| Description | Copies of publications of the Church Missionaries Children's Home, Limpsfield, comprising 'Home Notes' of Church Missionaries' Children's Home, Limpsfield, a monthly newsletter, principally for pupils and their families, 1906-14; and Church Missionaries' Children's Home Old Members' Magazine, 1909-1932
These publications are of particular value for family historians. |
| Administrative History | The CMS's Children's Home and School was founded in 1850, funded by the Jubilee Fund, for the education and care of the children of its missionaries. It was originally established in Milner Square, Islington, London but after various moves in the capital, it moved to a new building on a large site at Limpsfield in the Surrey Hills in 1887. The purpose built boarding school was erected at a cost of £35,000, for 120 children, with separate wings for boys and girls. In 1901 another house was added for thirty younger children. The Home and School was subsequently named St Michael's in 1915.
Directors of the home and school included W. B. Tracy (1904-14), H. Summerhayes (1913-28), B. C. Corfield (1928-29) - all clergymen - and E. H. C. Moule appointed in 1929. Most of the boys left at the age of 13 or 14 to go on to public schools, including St Lawrence, Trent, Weymouth and Merchant Taylor's. The girls usually stayed for the whole of their school career.Sources: Gordon Hewitt, The Problems of Success. A history of the Church Missionary Society 1910-1942. Volume One (London, SCM Press Ltd, 1971); 'Parishes: Limpsfield', A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4 (1912), pp. 297-302. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43068 Date accessed: 31 March 2010. |
| Custodial History | These volumes were presented to Special Collections by the East Surrey Museum, a small local history museum. St Michael's School at Limpsfield, run by the CMS, was in the locality and it appears that these volumes were acquired by the museum from there prior to 1980. Three volumes of the published History of the Church Missionary Society were also presented at the same time and these volumes were added to the reference book collection. |