Stevenson Orphange- backup documents

‘Sunday at Home'

by the Religious Tract Society, 1 Jan 1870 (vol. 17, pp.74-5).  Transcribed by Paul Orton.

A kind-hearted man, who spent much of his spare time in visiting the poor, found a family who had been deprived of both parents by cholera. They were interesting children, and as helpless as it was possible to be. There was no prospect before them but the workhouse. He determined to save them from this last alternative; and succeeded by great effort in procuring admission for the two elder girls into an orphan home, but he found that the youngest was not old enough for admission to any institution, except by the expensive and uncertain ordeal of an election. In this emergency he resolved to place her with a Christian family, and himself pay for her support. From this simple incident, which occurred not fourteen years ago, arose the Female Orphans' Home at Rickmansworth.

Joseph Stevenson, the founder, died in the autumn of last year; known to comparatively small circle, yet his life affords a remarkable illustration of what one man may accomplish for the good of others even while engaged in the ordinary pursuits of business. He had long been occupied in works of usefulness, and had already established a free day school for the poor children of his neglected neighbourhood, when he undertook the cause of the orphans. It soon became known that Mr. Stevenson had rescued the three children from the workhouse, and applications one after another came on behalf of other orphan children- children who had no influential friend to take them by the hand and endeavour to secure their admission, at a great cost of time and money, into an ordinary orphanage. His heart pitied them. He was impressed, moreover, with the many passages of Scripture relating to fatherless children. These were his words:-
"Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the responsibility of the Lord's people with respect to other classes of our fellow-creatures, there can be none as it regards their obligations to destitute orphan children. Throughout the word of God these are spoken of as the objects of His special care." As his faith increased, he would say,- "Should it not, then, be regarded as a privilege by those who love God, and to whom he has given the means, to assist as far as it lies in their power in any reasonable effort to provide for the subjects of so many precious promises?"

Under these feelings he resolved to establish a home,- which soon grew into an institution, and bore the name of the "Female Orphans' Home." Year after year elapsed and saw additions to the numbers, until they amounted to forty or fifty. To these girls Mr. Stevenson became a father, and his wife a mother. His remarkable power in teaching and interesting children; his uniform kindness of manner and character; his genial disposition, secured for him the love of every child. He sought in the simplest language and by the most earnest teaching to lead them to Christ. No joy was a thousandth part so great as that which he felt and expressed when he saw their young minds drawn to the Saviour.

With the work of the orphans- the home being then situated in Elstree, in Hertfordshire- his sympathies further expanded towards the spiritually destitute of the villages and hamlets of that county. He opened schools for the village children- engaged missionaries and Scripture readers to visit the poor- distributed tracts by thousands- and no prettier sight could be seen than that of the village children running to him to receive his children's tracts, and to hear his kind words. His heart widened more and more. He resolved upon supplying parcels of tracts to the country at large- to any one needing them for distribution amongst the villages of England. Hundreds of pounds were thus spent in publishing and purchasing tracts for this purpose. His energies never flagged. He pursued his labour night and day, rising from his bed repeatedly during the night to go on with his writing and to keep up his large correspondence. No letter received by him remained unanswered. With the adopted children, who had been placed in situations of domestic service, he kept up a close communication, every such letter received by him beginning with "Dear Father," and continuing in a strain of deepest affection as well as respect for their foster parent.These children were not always orphan in the literal sense. In one case, where the mother had died by the hand of her jealous husband in a state of drunken frenzy, and the father's sentence had been commuted to transportation for life, there were four young girls left, interesting and amiable little things; but no orphan institution would receive them. The fellow-tradesmen of the unhappy man formed a deputation to Mr. Stevenson on behalf of these children. He received them, and after being maintained for several years, they were restored to their now reformed father in the distant land to which he was banished. This was not a solitary case. More than one hundred children passed through the Home, and completed their training under his care. While welcoming help from every quarter, he was, humanly speaking, the life and soul and the chief supporter of the Home. His vigorous health enabled him to accomplish work beyond the strength of other men. He was by profession an accountant, and never surrendered an appointment; yet, in addition to his city business, he contrived to collect about a thousand pounds a year for the support of the Home, and he made almost every application by letter in his own handwriting. His abstemious mode of living, his spare clothing, his entire unselfishness, amply justified the conviction that he lived not for himself but to the glory of God.

Previously to commencing the work of the Orphan Home, Mr. Stevenson was in the habit of going about the streets of the metropolis seeking to save the lost. In one of these wanderings, and on a cold night in March, he was arrested by the faint request of a girl of fourteen years of age to "buy a box of lucifers." Scarcely protected from the biting cold by the few rags she wore, and having a countenance indicating great want, and at the same time a manner far different from that of a professional beggar, he could not but pity her. He accompanied her to her home, and was horrified at the spectacle of misery which there presented itself. He gave some necessary relief, and on the next evening begged a friend to accompany him to the same abode, with a view, if possible, of rescuing the girl from beggary and inevitable vice and crime. They went: the room was in perfect darkness; one child was sitting on the floor, upon which scarcely one article of furniture stood. The girl came in, and with tearful eyes told the visitor that her mother had that day been arrested, and was then in prison, for leaving one of her starving children on the steps of the workhouse door. She was the widow of a soldier. The neighbours kindly took charge of one child, and the other was removed to one of the preventative homes of the Rescue Society. There she remained under Christian influence for some years, and by the grace of God she became "a new creature in Christ Jesus." She lived to be a useful member of society, loved and esteemed by those who knew her. Her case is but one illustration of many, of the kind of service he delighted to render.

Not long after the removal of the Home to Rickmansworth, a terrible shock fell upon the happy family. Within a few weeks' time gastric fever laid low fifteen of the girls and two of Mr. Stevenson's own children. He bore up for a time with a trustful heart; but at last himself fell a prey to the disease. Then again he rallied; but while sojourning at Ramsgate a relapse took place, and he gradually sank. His end was peace; yet it was not without a struggle that he was enabled to say of his family, and the forty-two adopted orphans then in the institution, "I leave them all to my Father's care."

Like Mr. Muller of Bristol, Mr. Stevenson made no provision for the future, deeming it a burden which did not belong to him, but to the Lord in whose care he confided. His death, therefore, brought a new anxiety to the Home, but it also evoked new sympathies, and we trust that the work he commenced will not be permitted to stop. Perhaps the most striking feature in his labours of love was the fact that they were the undertaking of an active city man.

An Orphanage at Schopwick Place

From a book describing Elstree, title and date to be established.  May have been 1889.  Photocopy provided by Elstree Museum:

Close by the church was established, about a quarter of a century ago [therefore possibly 1864] an institution which in its time has done much good work- namely the Female Orphans Home, a charity which has since been transferred to Tangley Park, near Hampton Court.  This "Home" had a very humble origin.  Towards the end of the year 1855, a private gentleman, not rich in broad acres nor in stores of gold and silver, but pursuing his business as an accountant in the City, resolved to open a "home for destitute orphan girls". He was living with his mother in this pleasant London suburb [which suburb?], when a little girl was left wholly destitute, her father and mother having perished by the cholera.  They resolved to adopt the helpless little one, and to make it the "nest-egg" of an orphanage.  They were not rich; they had no friends or relatives to "back them up," as the world speaks; they had no funds in hand; but a few pounds were soon subscribed by Christian friends, in coppers, in silver, and in gold, and the newly-adopted stranger was not allowed to be a heavy burden to her foster-parents.  Soon another helpless and shipwrecked child was cast at these hospitable doors, borne thither by "the waves of this troublesome world," and landed happily within reach of friendly aid and succour.  Then came another, and then another; and the good work was mentioned privately among friends, and subscriptions came in, apparently just as they were needed.  A few years ago the founder of the home issued a small pamphlet, or prospectus, in which he tells us that "not only has this particular effort been blessed, but the manager has reason to believe that it has been the means of leading many people to feel, and to act upon, their responsibility in this matter- a responsibility which has been constantly urged upon them from time to time in the reports which have been circulated to some extent.  Many similar homes have been opened in London and in the country; and it is hoped that the time will arrive when every destitute orphan child will be brought under home influences and sympathies, and this saved from the cold and withering blights of the union, where, from its very nature, these influences would seem to be impossible."