Shepherd Street Mission Extension [SSM21_1926]

Abstract

Newspaper article from 1926. Transcript below:

Shepherd-Street Mission Extension.
In connection with the jubilee of Shepherd-street Mission and Children’s Home, Oxford-street, Preston, a new wing for boys and the old portion of the Home which has been redecorated and fitted with electric light were formally opened in the presence of a large assembly on Thursday afternoon.
The new wing is situated on the east side of the Home, and there is accommodation for 20 beds, with bathrooms, for boys. There is now comfortable provision in the entire Home for just over 40 boys and girls. The scheme of improvement includes up-to-date sanitary arrangement and a new laundry. The gardens adjoining the Home have been extended and laid out by Mr. P. Bateson.
Among those present at the opening ceremony were the Mayor (Councillor J. Woolley, J.P.) and the Mayoress (Mrs. Woolley), Rev. E. Over (Vicar of St. Saviour’s), Mr. W.A. Margerison (chairman of the Shepherd-street Mission and Children’s Home), Mrs. Margerison, Alderman and Mrs. H. Cartmell, Miss Sellers, J.P., Mrs. Marsden, J.P., Mrs. Peel Powell, Mrs. J.H. Toulmin, Mrs. Crossley, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Winter, Mr. and Mrs. F. Messham, Mr. and Mrs. Gabbott, Mrs. Jamieson, Mr. E. Nickson, Mr. and Mrs. A. Spencer, Mr. Fred Howorth (architect of the new additions) and Mrs. Howorth, Mr. John Wilson, and Mr. Hyde, Mr. George Harrison (secretary and superintendent of the Mission and Home), and Mrs. Harrison (matron).
Mrs. Margerison presided over the preliminary proceedings outside the Home, and said they were that day to celebrate the jubilee of the founding of the work known as the Shepherd-street Mission and Children’s Home. Joshua Williamson, the founder, had a grocery shop in Church-street, and was the prime mover of a body of young men of whom his (Mr. Margerison’s) father was one, who held cottage prayer meetings and services in that district. Passing down Water-street one day in the year 1876, Mr. Williamson saw two small boys who said they were hungry and had no home and no where to go, and his heart was touched by their story. Near by was a blind man who lived in a cottage. He took the boys to the blind man, explained their need, and arranged a price for their upkeep, and this was the beginning of the Children’s Home.
Mr. Williamson was one of the few men of his day who realised the untold wealth hidden in the ragged and poor boys and girls of the streets, and it was because of this that he devoted his life to the bringing of it out. A child to him was not a liability, , but the greatest asset in the world, and the poorer the child, the greater the endeavour to save it. Mr. Williamson gave up his business and literally sold all that he had and gave to the poor, and ably supported by his wife, he started his Mission and Children’s Home.
They started soup kitchens in winter when trade was slack and unemployment rampant, and no child in the neighbourhood … something to eat because of …