Sailors' Orphan Girls' School and Home

Image: © Natasha Ceridwen de Chroustchoff Taken: 4 Apr 2007

The Royal Sailors' Orphan Girls' School and Home was said to have been established in 1829 as a home in 1862 at Frognal House. In 1869 it moved to this new building at nos. 96-116 Fitzjohn's Avenue, designed by Edward Ellis. In 1871 two rooms served as a school, attended by 60 girls of all ages, whose subjects included domestic ones to prepare them for their future 'situations' as household servants. These orphans' asylums, as they were called, catered for the huge numbers of destitute children in Victorian Britain but the offspring of 'deserving' fathers such as soldiers and sailors attracted most attention (and royal patronage). Nevertheless this place always gives me a sense of sadness for the children who might have preferred to remain with their families rather than be institutionalized. An ex-pupil has pointed out that, in the school's later years until it closed in 1957, the pupils were not orphans in the strict sense, but children of sailors killed during World War Two. They still had mothers and siblings living. We might assume therefore that 'orphans' in this case refers to fatherless children whose families had limited means. My thanks to the informant for this explanation.

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