Barnardo of Stepney

First published in 1943, this third edition of Barnardo of Stepney was published in 1966, when it was a hundred years since a young man of twenty arrived in London on his way from Dublin to China. A change of plan delayed his departure and, instead of becoming a missionary in the foreign field, he stayed here to become the most remarkable freelance in awakening humanity’s fight against poverty, and the beloved Father of Nobody’s Children.

Of the thousands of men and women who eventually worked under his leadership and close personal direction, A. E. Williams, his personal secretary in the closing years of his life, is the only one who had attempted to set down on paper a full-length portrait of this remarkable, dauntless, delightful Irishman who turned the whole thought of his age upside-down on the question of the rights and possibilities of children and helped free all humanity from concepts of the damning power of heredity and early environment into the inspiring knowledge that a man can be ‘born again’.

Still at his post at Stepney Causeway throughout the years of Hitler’s war, A. E. Williams set down his record-accurate, intimate, entertaining, inspiring – hailed eventually by The Times as ‘one of the most interesting, human and revealing biographies that have appeared for many a year’ and by The New Statesman as ‘one of the most instructive and entertaining personal studies of the century’.

This centenary edition carried a wealth of fine new illustrations which brought the story of the Barnardo organization, the Doctor’s great legacy to the nation and the world, right up to date. Still going strong today, Barnardo’s continues to support children, young people and families who need them.

This book is a re-issue originally published in 1943. The language used and views portrayed are a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.