Family Detective

This week we found one of our clients' more elusive ancestors on board the Shaftesbury Training Ship, anchored near Grays in Essex. Scrawled across the 1891 census page were the words: "Under legal detention to the age of 16 years according to the Industrial Schools Act of 1866 and Safeguard Act".

Named after the founder of Training Ships, Lord Shaftebsury, the Shaftesbury was commissioned as a training school for "unmanageable boys" of 14 or younger, with the aim of getting them off the streets, where most were scratching an illegal living by begging or stealing, and giving them a useful skill. The British Medical Journal of 1903 says of the boys: "At first youths who have lived their lives running wild in the gutters and slums pine very much for their liberty, but once this feeling has worn off they lead comparatively happy lives and become contented."

The boys would be scrubbed and given a hair cut and a new suit of clothes as well as the opportunity to learn a skill (our boy became a Sailmaker), and participate in sports, music and lessons. The boys were given three meals a day, which included bread, butter, potatoes, cocoa and jam or marmalade with meat pie on a Wednesday and fish on Friday.