Our blog takes a look at some of Lord Shaftesbury’s remarkable nineteenth-century achievements for those at the margins of society and asks if the ‘poor man’s earl’ would recognise his legacy in 21st-century Livability.
Creating work opportunities
What did Lord Shaftesbury do?
In 1844, Lord Shaftesbury became president of the Ragged School Union, bringing together charity schools which provided street children with education and often life’s essentials such as food and clothing.
Early on, the Ragged School Union stated its aim of ‘removing every ragged, destitute child from our streets, and to the placing of that child in the path of industry and virtue.’ Lord Shaftesbury and his tireless team of workers, mostly volunteers from local churches, set up industrial and commercial schools. These trained children and young people for paid work; shoeblacking, tailoring and shoemaking are just a few examples.
Lord Shaftesbury said that he and the ragged schools were indebted to support from ‘missioners’ from the London City Mission. Often working men from poor neighbourhoods themselves, the missioners were welcomed in London’s slums and could invite children there to join a local ragged school.
The seventh earl also pioneered what would now be termed microfinance schemes. This enterprise enabled those in poverty to buy equipment, such as a jacket potato oven, which previously they had been forced to rent, expensively. One such scheme, the Emily Loan Fund, was set up by the earl in memory of his beloved wife, who died in 1872. This fund supported young girls and women who sold flowers or watercress on the streets. Often the poorest of the poor and subject to abuse and neglect, the loans enabled the girls to buy stock which they sold during the winter months, when fresh produce was out of season.
This initiative crossed over with John Groom’s work, a Victorian co-founder of today’s Livability, who set up silk flower-making workshops. The fashionable flowers provided year-round income for destitute, and often disabled, girls and women, and John Grooms went on to open residential homes and workshops to support women and girls in poverty.
> Read more on our history
What does Livability do today?
Education
Preparing children and young people with disabilities for work, whether paid or voluntary, is at the heart of the curriculum at Livability’s three education centres. This continues on into Livability’s adult services, where people with disabilities who want to work are supported to find openings into employment.
Our special FE centre Livability Millie College concentrates on an enterprise curriculum, which equips students with the core skills they need for the world of work – paid work, apprenticeship or volunteering. Students can choose topics they’re interested in, including catering, horticulture, animal welfare and nature conservation.
Enterprise manager Annabelle Pearsall says the next step is opening an onsite café on Millie’s conservation countryside site, very popular with local walkers. ‘Initially I think this will concentrate on a few things we do really well, like amazing cakes and good coffee – we plan to train students as baristas. Students can cook cakes in the week and then we might start opening at weekends. Students are enjoying being at Millie so much, some of them don’t want to go home on a Friday, so I think there’ll be willing volunteers to help run the café!’
> Read more on Millie College teaching
Adult Care
Our adult care services are experts at enabling people we support to find, apply, travel to and keep jobs, something which many people with a learning disability need if they are to get into the job market. Despite only 54 per cent being employed, compared to 87 per cent of able-bodied people¹, Livability staff are experienced at getting people into work. At Livability South-East, five out of ten residents are in work and are thriving as a result. ‘Having a job makes me feel more confident in myself,’ says Bob. The best thing about Livability is having staff to support me in many different ways, anytime I need.’ Stacey agrees: ‘Having a job feels amazing! I enjoy talking to people I wouldn’t normally get to talk to.’
Area manager Talea notices the boost that working gives to people her team supports: ‘People feel they have a purpose, that life is more fulfilling, they’re giving back to the community and it boosts their confidence,’ Talea says. ‘It’s proving to society that your capabilities or disabilities needn’t disqualify you; if you put your mind to it, you can achieve it. It’s breaking down some of those barriers.’
> Read more on workplace inclusivity
Education
What did Lord Shaftesbury do?
Lord Shaftesbury, and the hundreds of people who volunteered with the Ragged School Union, saw education as the best way to lift the desperately poor out of poverty. The schools met wherever they could find space, were often very crowded and usually met in the evening because many pupils were working on the street during the day. Lord Shaftesbury recorded the status of the 260 attending one school he visited, aged from five to 20 years. Of these, 42 were orphans; seven were children of convicts; 27 had been in prison; 36 had run away from home; 41 lived by begging; 29 never slept in a bed and 17 had no shoes or stockings.²
Attending a ragged school, in this era before any state-funded education, gave the children a basic education in reading, writing, arithmetic and study of the Bible, as the RSU was strongly motivated by a practical Christian faith. The first annual report, in 1845, noted 20 schools, 2,000 children and 200 teachers. The 24th report, in 1868, reported 257 schools with 31,357 scholars.³
Why is Livability’s work needed today?
21st-century disability can too easily equate poverty: seven million people in poverty in the UK are either disabled or live with a disabled person – nearly half of everyone in poverty.4 ; a recent thinktank report states that ‘the UK is in danger of slipping back into a Victorian-age gap between mainstream society and an impoverished underclass’.5
> Watch Livability Victoria School students as they experience what the Ragged School life was like…
It’s still all too easy for children with disabilities to fail to flourish in education because of lack of suitable provision. This is especially true for students wishing to go on to higher education. Only 19% of disabled adults have a degree or above, compared with 35% of non-disabled adults.6 Livability bucks this trend, educating students with physical and learning disabilities and autism, aged three to 25-plus. Our three education centres, in south-east London and Poole, and all rated ‘good’ by Ofsted, provide highly specialised education for all abilities. Staff and in-house therapy teams create the best learning environment for each student, adjusting factors such as equipment needed, physiotherapy which improves students’ physical health and enables them to concentrate for longer, and wellbeing input to make sure each student is flourishing.
Take Oliver, who is part of Livability Victoria School’s newest class, an early years’ intake for children with autism. His mum Alba explains how things were when Oliver, now six, started at Victoria School: ‘We hoped that the school would be good for him, but they’ve exceeded our expectations in so many ways. The first day we dropped him off, the staff were just like “go and have a nice day, we’ve got it”. And I thought, well, I’m not sure. Because you don’t know Oliver.’ Alba was used to Oliver’s previous school calling regularly, to take Oliver home. ‘But Victoria haven’t called us once in a year. In a whole year,’ she says.
‘Oliver has had a year where everything came on in leaps and bounds,’ says dad Amyn. ‘He’s still not speaking, but he understands so much more. He’s in a better place to learn, like establishing connections with signing. Before, we would try 1,000 times to teach him a sign. Now we can show him something twice and then the third time he’ll do it himself and he knows exactly what it means.’
> Read more on Oliver’s progress
Faith
What did Lord Shaftesbury do?
A practical and inclusive Christian faith was foundational to Lord Shaftesbury and his volunteers’ work. Poverty and neglect were no barrier to joining a ragged school; many other charity schools rejected destitute children because of their woefully ragged condition and appearance. Of all his charitable work and landmark parliamentary achievements, the ragged school work was particularly precious to Lord Shaftesbury, who wrote: ‘If the ragged school system was to fail, I should not die in the course of nature, I should die of a broken heart.’7 Whilst Christian charity was in vogue in Victorian society, for Lord Shaftesbury this was a deeply felt and personal mission. In 1866, he turned down three great offices of state because he felt his primary commitment to social welfare, and the improvement of humanity, was his calling from God.
What does Livability do today?
Following Lord Shaftesbury’s example, Livability continues to have a dynamic and inclusive Christian ethos, welcoming people from all faiths and none, whether as people we support, staff or supporters. Our Christian ethos is in our DNA – it’s why we were founded in 1844 and it’s why we still exist today.
As well as faith being expressed in the quality and compassion of the way we provide our services, coupled with the value Livability places on each person, people we support can turn to our chaplaincy service, which supports people’s spiritual lives in a number of ways. Our chaplaincy manager welcomes Christians to a monthly Chaplaincy Group on Zoom for prayer, bible study and worship. A thrice-yearly prayer diary guides users through prayer topics pertinent to the charity’s work.
When asked about the Chaplaincy sessions, residents at Livability Bradbury Court said: “I like the session, it makes me feel positive.” “I like to participate in prayer and especially pray for my Mum and Dad.”
Our chaplaincy manager, who builds relationships with many people in our services, is also available for support at challenging times of life such as end of life, or to lead celebrations at Christmas and Easter.
Further reading
¹https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7540/CBP-7540.pdf
²https://theceme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Lord-Shaftesbury-talk.pdf
³https://theceme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Lord-Shaftesbury-talk.pdf
4Joseph Rowntree Foundation
5Centre for Social Justice: Two Nations report
6Joseph Rowntree Foundation
7Battiscombe, Georgina (1974). Shaftesbury: A Biography of the Seventh Earl, 1801-1885. Constable. ISBN 9780094578401.