3-008-449 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Asylum for Fatherless Children at Reedham, 1862. 'This, the third public charity founded by Dr. Reed, has this peculiar distinction, that it...embraces the wider scope of Christian charity by being perfectly unsectarian in its character. Instituted in 1844, it was designed to receive and educate the orphan throughout the whole period of infancy and childhood. It is affecting to think that the founder was supported in this new undertaking by our beloved Queen, from whose heart the agonising cry of the widow and the orphan was so soon to rise...Until recently this asylum occupied three houses, at Stamford-hill, Stoke Newington, and Kingsland-green, but the new and commodious building erected at Needham, near- Croydon, and publicly opened by the Earl of Carlisle, received the orphan family in 1858. In the short space of seventeen years 444 children have been received, and there are now 188 on the foundation. The annual expenditure is nearly £6000, to meet which nearly £5000 is raised by voluntary contribution'. When Andrew Reed died in 1862 the asylum's name was changed to Reedham Orphanage in his honour. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.