SECTION II 



SCOPE AND METHODS OF INVESTIGATION 



WHEN I first started upon this inquiry, I intended to confine 

 my investigations principally to the records of Poor Law 

 children ; that is to say, children brought up in Poor Law 

 institutions, or those boarded out by the same authority. 

 But the importance of keeping such records, dealing with the 

 subsequent careers of children trained in institutions, whether 

 Poor Law or otherwise, appears, until quite recently, to have 

 been underestimated by the majority of institution authorities. 

 Again, I naturally tried to restrict my investigation as far 

 as possible to institutions in my immediate neighbourhood, 

 and this necessarily limited the number of Poor Law Homes 

 at my disposal. 



At the Homes to which I first went no written records 

 were kept. 



At the Cottage Homes I next visited the superintendent 

 had been there too short a period for the records to be 

 of any value, and the previous superintendent had not kept 

 any. At first I thought I could make use of the Admission 

 and Disposal Books. But I soon found that the children 

 were so usually taken out by their parents within a year or 

 two that records of adequate length were extremely diffi- 

 cult to find. Of the first thirty cases looked through, not 

 one stayed long enough to be significant for my purpose. 

 Taking a page elsewhere at random, I found that, of the thirty 

 names it contained, nineteen had been taken out by parents 

 within a year or two, six had been transferred to the local 

 Union, one to the Infirmary, and four were unaccounted for. 

 Under these circumstances I came to the conclusion that the 



9 



