Not the Catholic nun/campaigner for women's education from Yorkshire who lived 400 years ago, our Mary Ward was born in the nineteenth century andachieved fame in her lifetime as the best-selling novelist Mrs Humphry Ward but she had an enduring impact on public education through the pioneering work she initiated at the Settlement she founded which now bears her name. Her first residential settlement at University Hall, Gordon Square (1890), had a religious aim but it was the work at Marchmont Hall (1891) in Marchmont Street with its social and educational fare of clubs, concerts, debates and lectures that reached the lives of ordinary people. You can read Mary Ward's best selling novel Robert Elsmere online by clicking here.If you are interested in the earlier Mary Ward, click here to learn more about her life.
The two centres with their different aims were united in one purpose-built Arts and Crafts building in Tavistock Place, now known as Mary Ward House, originally called the Passmore Edwards Settlement after its radical wealthy benefactor. Mary Ward’s declared aim was to promote ‘equalisation’ in society and the building was soon crammed with local residents enjoying ‘the hundred pleasures and opportunities that fall mainly to the rich’. The Settlement acted as a magnet to ordinary people who paid their small annual membership fee not only to pursue intellectual interests and learn practical skills, but to be part of a social and community network that included interest groups such as music, debating and chess societies, and self-help groups like the coal club, boot club, and mother and toddler groups. A poor man’s lawyer service, retraining facilities for the unemployed, and domestic economy classes for women were also part of the programme. This year we are reviving the membership fee, but instead of a few pence it will be £8 standard, £4 concessionary rate.
Concerts and music were an important part of the Settlement reflecting Mary Ward’s belief in the value of culture, knowledge and experience for its own sake and for all. Gustav von Holst was Musical Director for a time and George Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, George Trevelyan and Keir Hardie were amongst those who gave lectures. It was Mary Ward’s work with children at the Settlement that was to have the greatest influence on the English educational system. She was responsible for initiating the Play Centre movement in England by providing care and activities for children after school and Vacation Schools. Most important of all, the first school for physically handicapped children in England opened in 1899 at the Settlement.
The settlement moved to Queen Square in 1982 and the Legal Centre is now based next door in Boswell Street, but all our work today is rooted in those early years. Our aim remains the same as in 1890 - "to promote public education and social service for the benefit of the community". The settlement still is - in Mary Ward's words - 'a place for ideals, a place for enthusiasm'.
During the coming year our extensive archive of the Settlement, dating from 1890, is being catalogued and moved to the London Metropolitan Archive (LMA) www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma to make these materials available to the public for the very first time. Working with other local Bloomsbury organisations (see www.culturalbloomsbury.org), LMA and with workers education and Literary Institutes, we will be bidding for funds and promoting scholarship and inquiry into the social, architectural and political history of the Settlement and its meaning for us in the 21st Century. We will be displaying archive material in the Centre, running new archive related courses in 08/09 and participating in Open House weekend in Sept 08. Contact us if you would like to train as a volunteer guide for Open House and other events or to contribute to this historical work in any way.
History of the Mary Ward Centre's Queen Square home can be found in this Adobe pdf document
