An Industrial School
St Joseph's Home for Roman Catholic Girls started out as an Industrial School.
Industrial schools were set up by poor law authorities in the 1830s and 1840s for, amongst others, children who had been orphaned, abandoned or taken into care. These schools were generally single sex, some being exclusively for Catholic children, as most were run privately, often by religious groups.
St Joseph's Home was located in Darlington, at the corner of Carmel Road and Millbank Road, in the Boyes Hill area, the premises having initially been Cleveland College, a boarding school for boys up until 1887.
St Joseph's Home for Roman Catholic Girls started out as an Industrial School.
Industrial schools were set up by poor law authorities in the 1830s and 1840s for, amongst others, children who had been orphaned, abandoned or taken into care. These schools were generally single sex, some being exclusively for Catholic children, as most were run privately, often by religious groups.
St Joseph's Home was located in Darlington, at the corner of Carmel Road and Millbank Road, in the Boyes Hill area, the premises having initially been Cleveland College, a boarding school for boys up until 1887.
PHOTO: Cleveland College
In the fourties and fifties, the part of the building in the background was the nursery section of St Joseph's Home. |
St Joseph's Industrial School for Roman Catholic Girls was certified March 1893 for 60 girls. It was later re-certified in 1898 to accommodate 120 girls and again in 1911 for an additional 30 girls. It then became a Poor Law school in 1926 and after that St Joseph's Home, run by the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul. The home closed in 1967. The property was sold in 1968 and demolished in 1972.
The dark-haired little girl standing back right (seems to have her eyes closed) is Philomena Patricia Fleming, known as 'Pat' who, along with her sister Mary Ruby, were wards of St Joseph's in the 1920s/30s. The little girl second right in the front row is Pat's childhood friend, Norma. - Information kindly shared by Pat's daughter Patricia Lewis June 2018. -
St Joseph's Girls c. 1950
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Girls in St Joesph's often had brothers in the nearby St Peter's Home, Gainford or St Mary's Home for Boys in Tudhoe village, Spennymoor. St Mary's had started out in the late 19th century as Tudhoe Certified Poor Law School for Girls and had been built in 1898 by the Roman Catholic Church on the site of an old orphanage. In 1939 the girls were moved out to St Joseph's and St Mary's became a boys home. The home closed in 1962 and was demolished 1967/1968.