BARNARDO THOMAS JOHN: (1845-1905) Irish Philanthropist, the founder and director of homes for poor children. A very ...

BARNARDO THOMAS JOHN: (1845-1905) Irish Philanthropist, the founder and director of homes for poor children. A very fine, rare manuscript D.S., Thos. J Barnardo, four pages, folio, Stepney Causeway, Ratcliff, London, 13th January 1877, on the printed stationery of the East End Juvenile Mission. The document is in the form of a letter to Orlando Reeves Prankhard and outlines his contract of employment as the Medical officer of the Infirmary in Stepney Causeway and Medical Superintendent of the Mission and states, in part, 'The practical and thorough oversight and professional care of the Infirmary for sick children in Stepney Causeway and of the girls in Church House Home Bow Road whenever that last Institution shall be placed under your care. Your duties will include at least two professional visits to the Infirmary and Home each day…..Upon the occasion of each visit each patient will be seen and attended to and if no dispenser be appointed the medicines dispensed by you…..You undertake….to lose no opportunity of speaking earnest words of Christian exhortation to the patients whom you shall see in private and also to undertake the responsibility of the daily address to be delivered to the patients collectively…..You will undertake the periodical inspection (say once a month) of the sanitary arrangements of our various Institutions…..In the event of epidemics prevailing…..you will of course feel it to be your duty to give unceasing personal attention to the special necessities of the case. You will institute and carry out under my direction a thorough system of registration and ''case taking'' of all patients admitted to the Infirmary…..These services….will I am sure be conscientiously rendered by you more for the Lord's sake and for the Work's sake than for the sake of any pecuniary consideration but you have consented to receive in return for them a salary of two hundred pounds per year……You are I think fully aware that the East End Juvenile Mission…..about to be established….is carried on by means of faith and prayer and is wholly dependent under God on the free will offering of the Christian Public…..' A highly unusual document of excellent content. One small spindle hole to the upper left corner of each page, not affecting the text or signature, and some light age wear. About VG