Proponents > Reformatories and Probation Homes
Padcroft Boys' Home
Five boys from the Padcroft Boys Home at Yiewsley, Middlesex, arrived on the SS Irishman to participate in the farm apprenticeship scheme:
- Gus BEERLING;
- William BROWN;
- Richard PYPER;
- William Gordon RIVETT; and
- Sidney TURNER.
Shani Cassady from Nottingham Trent University has researched the Home using the Rainer Archive. She points out that although I have previously categorised Padcroft as a reformatory, the institution was actually of quite a different nature to the Kibble and Redhill Farm Schools.
Padcroft was a Church of England Temperance Society London Police Court Mission probation home. While pupils of reformatory schools were convicted of a crime, boys were generally sent to probation homes at the request of their parents.
The average stay was 3 to 6 months, unlike reformatories, where boys stayed for up to 5 years. However, like Kibble and Redhill, it offered the boys' training in trades during their relatively brief time there.
It is not clear how Padcroft became involved in the farm apprenticeship scheme, however, the Church of England was certainly in favour of imperial migration. There was probably also a link between Padcroft and Redhill: the London Police Court Mission, later renamed the Rainer Foundation, merged with the Royal Philanthropic Society, who managed Redhill, in 1997.
After the arrival of the SS Irishman, instructions were issued by the South Australian Government to its London-based staff not to accept any more applicants from the Padcroft Boys' Home. This was probably due to the behaviour of Sidney Turner.
Sincere thanks to Shani for sharing her research on Padcroft. For more information on Frederic Rainer, please consult Shani's article 'Frederick Rainer: The Founder of Probation?', Probation Journal, vol. 48, no. 4, 2001, 287-9.