes contains details on those Guardians present at each meeting, along with the reports of those visiting the homes, and information on individual cases. Because of the sensitive nature of much of this material, it is currently subject to a 100-year closure period. Please consult the duty archivist for further details. |