Letter

This letter was written by Samuel Coombs, Superintendant of the Mansfield Street Ragged School, Borough Road, to the Earl of Shaftesbury on 17 January 1882. In the letter Coombs asks Lord Shaftesbury if he would consider acepting a young boy of about 15 years of age into the shoeblack brigade. Coombs describes how the boy has been badly abused by his parents. How he is forced to wander the streets selling matches and not allowed to return home until they are sold and how after having cut his head open when thrown down the stairs by his Mother he was taken to St Thomas Hospital where the doctors discovered he was covered in bruises. Coombs refers to the boy as a 'strong lad' who would make a good 'workman'. He regards the shoeblack brigade as a way of escape for the lad from the abuse he suffers at home. As he writes 'the best way' forward for the boy would be to get him away from his parents 'and they would gladly give him up'.