Catalogue description St Christopher's Railway Home, Derby

List of contents

D3732/1/1-7/2 Minutes

D3732/8/1-8/67 Annual reports

D3732/9/1-9/16 Documents relating to constitution and early development

D3732/10/1-10/10 Later development and closure

D3732/11/1-11/3 Correspondence

D3732/11/1-29/1 Finance

D3732/30/1-30/39 Legacies

D3732/31/1-31/21 Documents relating to title

D3732/32/1-32/6 Lists of deeds

D3732/33/1-33/6 Estate

D3732/34/1-40/1 Site and buildings

D3732/41/1-42/2 Insurances

D3732/43/1-44/1 Management of Orphanage

D3732/45/1-58/2 Children's records

D3732/69/1-69/7 Old Pupils' Association

D3732/70/1-75/11 Miscellaneous

Railway Servants' Orphanage, Derby, 1875-1948

St Christopher's Railway Home, Derby, 1948-1993

These records were donated to the Record Office in May 1993.

• Foston Hall School, Derby

St Christopher's Railway Home was established in January 1875 as the Railway Servants' Orphanage. It was intended for the children of railway workers who had lost their lives in the performance of their duty, but from 1881 the children of railway workers who had died of natural causes were accepted and from 1927 those whose mothers had died and were incapacitated. Children whose health was poor were not admitted but were granted allowances for their maintenance at home or at a special school. A railway orphanage at Woking cared for children from the south of the country.

The first orphanage was a rented house in London Road, Derby and housed 11 children at its opening. In 1877 a house and gardens in Ashbourne Road, Derby was purchased, altered and extended and further land purchased in order to accommodate 36 children. In 1880 a boys' wing was added, then domestic buildings and a sanatorium. Further land purchases increased the site to over five acres. As completed by 1887, the buildings were able to accommodate 300 children.

In May 1881 the orphanage amalgamated with the Railway Benevolent Institution founded in 1858 to help railway staff and their families in time of need. The Railway Servants' Orphanage was renamed St Christopher's Railway Home in 1948.

Numbers at the Orphanage dropped significantly after the Second World War and the old building was demolished to make way for two smaller houses, opened in 1977. By 1982, one of these was adequate for the children cared for at the Home and the other was adapted for use as a home for the elderly from 1983. By the time it was finally closed in 1993, there were no longer any children at St Christopher's and only six elderly residents.

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