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The Soldiers Daughters' Home

Asylums and Grammar Schools.

The Soldiers Daughters' Home, Hampstead. Established in 1840. To nurse, board, clothe, and educate the destitute female children, orphans or not, of soldiers in her Majesty's or the Honourable East India Company's army, born during the service, subsequent to the Honourable discharge of a father. One of the principal objects of the home is to instruct the girls so received in industrial habits, and to fit them for domestic service; and another, to grant scholarships to the most industrious, with a view to their support by being trained as regimental parochial schoolmistresses.

Girls are admitted from infancy to 13 years of age; but no girl remains at the home after having attained the age of 16; nor are two sisters admitted at the same time unless under peculiar circumstances. Previous to the adoption of a child on the list of approved candidates, the committee procure satisfactory proof of a father's military service, the marriage of the parents, and the subsequent part of the child, by certificate of baptism, or otherwise, and a medical certificate; and no child is placed on the list of candidates unless recommended (in writing) by a subscriber or Life Governor. The average number of girls in the home is 160.

The value of the funds, from all sources, up to February 1861, was £49,031.

Chairman of General Committee, Major the Hon. H.L. Powys Keek.—Secretary, Mr. John Marsh.

SOURCE: The Charities of London, by Samuel Low, Jun., London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, Milton House, Ludgate Hill. 1861.