Rescue and Reform

FEW existing diocesan and local moral welfare associations were started before the closing years of the nineteenth century, but the work itself has a much longer history. There are indications that both homes for ‘fallen women’ and institutes for the care of foundling children ¹ were in existence in France and Italy as early as the seventh and eighth centuries, and during the middle ages communities of ‘Magdalens’, the majority of whose members seem to have been women reclaimed from a life of prostitution, were to be found in a number of European countries. There is no evidence that any such communities existed in mediaeval Britain, but the record of a lay attempt to shelter and care for unmarried mothers has survived, namely that of London's famous Lord Mayor, Richard Whytyngdon, who in St. Thomas's Hospital, Southwark, in which he was interested, ‘made a newe chambyr with VIII beddys for young women that had done amysse in trust for a good mendement.’ ²