ABSTRACT
The idea of reformatories for wayward children, to rehabilitate them instead of committing them to futile and corrupting short stretches in jail, had developed on a very limited scale since the late eighteenth century and on a voluntary, unofficial basis. Although workhouses could not foster the children of parents convicted for cruelty, separate Acts of 1889 and 1899 gave poor law authorities quite distinct adoption powers which had potential bearing on vagrants' children. The most immediate step the workhouse master could take would be to call in the NSPCC or the police if the child showed evident signs of maltreatment under the Cruelty Law, or if the child's life-style and denial of schooling warranted action under the Industrial Schools and Education Acts. The proposals had to wait upon the recommendations of the 1906 Vagrancy Committee, which came out against penalties for wandering with children on the principle that it interfered excessively with individual liberty.
