| Description | The report book contains handwritten reports of the Missionary appointed by the Church of the Messiah Home Mission. The reports are essentially itineraries of the Missionary's visits of various houses in the neighbourhood of the church, and provide powerful accounts of slum life in central Birmingham during the 1880s, displaying the feelings of those who worked with some of Birmingham's poorest families. He describes families who were starving and destitute, widows bringing up families of children without a steady income and orphaned children who were brought up by neighbours, and the sense of relief many felt when he visited. The Missionary described various attempts to induce children from poor families back to the church schools, as well as trying to provide assistance to parents who suffered ill-health or unemployment, even assisting one or two who emigrated abroad. |