Catalogue description RECORDS OF LADY MARGARET HALL SETTLEMENT

Memoranda and articles of association, minutes, agendas, correspondence, annual reports, reports and related papers, accounts, balance sheets, cashbooks, ledgers, fundraising records, personal records, property records, ms.

These records were transferred to Lambeth Archives from the organisation's offices in Wandsworth Road, by the Secretary. Other settlement records are held at these repositories.

The Greater London Record Office

Early minutes series 1896-1940

(Including executive and Council minutes and minutes of youth work).

Executive Committee Agendas 1906-1928

A selection of administrative and financial records ca. 1910-1940

Lady Margaret Hall College, Oxford

Memoirs of the Settlement's early years, compiled, 1940's

Photograph album 1920's-1950's

Settlement Committee minutes 1926-1953

Letters in Kathleen Courtney's papers

There is a printed history of LMHS

"Lady Margaret Hall Settlement: A short history 1897-1980" by Katherine Bentley Beaumann held at 12/554

Lady Margaret Hall Settlement, Lambeth, Surrey

Open except where specified

Depositor: Lady Margaret Hall Settlement, 460 Wandsworth Road, SW8 3LX

Condition: Indefinite loan

Date of deposit: 15.10.90 and September 1993

Introduction

The Memorandum of Association of 1908, states that Lady Margaret Hall Settlement was begun.

"To establish a community or settlement of ladies in connection with the church of England and with Lady Margaret Hall in the University of Oxford with the purpose and object of doing religious, social and educational work in Lambeth or elsewhere within the Administrative county of London".

Lady Margaret Hall Settlement was set up in 1897 at 129 Kennington Road as part of a broader socialist movement in England at the time to involve young, originally male, university students in experiencing life and social conditions in industrial cities. It followed on from the work of Octavia Hill and others involved with housing and other social improvements.

This early "social work" with educated Christians working in the community began initially in the East End of London with students living together communally. Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel and Oxford House in Bethnal Green were both early settlements of this type established in the 1880's.

As women were gradually admitted into higher education so female students too became involved in settlement work.

In 1887 a university womens settlement began near Blackfriars Bridge, Southwark. The women students involved there included Eleanor and Maggie Benson, daughters of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Edith Langridge. The latter, whose background included Quakerism (with its focus on humanitarianism) and the newly established Christian Socialist Movement, was to become the first warden of Lady Margaret Hall Settlement. Based in 129 Kennington Road, an attractive Georgian terraced house owned by the Walcot Educational Foundation. Lady Margaret Hall Settlement provided living accommodation for a group of young graduate women from Lady Margaret Hall College, Oxford.

From their base they set out to work in the local area with boys and girls clubs at the Salamanca Mission, Sunday schools at St Anselms, Black Prince Road, St Mary's Lambeth and St Peter's, Vauxhall and other groups for the elderly and sick. As well as going out into the community various groups met in the house and garden at Kennington Road.

After working in Lambeth for its first five years as head of the settlement Edith Langridge left in 1902 to go to India heading a group of women lay missionaries.

Later she took religious vows becoming Mother Superior of the Order of the Oxford Mission of Calcutta. She remained working overseas for over thirty years before retiring to the Indian hills in Assam.

Another early pioneer of Lady Margaret Hall Settlement was Edith Pearson, warden from 1902-1915. She was a former student of philosophy and physics at Oxford and during her time in Lambeth was on the Joint Parliamentary Advisory Committee of MP's and Social Workers. She was also on the Lambeth Board of Guardians and held bible classes at Lambeth work house for elderly and frail women.

She was a member of staff for the School of Sociology, later to be amalgamated with the London School of Economics.

Through her instigation the settlement was involved in helping local people to gain apprenticeships and training. She organised lectures on social work at Kennington Road as well as setting up a legal support service.

From 1911-1935 Olive Butler lived at LMHS. She was particularly involved with club work at the settlement. By the late 1920's she had developed the "Duke of Clarence" a redundant public house in Vauxhall Street, North Lambeth into a meeting place for more than 300 children and a variety of clubs for local people of all ages.

With the slum housing clearances of the 1920's and 1930's many groups of friends and neighbours in Lambeth were split up as they were rehoused in modern housing estates. At the opening of the Cowley housing estate - a new London County Council development of mansion blocks for six hundred families, off the Brixton Road, Lady Margaret Hall Settlement was asked to place a residential worker there to befriend and advise tenants. This support role continued for many years.

During the war residents at LMHS were involved in support and social work, running a day nursery on the Cowley Estate. When Morley College was bombed in October 1940 some members of the settlement were killed. Shortly after the war LMHS ran children's clubs and libraries in the wartime air-raid shelters buying surplus stock and furniture from the London County Council to run these.

In the late 1950's a new "Duke of Clarence" club was built in Orsett Street, the old pub having suffered hard use from organised groups and from vandalism over its thirty years with the settlement. A new legal advice centre was also opened and a variety of clubs for various age groups and other outings and projects continued.

In 1963 the settlement amended its constitution to include male residents. Students and young people still came to live at Kennington Road to become involved with and learn something of the difficulties of life in a relatively poor urban area. In 1970 the settlement had 20 volunteers working with local families, adult literacy schemes, an adventure playground as well as clubs for the elderly, meals on wheels etc.

By the mid 1970's plans to run a bail hostel nearly caused the organisation financial ruin.

Instead new developments began for the organisation in the areas of housing employment and welfare rights.

In 1980 the settlement moved from the rented Walcot estate houses in Kennington Road to freehold premises in Wandsworth Road where it remains today still continuing in its supportive work in the community.

Contents

IV/183/1 Corporate records

IV/183/1/1 Corporate Records

IV/183/1/2 Minutes

IV/183/1/3 Annual reports

IV/183/1/4 Reports and related material

IV/183/1/5 Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

IV/183/2 Finance

IV/183/2/1 Annual Accounts

IV/183/2/2 Other financial records

IV/183/2/3 Donations, appeals and grants

IV/183/3 Personnel

IV/183/4 Property

IV/183/4/1 Kennington Road

IV/183/4/2 Spring Gardens Walk

IV/183/4/3 Duke of Clarence Club

IV/183/4/4 Cowley Project

IV/183/5 Individual Projects

IV/183/5/1 Children's Country Holidays Fund

IV/183/5/2 Cowley Community Centre

IV/183/5/3 Duke of Clarence Youth Club

IV/183/5/4 Ethelred Estate

IV/183/5/5 MIND/LMHS Sunday Lunch Club

IV/183/5/6 Milti-Service Group - Waterloo and North Lambeth

IV/183/5/7 Nacro bail/Aftercare Hostel

IV/183/5/8 North Lambeth Neighbourhood Council

IV/183/5/9 North Lambeth Families

IV/183/5/10 Quadrant Housing Association

IV/183/5/11 South Lambeth Family Camp

IV/183/5/12 Student Placements

IV/183/5/13 Vauxhall Walk Free School

IV/183/5/14 Walcot Community Centre

IV/183/5/15 Miscellaneous Projects

IV/183/6 Links with other organisations and correspondence

IV/183/7 Miscellaneous Material

IV/183/8 Glass plate negatives

• View Record