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Purpose of the Construction of Wanstead Infant Orphan Asylum in 1841

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Purpose of the Construction of Wanstead Infant Orphan Asylum in 1841

Andrew Reid was born in the year 1787. He was a Congregational minister and he was a non-conformist, which meant he was not part of the Church of England. He was very hardworking and committed. He started 7 charities which meant he was a very generous man. His farther was a watch maker therefore he came from a lower middle class tradesman family. His first Asylum he opened was in Dalston, Hackney. He attended the site everyday and got royal patronage which helped him to raise funds. This shows that he is a very dedicated and caring person.

The Asylum in Hackney was for children over the age of seven which meant if there …show more content…

So as the New Poor Law states people were extremely cruel and discriminated the “undeserving poor” they said it was god who decided if you were poor or not even though the church did try to help. For example the hymn all things bright and beautiful, includes the lines “ The rich man at his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high or lowly, and ordered their estate”. However most people felt pity on the ‘deserving poor’ an example of this was rich women that used to make themselves look generous, in front of their rich women friends, these were the types of people that Andrew Reid was particularly interested in and that was because they were the people that donated the most money.

Andrew Reid put together many Asylum meetings where he would do speeches to rich people and make them feel for the poor. An example of his speeches was one he done on the 3rd of July, 1927 at the London Tavern “Let it be remembered that the case is for the infant orphan for which charity has a yet done nothing; yet this case embraces a period of life in which innocence, helplessness and misery are strangely commingled and most touchingly call for our aid”. This speech was truly inspirational to many people and was used just before the people choose who they wanted to vote for using the voting system (explained in paragraph 6). Also he was respected for the work that he did. Andrew

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