Chapter Eighteen, ‘No Place Ever Seemed So Dear’
Chapter Eighteen, ‘No Place Ever Seemed So Dear’
‘I never knew what it was for my mother to caress me, take me to church or teach me a child’s prayer.’ Such was the experience of William Ready who had been born in a London workhouse on January 23rd i860. His father was a drunkard and thus unable to support his wife and William’s nine brothers and sisters; by 1865 both parents had died and the ten children were left orphans.
Thus William had begun the life of a waif sleeping in dustbins or the dark corners of railway arches.
Many a time [he later recorded], I have picked up a piece of orange peel as eagerly as if it had been a sixpence and I have even nibbled at cigar ends to allay the pangs of hunger. Sometimes we went into public houses to sing the comic songs we had learned on the streets, which usually paid us well... On Saturday mornings, at 4 o’clock, I used to carry the produce at Covent Garden Market, and my feet and hands were often frostbitten.
It was in this state that at the age of twelve, in 1872, William Ready was rescued by James Walk a London City Missioner connected with St George’s Church in Bloomsbury. Walk eventually arranged for Ready to go to Ashley Down.
Ready recorded:
I was not happy I can assure you, when I found myself inside the block, with the great iron gates closing behind me. I did not look upon those as my friends who had interfered with my liberty of the streets. No sooner had the doors closed when I began to feel I was in bondage and a real home-sickness came over me. I yearned for the streets of the Metropolis and the lights of London. I was as a bird in a cage and if anyone had said to me ‘You may go back,’ I should have said, ‘Thank you, Sir! You are my friend.’
William was given a bath and put into his uniform—corduroy trousers, a blue vest, coat and white collar.
Never shall I forget the day when I was first shown into the dining hall. The boys gathered around me like flies round a sugar basin and they began to pinch me and pull my hair. The bell rang and we passed to our places. For the first time in my life I was not feeling hungry. Oh! to go back to my old haunts, to the rush of cabs and buses! Two slices of bread and treacle were set before me on a little tin plate but I could not touch them. A boy said to me, ‘Don’t you want your tea?’ I answered, ‘No!’ The boys on either side of me soon finished my share.
On his first evening on Ashley Down the other boys teased him until his Irish blood rose; while tackling one boy the bully of the place came forward. William pulled off his coat and vest and launched into a spirited attack on young Curly Oliver, as he was known. Just as he was enjoying this encounter, a master entered with his cane and conducted the victor to his dormitory.
‘Your bed number is twenty-two,’ he said.
Next morning at six [Ready recalled] the bell rang to call us out and at eight we went into breakfast. The tables were laden with basins of porridge and I did not give the boys the chance of asking if I wanted my breakfast, for my appetite had returned ...
It was at this breakfast that he first heard the Bible read.
The first lesson that morning was reading: William’s master discovered that he did not know the letters of the alphabet. In the next few months, however, William Ready was taught to read well. For the first time, too, he learned about God, Christ and salvation and memorised portions of scripture. He soon became popular with the other boys, and for a while conducted a clandestine class teaching eager pupils the acrobatics of London streets. Eventually a master discovered that he had been charging those able to pay a penny postage stamp a week for his instruction. As the boys had paid of their own free will and without pressure, nothing more was said.
On one occasion, William led a gang of boys on an invasion of the masters’ dining hall in the dark to demolish the remains of their evening meal. He was caught and after the punishment had been administered ‘with the usual amount of preaching’, the master who had used the cane, had pity on the lad and gave him some sweets.
‘That,’ said Ready, ‘did more to drive the devil out of me than all the flogging and preaching.’ Indeed, towards the end of his stay on Ashley Down, a more understanding treatment produced better results and, ‘it was kindness rather than punishment that settled me down to reason and order’.
One morning in 1876 William was called out of school to see Mr French who was in charge of the department which placed boys in apprenticeship.
‘How would you like to be a flour miller, Ready?’
‘I would, yes, sir,’ answered William not knowing what the job involved in the slightest.
Before long he was measured for and provided, as was usual before a boy left, with three suits of clothes at the expense of the institution. Then came the final interview with Muller.
‘How vividly comes back to my mind that last meeting with the father of the fatherless before leaving his care! He received me kindly when I went into his prayer room at No. 3 Orphanage. Ah! what wonderful prayers had been offered there on behalf of the orphans and what remarkable answers he had there received!’
Muller put half-a-crown into his left hand and a Bible in his right.
‘You can hold tighter with your right hand than with your left, can you not?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, my lad,’ said Muller, ‘hold to the teaching of that book and you will always have something for your left hand to hold.’
Muller then asked William to kneel, and putting his hand on his head, he committed him to God’s keeping. Helping him then to his feet Muller said. ‘Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily shalt thou be fed. Good-bye, my lad, goodbye!’
As he left Ashley Down, Ready recalled that ‘my belongings were my Bible, my clothes and half-a-crown and, what was best of all, the priceless blessing of George Muller’s prayers.
‘Shall I ever forget my journey that day to Newton Abbot and my meeting with Mr Perryman, the man with a flowing beard and a straw-hat?’
‘Are you William Ready?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Well, I am your master, or your father if you like. Get into the trap, my son!’
During the seventeen-mile drive through the lovely Devon countryside to Perryman’s home at Chagford, William’s new father won his heart by his friendly and kindly conversation. William Perryman led a saintly life and it was not long before Ready himself was converted during his apprenticeship at Chagford. A few years later, he became a Free Church Minister and, moving to New Zealand, became one of that country’s most popular preachers.
Looking back on his years on Ashley Down he wrote, ‘I can see now that it was just the place for me and what a blessing it was that I was sent there. If my own children were left orphans I could wish for nothing better than that they should be trained and cared for at Muller’s.’
Nowadays, of course, it is no longer considered proper to house children in such large buildings as those Muller built on Ashley Down. Indeed, the Muller Homes today have long since felt it right to come into line with current official policy which is to house children in small house groups so that life should conform as closely as possible to a normal home atmosphere. However, by nineteenth century standards, George Muller must be considered both a pioneer and a radical. He, alone, offered modem homes to thousands of children who would otherwise have been either homeless, or sent to a workhouse or debtors’ prison, or grudgingly offered a corner in the overcrowded home of a relative. And there were no barriers to entry to Mullers’ Homes on the grounds of poverty, class or creed. Noting that admittance to other orphanages in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was normally gained, not according to the relative needs of the child, but upon personal recommendation or by a majority of votes at the periodic meetings of subscribers, Kathleen Heasman has credited Muller with leading the way in giving priority to the needs of the child ... The fact that subscribers’ meetings were not held, and the names and amounts given by particular donors were not made public, meant that children were usually selected according to their need, or all who applied were admitted. Thus the system of voting was rarely found in evangelical children’s homes, and this example [Muller’s] gradually led to the abolition of the voting system altogether.
Muller’s large homes also offered certain advantages which smaller modern houses cannot. Life may have been regimented, and the routine predictable, but the shared fun of so many youngsters living and growing up together meant that it was often jolly. There was also a stability and security about them which was absent from smaller homes. An orphan who began life in a small London home and only arrived at No. 4 at the age of ten noticed the difference: in London there had been constant changes in staff and children. But in Bristol ‘a teacher who had done twenty-five years was just beginning’ ; some ex-Ashley Down children actually returned with their grandchildren to find their old masters still there. Similarly smaller homes offered the children a more limited choice of friends, whereas if Ashley Down children quarrelled, they could always make new friends.
One former orphan wrote of her years on Ashley Down thus: ‘I am glad to see a number of orphans remember the dear old Home, in which they spent their happiest days; for truly there have been none happier to me than those spent in the dear Orphan-House Number 3. How happy we were in our own little world, brought up in such a holy atmosphere.’
Another wrote: ‘As I look back on my schooldays, just left behind me, I think they were the jolliest days of my life.’ And yet another recalled: ‘I was only a small child then, and am still a child when I think of Ashley Down. It was a lovely, lovely spot... and no place ever seemed so dear.’
To impressionable teenagers, the experience of living under the care of people with a deep personal faith in Christ together with the exhilaration produced when numbers of their own contemporaries came to share this same faith was never to be forgotten. The many hundreds who became Christians in this devout atmosphere felt an enormous debt of gratitude towards Ashley Down. One Christian girl soon after going into domestic service sent this letter:
Beloved and respected Sir, I cannot feel grateful enough to you for all the kindness I received whilst under your fatherly care in the dear Orphan House, and the years I spent there I can truly say were the happiest I ever spent in my life; for not only were we cared for temporally, but spiritually also; and I do indeed feel very thankful to the Lord that I was ever received there, and that He so soon brought me to a knowledge of Himself; and I it is my heart’s sincere desire to know more of Him, to become more like Him for He is truly to me the chiefest among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely ... I must thank you for the very nice situation in which I am placed. My mistress is very kind to me, and I hope to give great satisfaction to her ... May you ever be the orphans’ friend and protector; and may the Lord still give you more abundant answers to your many prayers for the conversion of the dear orphans, who still remain unconverted. Will you please remember me very gratefully to dear Mrs Muller, Miss Groves, Mr L, Mr W, Mr H, also Miss D and all the teachers. I remain, dear Sir, yours very gratefully and respectfully,—.
The visitor to No. 1, quoted in chapter 15, described the children as being ‘very neatly and becomingly dressed’. Mrs Nancy Garton has written of the uniform worn by the children in Muller’s day as giving ‘the orphans a grace and a dignity, and as it became antiquated, a sentimental appeal, which the modern dress introduced in 1936, with its knee-length skirts and squashed-on hats, entirely lacked.’
According to Mrs Garton, Muller’s ‘older boys wore a navy-blue Eton jacket, with a waistcoat buttoning up to the white starched collar, both of heavy serge; brown corduroy trousers; caps with a glazed peak; and in bad weather, short cloaks. Each boy had three suits.
The small boys, up to about eight or nine years old, wore for everyday a garment which seems a strange choice from the practical point of view. It was a plainly-cut smock, with no collar, in white or unbleached cotton. Possibly, being white it could soon be boiled and restored to its original purity, but who, knowing boys, can help suspecting that it spent much of its time being anything but white. Blue serge shorts, socks and strap shoes completed the costume. For best wear, the little boys discarded their smocks, and wore Norfolk suits with broad Eton collars, in which they looked most attractive. Their caps were the same as the older boys.
The girls’ outdoor dress in cold weather was a long cloak in green and blue plaid; in mild weather a shepherd’s plaid shawl took the place of the cloak; in hot weather, for best wear, the dress was a thin one of dull lilac cotton, over which was worn a small cape or tippet of the same material, a tiny ruff at the neck. Throughout the year the girls wore bonnets of natural-coloured straw. To each bonnet was attached a long strip of thin material with a green and white checked pattern, which formed a band across the top, crossed at the back and was stitched at the sides, so that the two ends formed the strings by which the bonnet was tied on.
The everyday dresses for girls of all ages were of navy cotton covered with small white dots, to which for walking out was added a white tippet when the weather was too warm for cloaks or shawls. Indoors, the girls up to fourteen wore blue-checked gingham pinafores, cut high to the neck and buttoning behind. The girls over fourteen, who had left the schoolroom and were called ‘House Girls’, wore aprons with strings to distinguish them from their juniors. The most senior girls, those who were due to leave the Homes for situations within a few months, were known as ‘Cap Girls’, and wore caps, aprons to the waist and white collars. Every girl had five dresses.
The stockings were all hand-knitted by the girls; black wool for winter, and white cotton for summer. A pair of these white stockings is to be seen in the Museum at Muller House. The shoes were mostly of the ankle-strap style.
With the old uniform, the girls had no waterproofs, and in doubtful weather there was one cotton umbrella for every two children. The privilege of carrying the umbrella was not one that was eagerly competed for. The walk on wet days was often a quiet squabble, as the mote strong-minded of each pair in the crocodile pressed the umbrella into her partner’s unwilling hand.
Mrs Garton has also given us a fascinating description of the children’s hair-dos:
The girls’ hair was managed rather cleverly, considering that hundreds of heads of hair had somehow to be made presentable every day. The tiny girls had theirs almost as short as a boy’s, but beautifully glossy and well-brushed. Those from about eight years old up to eleven had a dutch bob, with centre parting and fringe, such as they could comb into place themselves without assistance. The older girls, who were capable of doing their own hair, were allowed to grow it to shoulder length or longer, and hold it back with a velvet ribbon band. The most senior girls put their hair up.
Former Ashley Down children recall that children who came with their parents to visit the Homes were sometimes envious of the pretty hairstyles worn by the residents.
The nursery infants [Mrs Garton continues] ‘do not seem to have been always in uniform, so probably the many babies’ clothes which must have been sent to the Homes were fully utilized. Some photographs show little groups of toddlers decked out with loving care in frilled and embroidered pinafores which have no suggestion of the pauper about them.’
Muller deserves also to be regarded as a pioneer and a radical by virtue of his educational policy. He was actually criticised for educating children ‘above their station’; not many years earlier, in his book An Experiment in Education, Dr Andrew Bell had written,
It is not proposed that the children of the poor be educated in an expensive manner, or even taught to write and to cypher … there is a risk of elevating by an indiscriminate education, the minds of those doomed to the drudgery of daily labour, above their condition, and thereby rendering them discontented and unhappy in their lot. It may suffice to teach the generality, on an economical plan, to read their Bibles and understand the doctrines of our holy religion.
Muller did not agree. As well as religious education, he saw to it that his children were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, dictation, grammar, geography, English and world history, composition, singing, needlework and—for the girls—domestic science. Needlework for the girls included instruction in making and mending their own clothes; for the boys it meant learning to knit and dam their socks. The boys also made their own beds, cleaned their shoes, scrubbed their rooms, were sent on errands, and dug, planted and weeded the gardens. The domestic science involved the girls in some work in the kitchens, sculleries, wash-houses and laundries at the five houses. Lewis Court has claimed that, even in Muller’s day, if an aptitude were shown, a higher education for one of the professions was provided, but this seems to have been rare.
Muller employed a School Inspector to maintain the educational standards at the school for his own children on Ashley Down and at schools financed and run by the Scriptural Knowledge Institution.
The Annual Examination of the children was held during the months of February and March [the Inspector, at that time a Mr Horne, wrote in 1885]. The children were examined and arranged in the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Standards, in many particulars according to the Government Code. Each child was examined separately in reading. Each child showed his or her copy-book, to determine the mark for writing. Ten questions were put on each of the following subjects, viz, on Scripture, Geography, History and Grammar. The answers were given in writing. Six sums were given in Arithmetic. The answers were given on paper. The average percentage of all the marks the children received during the examination was 91-1.
‘To all who are acquainted with such matters,’ commented Muller with some pride, ‘the last sentence will show, with what success our children are educated.’
Because of the duration of the education he provided, Muller was accused of robbing the factories, mills and mines of labour; he was not deterred. In general girls remained under his care until they were seventeen and sometimes longer. They were then usually recommended to a suitable domestic situation and fitted out at the Homes’ expense; some would go on to train as nurses. Generally the boys were apprenticed when they were between fourteen and fifteen years old. But fixed rules were deliberately avoided and a flexible policy was maintained so that the needs of each individual were taken in account. In theory each boy was allowed to choose the trade he wanted to learn, although in practice the selection process was no doubt often similar to William Ready’s case quoted above. The boys were provided with three suits of clothes at the expense of the Establishment; and any other expenses connected with an apprenticeship were also met. Some boys left the Homes to become post-office and telegraph clerks, or clerks in other offices. Others among the brightest would go on to be teachers, perhaps in the Homes themselves—in which case they would do their training at a school in Purton, Gloucestershire, financed and run by the Scriptural Knowledge Institution.
As to discipline in the Homes, Nancy Garton has aptly summed it up as ‘strict, but not harsh’. A group of former Ashley Down children (there not long after Muller’s death) told the author, ‘if we were punished we deserved it’. There were occasions when it was found necessary to expel a child who had become an unacceptable influence on the other children. But expulsion—that is, returning a child to a relative or guardian—was always a last resort after repeated warnings and attempted reformation; and after an offender had left, he was followed by the prayers of Muller and his staff.
Muller recalled the case of one boy who had arrived on Ashley Down in October 1849.
He was then not quite eight years old; but though so young, it was soon found that he was old in sin, for he was a confirmed liar, thief, etc. He gloried in it among the other boys, and told them that he had belonged to a juvenile gang of thieves, before he had been admitted into the Orphan-House, that he had often stolen from the ships iron, brass, etc. and sold it. We thought at first that hie spoke thus merely in the way of boasting, yet it proved but too true, that he was experienced in such matters; for twice he ran away from the Orphan-House, carrying off things belonging to the other children. Moreover, he could pick locks, etc. We received him back twice, after having run away, hoping that, by bearing with him, and using a variety of other means, he might be reclaimed; but all in vain. At last, having borne with him, and tried him for five years and four months, he was solemnly, with prayer, before the whole establishment, expelled, if by any means this last painful remedy might be blessed to him. Yet we follow even this poor young sinner with our prayers, and hope that the Lord may yet show him his evil ways, and give us even now joy concerning him, as we have had before in a similar instance.
One boy, so the story goes, was about to be dismissed before the whole company for repeated bad behaviour over a long period, when Muller placed his hand on his head and began to pray for him. To show how brazen and unconcerned he was, the boy turned to face Muller with eyes wide open, and saw, to his amazement, tears rolling down the old man’s cheeks. There and then, according to the story, the boy was converted and his life dramatically changed. And yet another, later in life described ‘his dismissal by Mr Muller and Mr Muller’s final words, with tears, of ‘I am sorry! God bless you.’
The Times once reported that: amongst those who visited his [Muller’s] Homes and expressed their admiration of the management, and working, were the late Earl of Derby, Lord Salisbury, Lord Hampton, and many others of all ranks interested in beneficent social movements.
Nancy Garton has described how that Charles Dickens once visited Ashley Down. ‘He had heard a rumour of the sort that circulates wherever charitable institutions are concerned; in this case to the effect that the orphans were starved. With his usual thoroughness Dickens set himself to investigate the matter in person. Muller received him with courtesy, and as soon as he understood the purport of Dickens’ inquiries, decided to let demonstration rather than argument prove the falsity of the report. He sent for a subordinate, handed him a bunch of keys, and requested that Mr Dickens might be shown over any of the five Orphan-Houses he chose to see. This was done, and Dickens went away entirely reassured.
Former Ashley Down residents whose memories go back almost to the Muller era, recall having meat regularly on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays while on Wednesdays and Saturdays they were served a broth with meat in it. On Tuesdays and Sundays (when many of the staff would be at Bethesda for the morning service) a dish of rice and raisins was a common lunch. Frequently the meat was either Australian mutton, known to the children as ‘og’ or (more popular) corned beef; bread incidentally was known as ‘toke’ due to the wording of the favourite Ashley Down grace, ‘We thank thee Lord for these tokens of thy love!’ Bristol’s situation as a port meant that it was not unusual for the children to receive fresh fruit, particularly bananas and oranges. Occasionally, at times of surplus, large quantities of free fruit would be delivered to Ashley Down to prevent it rotting. Eggs were a regular feature of the menu, but to some extent also seasonal: on his birthday every child was entitled to two eggs, one for himself and one for his best friend. Milk and water was the usual beverage.
There can be little doubt that the predictability of the menus and the routine of events in general tended to make life on Ashley Down somewhat monotonous, although routine, it should be borne in mind, is not something of which children are quick to complain. There were a number of annual events, however, which interrupted the routine and provided the children with both happy memories and highlights to which they could look forward.
First, there was Mr Muller’s birthday on 27th September, at which time a week’s holiday from school was always taken and when, as one old girl recalled, ‘we used to go out most days, blackberry picking. How we all enjoyed it!’ The day itself was always marked by special helpings of cake and an enormous apple dumpling for each child.
The annual summer treat was the outing to Pur Down, when the children set off in the morning each armed with either a pink or blue cotton bag filled with sweets and sweet biscuits to eat on the journey. This was one of the days when, on arrival at the field, the children of the five houses could mix as they pleased. The picnic lunch (of bread and cheese) and tea (of bread and butter and cake) was transported to Pur Down in large hampers. A group of now elderly former Ashley Down children, who could never remember it raining on Pur Down, proudly showed the author an old oak tree under which they used to play on that great day. The outing concluded with the launching of five fire balloons, one for each house.
But probably the event which the children anticipated with the greatest excitement was Christmas. Well before the time, they began to prepare for the celebrations—learning to sing carols and other songs from the Ashley Down Song Book (often in parts without accompaniment); making the decorations, and memorising poems, sketches and plays to be recited and performed at the parties.
Each December, Muller’s journal took on a seasonal tone:
December 16th, 1884—From a Bristol wholesale house 8 barrels of flour, 1 barrel of currants, and 16 quarter boxes of Valencias, for the children’s Christmas puddings ... December 23rd 1878— From Clifton we received for the children a number of dolls, some fancy boxes, albums, games, balls, tops and a great variety of other play-things—From Durdham Down, as Christmas presents for the Orphans, dressed dolls, boxes and packets of chocolate and sweets, some drums, tops, balls, marbles, whips and guns, boxes of toys, books, fancy cards, paint boxes, transparent slates, pocket-handkerchiefs, wool ties and ruffs, baskets and boxes, pencils, trumpets and other play-things ... From a Bristol wholesale house, 15 boxes of fruit, 10 boxes of oranges, 10 boxes of figs, and a sack of nuts for the Orphan’s Christmas Treat.
One Christmas, 150 pheasants were sent to Ashley Down from a donor in Cornwall.
And so a child could recall, ‘well do I remember the happy Christmases spent at No. 4; the start of the preparations for the decorations ; the arrival of the great, big Christmas tree, nothing on it, but I knew before Christmas it would be loaded with toys and presents; and somewhere amongst the many there would be one for me!’ And another, who wrote to the Homes one Christmas, ‘I expect the times are just as exciting as when I was there. I imagine the decorations being got ready, and the secrecy of it all, and then learning the lovely carols, and the Christmas Shop! I would love to peep in, to see if it is really like it used to be. I don’t think it could possibly be better.’ Mrs Garton notes that the Christmas Shops were little sweet shops, opened in each wing of the Houses, managed by members of the school staff who bought the sweets from the large Bristol sweet manufacturers on special terms. In time these shops came to be opened in other seasons as well.
It would be foolish to pretend that every child was happy on Ashley Down: some clearly were not. The experience was especially unhappy for children who had known for a while the love of their own parents and a normal home life; for these children—arriving on Ashley Down perhaps aged eleven, twelve or more—the five great buildings naturally appeared particularly barrack-like and uninviting.
And no doubt mistakes were made in the appointment of staff with the result that kindness and understanding were sometimes in short supply. As a pioneer in the field, Muller was forced to learn by his mistakes: and mistakes there were. Almost certainly the children’s existence on Ashley Down was too sheltered—too remote from the realities of the outside world. To-day, Muller’s children attend normal local authority schools and mix freely with other boys and girls. But in the founder’s day, of course, Bristol could not have offered free education for some two thousand children and it is difficult to suggest the alternatives which were open to him.
In the event, however, the children received a sound education which they would have been fortunate to have obtained elsewhere. They received, too, a treasure of immeasurable value: teaching which was able to make them ‘wise unto salvation’ and which offered to those who would accept it, ‘life more abundant’.