Case 941

In August 1890 the Revd Rudolf wrote requesting that A. be transferred immediately to St Chad's Home for Girls, Far Headingley. This did not happen. On 12 August 1890 A. was transferred to a Marylebone Home, possibly in Blandford Square. It is not clear whether this was one of the Society's Homes: it seems likely that it was not. She went to a situation in Dover with children from the Home. A letter from Hemel Hempstead written on 8 September [1890] records that A. had left her situation and was thought to have gone to her sister in Woolwich. It was hoped to persuade her to go into service in a good house otherwise her future was uncertain and the writer of the letter felt that "if we lose her now we lose her altogether". On 16 September A. was at back in Blandford Square, Marylebone with a Miss Lee who was going to get her a situation. A. is next heard of in June 1894. She was in a Female Mission in Greenwich, pregnant and destitute. She did not know the father of the baby and "her friends were bad". The Committee of the Mission had decided that she must go into the Workhouse, but before this happened it was decided to ask the Waifs and Strays' Society if they could help in any way. The woman who had been living with A's father had just gone into the Workhouse with her children as A's father had left them and it was not thought desirable for A. to be with them. If A. went to the Workhouse it might be the "ruin of her" but she needed financial help for any other course of action. No Home would take a pregnant girl without payment. There is no record of the Society's reply on the file.

M. remained at the Hemel Hempstead Home until she went into service in Harrow on 31 March 1894. On 27 April 1895 she was readmitted to the Home and from subsequent correspondence it appears that she stole money from her employer. There was a dispute lasting some months about the exact amount which was taken, the employer claiming that it was a much greater sum than the girl would admit to. M. was sent out to another situation in Hemel Hempstead on 23 May 1895. In late 1895 M. came back to the Home because she was ill. She was treated in the West Herts Infirmary for a gastric ulcer and it was proposed to send her to a convalescent home at St Leonards on Sea for a change of air. Her employer was concerned about her and was willing to have her back. On 7 March 1896 M. was sent to a farm in Hemel Hempstead but she was removed in April as it was too rough and she had difficulty in getting to Church. It was decided to send her to Bayswater to be a housemaid. On 10 August 1896 M. returned to the Hemel Hempstead Home. There is an undated [1896?] newspaper clipping in the file concerning M's employer who was sentenced to hard labour for acts of gross indecency. He had been convicted in September 1894 for indecently assaulting a young servant girl but had been released from his term of imprisonment by the Home Secretary apparently in consequence of ill health.