NSPCC celebrates 125 years of helping vulnerable children

Leading child protection charity, the NSPCC, celebrates it 125 year anniversary this month.

Since its early beginnings, the charity has helped over 10 million children.

It started off after churchman Benjamin Waugh wandered the streets of London’s slums in 1884. He was appalled by the lives many children were suffering. The sight of starving, rag-clad children treated worse than animals was too much for him, and he set up what became the NSPCC.

The first prosecutions for animal cruelty had already taken place sixty years earlier but there was no such protection for children.

In 1889 the Children’s Charter was brought in, making the harming of a child and offence.
The law was policed by inspectors, usually ex-policemen or army officers. They handled cases from all areas of society, relying on information from neighbours.

The children they helped had often been hit with a variety of objects including hammers, whipped with leather straps, sticks and belts. Some were branded with red-hot pokers, made to sit on burning stoves, hung from ceilings and thrashed or locked in rat infested cellars.

One seven-year-old girl who had slept rough with her mother for months had to have both legs amputated after they became gangrenous because her boots had never been taken off. In another early case neighbours alerted the NSPCC after discovering an eight-year-old boy who was regularly tied-up with rope, drugged and put inside an orange box stuffed under a bed while his mother went to work.

The first regional branch of the NSPCC to open was in Bristol, in 1887.

Head of the NSPCC’s Helpline, John Cameron said: “Child cruelty was pretty rife in Victorian days but many people wanted to help the NSPCC inspectors because they were horrified by the treatment meted out to helpless youngsters. They would often go and tell them what was going on, or in some cases send a letter or a postcard to the NSPCC head office asking someone to help.

“Times have changed but we still have cases of dreadful cruelty, such as Baby Peter, and we still rely on members of the public to call us when they think a child is being ill-treated.

“No one person or organisation can look after all vulnerable children. Everyone has to take a share of the responsibility. Benjamin Waugh recognised that and it still stands true today.”

In Bristol the charity operates the Bristol Schools Team which provides counselling, support and advice to pupils and teachers across 10 schools within the city.

The NSPCC Helpline can be contacted on 0808 800 5000 and children and young people can call ChildLine on 0800 1111.