"About My Father's Business": Work Amidst the Sick, the Sad, and the Sorrowing

by Thomas Archer

In that big committee-room on the first floor, which we shall visit presently, there was to be seen, four or five years ago, a stupendous chimney-piece of oak, elaborately carved, and said to have been a masterpiece of Grinling Gibbons. It was taken down and sold for a handsome sum of money, to augment the funds of the Institution which now occupies the old mansion, for the door at which we enter receives other guests than those who once thronged it—suffering, depressed, poverty-stricken, weary men and women, who come here to seek the rest that is offered to them in the quiet rooms—the restoration of meat and drink and refreshing sleep, the comfort of hopeful words and friendly aid. It is named "The House of Charity," and the work that its supporters have set themselves to do is carried on so silently—I had almost said so secretly—that the stillness you observe within the building, as we stand here waiting for the lady who superintends the household, is suggestive alike of the repose which is essential to the place, and of a severe earnestness not very easy to define.

Members of the same committee, whose earnest hearty work is apparent at Newport Market and at the Soup Kitchen in Ham Yard, are helping this House of Charity, which has the Archbishop of Canterbury for its patron and the Bishop of London for its visitor.

Here, in the two large sitting-rooms opening from the hall, we may see part of what is being done, in giving rest to the weary and upholding them who are ready to faint. One is for men, the other for women, who have been received as inmates, for periods extending from a fortnight to a longer time, according to the necessities of each case, and the probability of obtaining suitable employment. Of course the aid is intended to be only temporary—though in some peculiar cases it is continued till the applicant recovers from weakness following either uninfectious illness or want. There can be, of course, no actual sick-nursing here; but in a warm and comfortable upper room, near the dormitory, which we shall see presently—a room which is the day-nursery of a few children who are also admitted—I have seen young women, one who was suffering from a consumptive cough, another an out-patient at an hospital for disease of the hip, and wearing an instrument till she could be admitted as a regular case. They were both sitting cosily at their tea, and were employed at needlework, as most of the women are who find here a temporary home. For it is one of the beneficent results of an influential committee, that a number of cases are sent to hospitals or to convalescent homes, and so are restored; but till this can be done they are fed and tended—fed with food more delicate than that of the ordinary meal—and are allowed to rest in peace and to regain strength.

But we are still in the men's sitting-room, where several poor fellows are looking at the lists of advertisements in the newspapers for some announcement of a vacant situation. A supply of books is also provided both for men and women, and the latter are just now engaged in mending or making their clothes.

Between thirty and forty inmates can be received at one time, and those who are in search of employment, or who require to go out during the day, may leave the house after breakfast, and return either to dinner or to tea. There are, indeed, few restrictions when once preliminary inquiries and the recommendation of a member of the committee result in the admission of an applicant; and it is easy to see how deeply and thankfully many of these poor depressed men and women, beaten in the battle of life, with little hope of regaining a foothold, weak, dispirited, destitute, and with no strength left to struggle under the burden that weighs them down, find help and healing, food and sleep, advice, and very often a recommendation which places them once more in a position of comfort and independence. A large proportion of those who are admitted are provided with situations either permanently or for a period long enough to enable them to turn round the difficult corner from poverty and dependence to useful and appropriate employment. Some are sent to Homes, hospitals, or orphanages, and many return to their own homes. From those homes they have wandered, hoping to find the world easier than it has proved to be, and in going back to them they have fallen by the wayside.

There are sometimes remarkable varieties here—emigrants waiting for ships to sail that will bear them to another land; men of education, such as tutors, engineers, engravers, and professional men, who have been unsuccessful, or have lost their position, often through no immediate fault of their own. Of course, the large class of genteel poverty is largely represented in the five or six hundred cases which make the average number of yearly inmates. Clerks, shopmen, and travellers are about as numerous as servants, porters, and pages. Poor women, many of whom are ladies by birth or previous position and education, find the House of Charity a refuge indeed, and feel that the person who has charge of the household arrangements, as well as those who have charge of the inmates, the accounts and correspondence, may be appealed to with an assurance of true sympathy. Here, beside the two sitting-rooms, is a large room which we will call the refectory; it is plainly furnished, with separate tables for men and women, and the quantity and description of the food supplied is such as would be provided in a respectable and well-ordered family—tea or coffee and plenty of good bread-and-butter morning and evening, meat, bread and vegetables, for dinner, and a supper of bread and cheese. There are no "rations," nor any special limit as to quantity, and if one could forget the distress which brings them hither, the family might be regarded as belonging to some comfortable business establishment, with good plain meals and club-room on each side the dining-hall for meeting in after working hours.

Let us go upstairs, and look at the dormitories, which occupy respectively the right and left side of the building, and we shall see that they are so arranged as to secure that privacy, the want of which would be most repulsive to persons of superior condition. Each long and lofty room is divided into a series of enclosures or cabins by substantial partitions about eight feet high, and in each of these separate rooms—all of which are lighted by several windows or by gas-branches in the main apartment—there is a neat comfortable bed and bedstead, with space for a box, a seat, and a small table or shelf.

A resident chaplain or warden conducts morning and evening prayer in the chapel, which is built on part of the open area at the back of the building; and I would have you consider, not only that to many of these weary souls this sacred spot may come to be associated with that outcome to renewed life for which their presence in the Institution gives them reason to hope, but that it is most desirable for the invalids, who frequently form so large a portion of the congregation, to be able to attend worship without practically leaving the house.

Not only because of the sick and the physically feeble, however, does the House of Charity represent a work that needs vast extension.

The case-book would reveal a series of stories none the less affecting because they are entered plainly, briefly, and without waste of words. They need few touches of art to make them painfully interesting. They tell of ladies, wives of professional men, brought to widowhood and sudden poverty; of men of education cast adrift through failure or false friendship, and not knowing where to seek bread; of children left destitute or deserted under peculiar circumstances; of women removed from persecution, and girls from the tainted atmosphere of vice; of weary wanderers who, in despair of finding such a shelter, and dreading the common lodging-house, have spent nights in the parks; of foreigners stranded on the shore of a strange city; of ministers of the gospel brought low; of friendless servant-girls, ill-treated, defrauded of their wages, or discharged almost penniless, and cast loose amidst the whirlpool of London streets.