Royal Philanthropic Society
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The Royal Philanthropic Society had its origins in the St Paul's Coffee House in London in 1788 where a group of men met to discuss the problems of homeless children who were to be found begging and stealing on the streets. The Society began by opening homes where children were trained in cottage industries working under the instruction of skilled tradesmen. In 1806 the Society was incorporated by Act of Parliament, sanctioning its work with juvenile delinquents.
Archives show that by 1848 1,500 children had been helped and only 1 in 20 committed further offences. In 1849 the Society founded the Farm School for Boys at Redhill in Surrey modelled on the Mettray Penal Colony in France. The Reformatory School Act of Parliament (1854), championed by a movement supported by Charles Dickens, allowed the courts to send delinquents to the Society's reformatories instead of sending them to prison.
Concerned about the lack of hope for those who came before the courts the printer Frederic Rainer, a volunteer with the Church of England Temperance Society (CETS), wrote to them in 1876 with a five shilling donation towards a fund for rescue work in the police courts. In response the CETS appointed a missionary to Southwark court, who became the basis for the London Police Court Mission (LPCM).
Between 1880 and 1902 eight full-time LPCM missionaries were appointed and the Mission opened homes and shelters to provide vocational training. In 1907 the LPCM missionaries were appointed officers of the court who were later to be known as probation officers.
The Children and Young Person's Act (1933) introduced juvenile courts for children of 17 and younger and the Philanthropic Society's Redhill Farm School was given approved school status. In 1938 the Home Office assumed control of the probation service and the LPCM began to concentrate on hostels for probation trainees and to set up homes for children at risk, sexually abused children and for young mothers.
In 1952 the Philanthropic Society was granted royal status.
