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Josiah Mason's Orphanage

Re: Sir Josiah Masons

Wendy, a sad sight indeed I remember the toll of those bells only too well! I also recall one naughty boy who went up into the bell tower and threatened to stay there .........he did eventually come down but only after many threats from the staff and headmaster :)
 
masons orphanage tower.jpg
A view from orphanage tower 1899 courtesy Sir Benjamin Stone Collection
 

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What fantastic photo's, thanks Berniew for posting them. What a magnificent building it was! Very sad it has been lost forever.
 
When I was at school there it was just a gloomy old building to me but as I got older I thought it was beautiful. Alberta

I was a day pupil until 1953.
 
Been reading this thread over the last couple of days and very interesting it was too, with both sad and happy memories. And some nice photos as well,

My great grandfather's brother was listed as being an inmate of the orphanage in the 1901 census. Which I did find strange because though his dad had died, his brother (my great grandfather) and 2 sisters were still living with their mother and new husband. And he was neither the eldest nor the youngest. But it seems that this wasn't uncommon.
 
The difference between Josiah Mason's Orphanage and the workhouse surely is that the children who were given shelter in the orphanage had no family. The children who were in the workhouse had family although they were separated from them, and there were girls and boys schools on the plan of Dudley Road Workhouse posted by Judy.


I have only just read your comments so am just replying with small bit of information !

My dad, Sidney Smith was in the Orphanage after his father was killed in the first World War - his brothers were placed in the Blue Coat School leaving his sister at home with his mother in Aston. She had no means of supporting the children. He hated it and told me that they only had decent clothes on Sundays to go to church. He said they had to crawl under fences to neighbouring fields to pinch the cabbage stalks to eat as they were so hungry. It certainly affected him, as though he was a decent man, he could never show emotion. I don't think it was too nice a place and certainly he had family so it was not just for orphans it seems.
 
Where exactly was this orphanage? I am having trouble visualising where it maybe as houses that predate it's demolition stand in all the places I think of as suitable.

Thanks
 
Perhaps this helps. A map from c 1937

s_orphange.jpg
 
Both of those locations above appear to have properties that pre-date the demolition. Sorry to be a pain but could one of those that attended give a precise location. The one map above puts it where the Yenton school now stands, could it be there?
 
I was a pupil there in the 50s.
If you go to Streetmap the entrance to the school was in Orphange road where the low building(electricity substation?) is now , a narrow entrance behind the kerbside railings

The buildings were to the right hand side, Firstly the orphanage buildings and lower down the day school not as close to the Chester Road as the Yenton school is now.
 
Ypauly, Yenton school stands agains the Chester Road. The Orphanage was adjacent to the rear of the school, the main entrance being in Orphanage Road. The chapel in the map in post 208 was the Orphanage chapel, and the buildings just to the south of that were the main buildings.
 
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