N.S.P.C.C. is 100 years old: ‘faces change, bruises don’t’

Press, 21 June 1984, Page 15

N.S.P.C.C. is 100 years old: ‘faces change, bruises don’t’

Seven-year-old Patrick was found living crouched inside a chicken-hut barely big enough for him to turn around in. His filthy face was hidden behind matted hair. His toe-nails were so long he kept tripping over them. The illegitimate child of a respectable family, he was hidden there when he was two, eating the crusts and raw potatoes his mother pushed through the wire mesh. Instead of talking he made a clucking sound imitated from the hens in the next hut.

He was taken into care by Britain’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (N.S.P.C.C.), which helps an average of 50,000 children a year, according to its director, Alan Gilmour.

From

The society this year commemorates its centenary with activities ranging from a gala ballet performance to sponsored knitting sessions, in an attempt to raise funds. Income in 1983 was $18.2 million, nearly $2.78 million less than for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (R.S.P.C.A.) — according to figures released this month by both societies.

Those who say the British care more for their pets than their children could be right, says Mr Gilmour.

CLARE HARGREAVES

Reuter, in London

Patrick’s mother was jailed for nine months, but although the N.S.P.C.C. is sometimes forced to use its right to prosecute, it aims to prevent rather than punish, Mr Gilmour says. The society provides an advisory service to help people cope with domestic problems that may result in cruelty to children. The past 11 years have seen the growth of playgroups, day-care centres, and special units to counsel parents “at risk.”

“The emphasis is on providing practical and emotional support to reconstruct a loving family when things go wrong,” says Mr Gilmour. The society’s founder, a clergyman, Benjamin Waugh, adds: “It is better to remove the evil from the home than remove the child.”

The society’s inspectors were originally hated as the “cruelty men”; but today, says Mr Gilmour, people are far more forthcoming in reporting cases of suspected maltreatment.

Last year, one third of all cases reported to the society came from parents themselves, worried they might take out their frustrations on their children.

Posters displayed in London to mark the society’s centenary show pictures of two battered boys, one in 1884 and the other a century later. The posters say: “The faces change. The bruises don’t.” At the time the society was formed, the view prevailed in Victorian England that beatings and other harsh punishments were beneficial for children. People then believed in the popular dictum, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Some parents would punish children by locking them in a room with bread and water. Others considered an effective detterent was

to serve up the food the child disliked most.

A century ago, laws existed to protect animals and a society to prevent cruelty to animals had been active for 50 years.

One of the first battles of the N.S.P.C.C.’s founder, Mr Waugh, was to get legislation to “place the child of the savage on the same level as his dog.” A “children’s charter” passed through Parliament in 1898 against bitter opposition.

The new society was modelled on existing United States societies, in New York, Boston, and Chicago, and one in the prosperous cotton port of Liverpool. The N.S.P.C.C. met angry criticism from people who believed an Englishman’s home to be his unassailable castle and feared the authorities were gaining too much power. One of the society’s first cases was that of a travelling craftsman who locked up his two children in a tiny room with some raw potatoes as their only food. When he returned eight days later he found one dead and the other just alive. Today, as always, the causes of cruelty to children are often difficult to identifyr Mr Gilmour says. Marital or emotional problems, poor housing, and poverty could all be potential causes. Abuse spanned all social classes.

In many cases, parents who *battered their children had been battered children themselves. “We have discovered a pattern of deprivation which passes from one generation to the next in a relentless cycle of abuse,” Mr Gilmour adds.

Parents isolated in modern conditions, without support from relatives, sometimes took out frustrations on their children. A third of cases dealt with last year involved parents under the age of 24. Mr Gilmour feels that schools, while providing sex education, fail to teach children that parenthood is not as rosy as television commercials make it appear.