Abstract
This article examines the contrast between the interwar British state's emphasis on motherhood and the justification for the institutional care of a relatively small group of blind babies. After the First World War, concerns about the state of the nation were addressed in part by legislation and an increase in the number of organisations which purported to help mothers to bring up healthy babies. The interest in mothers who gave birth to blind babies centred on the poor mother's ability to cope with a visually impaired infant. The authorities’ concerns, anxieties about the association between impaired senses and learning difficulties expressed by eugenicists and unease surrounding the long-term social and economic costs of blindness supported early intervention. The narrative of the overwhelmed and neglectful mother was juxtaposed with the benefit of institutionalisation, which justified the removal of some blind infants from their homes. The metaphor of the dark home and unenlightened mother was replaced by one of light and knowledge emanating from the brightly painted environs of the Sunshine Homes for Blind Babies. During the interwar period, positive reports and articles in newspapers, magazines and charitable propaganda, supported by powerful elites including the British royal family, presented the Sunshine Homes for Blind Babies as caring spaces full of the love of dedicated professional nurses, and kind, wealthy benefactors; there were no reports produced to suggest anything but the most positive experience for the infants. Essentially, a blind infant's biological family was metaphorically, and in some cases literally, replaced by a new institutional family of carers and visitors.
In 1920, the article ‘How Peter Found Sunshine’ was published in the National Institute for the Blind's journal The Beacon. It told an allegorical tale of a boy that begins with the omnipotent Mother of All Babies saying goodbye to Peter, as he is due to be born; she was ‘very, very, tender and her hug a little more lengthened and reluctant to yield because Peter was to be different from the other babies’. 1 The story reports his mother's ‘terrible, agonised cry’ when she learned of Peter's blindness. His early development is categorised as confusing and problematic, as his mother struggled to engage with her blind infant. Peter's early months were spent lying on his back and when he started crawling, he bumped into hard objects. His mother seemed unaware of her child's discomfort and of problems with his development: ‘As he sat on the rough blanket that chafed his legs, he rocked his body slowly to and fro. And often his small fingers fumbled uneasily about the two sockets that held his dull, dead eyes’. 2 The story makes it clear that Peter's mother could not cope with her blind baby as he started to develop, and implies that without intervention he would have a sad and unsatisfactory childhood. However, the situation as it stood was to change significantly. Peter was taken on a train journey and ‘the arms that he knew to be his mother, placed him in those of another […] somehow Peter forgot to be afraid’. 3 He took up residence with a number of other blind babies who all lived in a large home, and according to the article, ate delicious food, played with wonderful toys and romped happily on the lawns in the sun.
In contrast to the representation of a rough and indifferent start in life with a neglectful and ignorant mother, Peter was apparently voluntarily given up to live in a warm and loving home within a caring institutional environment. Peter's ‘sunshine’ was found at Sunshine House, an institution for blind babies. The first home was opened in 1918 by the National Institute for the Blind at Chorley Wood in Hertfordshire, England, which institutionalised approximately 25 to 30 blind infants and toddlers from the age of 2 to 7 years old, although new-borns were admitted in cases of illegitimacy. 4 During the interwar period, more institutions were established in England; in the north west in Southport in 1922, and in the Midlands in Leamington Spa in 1925. 5
This article explores the contrast between the emphasis on the family, particularly the relationship between the child and mother in the interwar period in Britain, and the substitution of institutional care or homes for a relatively small group of blind babies. The welfare of the vulnerable child was paramount to authorities, and legislation was enacted to protect children and support mothers to bring up healthy families. Blind children were a particular concern, as they required special provision to ensure the effect of their disabilities on their role as productive citizens was sufficiently mitigated. Expert intervention was required to ameliorate any undesirable physical or emotional behaviour linked to deviance. A blind infant's complex situation was exacerbated by poverty, and questions were raised about the poor mother's ability to cope with anything other than the most robust baby. In order for blind infants to be removed from their families, narratives of neglect were reinforced, and retold in public and private spheres. The image of the poor mother with numbers of children was a common trope, and was reinforced by the narrative construct of the neglectful mother, which was employed to justify a blind infant's removal.
Once placed in the Sunshine Home, babies were adopted into institutional and public families designed to replace their inexperienced and inattentive ones. This had its roots in the 19th century, where numbers of children were removed from inferior home environments for ‘superior institutional families’. 6 However, the babies’ uniqueness and particular defencelessness extended emotional bonds outside the institution, with the potential for new familial groups outside those with biological relatives. The blind child at the Sunshine Home exchanged their original family for several others—their institutional family, represented by the nurses at the home; their charitable family, represented by the officials who created the propaganda that kept the home in the public consciousness; and their public family, who responded to the calls for financial and emotional support. Through articles in newspapers, magazines and philanthropic publications, institutional and extra-institutional families were created, and through charitable onus, and sympathy for the plight of these vulnerable babies, the country was asked to support them fiscally, socially and emotionally. ‘Vernacular’ sources such as newspapers, literature for parents, the charitable press and public campaigns, presented the benefits of institutional life directly to the public, and offered access into the lives of these vulnerable infants. 7 The babies were lifted out of obscurity reserved for other poor, disabled children; they were visited by wealthy benefactors who, from reports in newspapers and the charitable press, established familial bonds with the infants. 8 As the notional head of the national family, the British royal family used their position to garner support for blind babies, ensuring the infants’ place in the public consciousness, creating deeper and long-standing familial links.
Bringing up healthy babies after 1918
The concentration on infant welfare and health in the interwar period situated authorities alongside families, ostensibly working together to raise a generation of healthy children. Efforts were supported by legislation throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. The Prevention of Cruelty to, and Protection of, Children Act 1889 was a landmark piece of legislation in the history of children's rights in Britain. Called ‘the children's charter’, this act protected children from harm, and reconfigured and extended the authorities’ responsibility for them. As the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children's Annual Report triumphantly claimed in 1899, the Children's Charter meant that ‘a child in this land is no longer merely the child of its parents’. 9
Reports from committees supported intervention on children's behalf; the state's scientific approach measured and tested children's bodily health, in order to take appropriate action. The first report devoted to identifying the weakness of recruits and parlous state of children's health was the 1904 report of the Inter-departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration. Over the next decade, services expanded and legislation made infants and children the government's responsibility; as Hester Barron points out in her study of interwar London school children, the visibility of the state grew before the First World War, and was followed by a significant increase in state power during the conflict. 10 Further legislation swiftly followed the end of the war; the 1918 Maternity and Child Welfare Act established administrative systems and gave powers to local authorities to acquire funding to attend to the needs of pre-school children from birth to five years with support from health visitors and clinics, who assessed, measured and reported on care within families. Health visitors offered advice and ‘monitored domestic conditions and maternal performance’. 11 As Deborah Dwork has argued, the welfare movement in Britain in the period following the World War had its roots in the 19th century, and focused on the feeding of infants and mothercraft. 12 Similarily to the United States, instruction was offered to mothers through what Rima Apple has termed ‘scientific motherhood’— espoused through medical practitioners, health visitors, infant welfare centres, and other sources of advice. 13 The domestic conditions in the home were central to the mother's role; in her book on working class women in the north of England, Elizabeth Roberts points out that Medical Officers of Health, health visitors and other experts stressed the importance of the domestically capable at-home mother. 14 Services further increased surveillance of mothers and babies in the home until children were old enough to go to school, when they became the responsibility of educational authorities. No longer were parents solely responsible for their children, instead legislation shifted accountability to a wider range of experts; placing all children, especially those of the working class, within the scope of the state's responsibility, which, Anna Davin points out, ‘set new standards of childhood, of parenthood and indeed of adulthood’. 15
Alongside health visits to the home or visits to local infant welfare centres, public events were held to spread the word about mothercraft, particularly to mothers who needed support. Instruction was offered at public events such as Baby Week, which consisted of a series of events from religious services to public exhibitions and conferences, was inaugurated in Britain in 1917 to promote babies’ wellbeing and support mothers to raise healthy children. 16 The first report on the National Baby Week campaign pointed out that ‘it was not part of the object of the campaign to judge and condemn poor mothers’, instead, the act of mothering needed to be improved, and mothers were anxious to learn how to better bring up their babies. 17 While services were ostensibly set up to cater for all classes, particular efforts focused on the difficulty of rearing children born into poverty, as less wealthy mothers were forced to focus much of their limited physical capacity on providing care for a young child. 18 It is clear that poorer mothers operated under significant physical, economic and emotional burdens placed on them through circumstance. Poorer women found marriage, multiple pregnancies and children emotionally as well as physically draining. Some mothers welcomed home visitors, attended infant welfare centres and embraced opportunities to learn how to care for their infants and children, although their impact is difficult to accurately assess. In her study of London maternal services, Lara Marks notes that while the number of health visitors and infant welfare services increased exponentially from 1914, it was unclear to what extent they were taken up by working class women, as attendance at the centres was not recorded. 19 The dire economic circumstances of some families in the interwar period was well understood by local authorities, although their interest and intervention in family life was not always welcome, as outlined by Ross in her study of late 19th and early 20th century motherhood in London. 20 This often unwelcome interference was resisted with increasing expertise, by the 1920s, George Behlmer points out, working class families were used to fending off inquisitive authorities. 21
The case of blind babies
Oversight of disabled infants and their mothers by the authorities, which David Armstrong refers to as surveillance medicine, was used to ‘enable the potentially abnormal to be adequately known’. 22 Health visitors played this role in the community, and consequently influenced outcomes for disabled infants and children. As part of their function, health visitors in local areas were tasked with identifying blind infants and children known as ‘exceptional’ or ‘defective’ to Medical Officers of Health. 23 A report from the Medical Officer of Health in the London borough of Hackney noted that each of the infants in the area had a case paper which listed all of their conditions. 24 A specific level of expertise to identify potentially disabled infants was conferred on the health visitor, yet there were limits placed on their capacity to do more than categorise blind babies. Some health visitors were qualified to work with physically disabled children and infants, yet dealing with sensory disabilities such as blindness and deafness required specialist knowledge, and health visitors were often judged ill-equipped to support a family with a blind baby or child in the home. 25
One particular issue identified which may have challenged the health visitor was the mother's innate instinct to be protective of her blind infant. While it was deemed natural that mothers were likely to be overprotective of a blind baby, this was frowned upon by medical experts who were concerned with controlling behaviours exhibited by blind infants, termed ‘blindism’, and which mothers, with their emotional attachment to their child, were deemed unable to correct. In a 1923 book on child development, it was noted that blind babies touched their eyes and the eyes of others to compare them with their own, which was similar to Peter's behaviour reported in The Beacon article. A Parent's Manual noted, ‘The eyes are moved up and down and sideways to the extreme limits; they are alternately shut and opened, or both are kept closed for a considerable time in imitation of blindness’.
26
Concerns were raised about pre-school visually impaired children; in an article by leading American child psychologist Arnold Gesell stressed their vulnerability, It is so easy to make the child in this period the victim of unintelligent compassion or of positive neglect, and to plant into his growing character traits which it will be difficult for later re-education to eradicate. Much of the unnecessary dependency of the blind, many of their psychological peculiarities, and their mannerisms (the so-called “blindisms”) are the outgrowth of faulty training in the pre-school years.
27
Preventing blindness was the objective of the medical profession and local authorities, but for babies born blind or infants blinded through contagious diseases, the public's heartstrings were pulled through long-standing tropes of pity and charity which resulted in significant donations to blind charities. The tragic affliction of blindness was particularly compelling for an infant and summed up in a book from 1923—‘A Blind Baby! Is there a more pathetic, aye, tragic combination of words in the English language?’ 34 Blind babies were a national concern; during Baby Week in 1917 a conference at the Armitage Hall in London focused on processes to support them. 35 Blindness was considered the most piteous of disabilities, yet blind people were judged to be the most educable, evidenced by their participation in training, industry and social life. After the First World War, the charitable endeavours of Sir Arthur Pearson, who was blind, on behalf of the blind soldiers and sailors housed at St Dunstan's Home for Blinded Servicemen and Sailors, which opened in 1915, highlighted the achievements of blind veterans gaining employment, taking up training and participating in sport. 36 Blind infants benefited from positive associations with these blind adults, in a similar way to the constructive relationships forged between amputee soldiers who undertook training in skills at Chailey Heritage in Sussex and the disabled children who were housed there from 1903. 37 Positive associations of ‘overcoming’ blindness in the interwar period by heroic blind veterans offered hope to infants and children that the impact of their blindness might be limited, and they would become useful and productive citizens.
Alongside the pity and valorisation of blindness was a more insidious discourse which centred on the behaviour and health of the blind baby's parents. The onus of prevention of blindness was placed on parents, who were tasked with a moral imperative to give birth to healthy babies. 38 A number of articles appeared in journals under the guise of ‘respecting the rights of the unborn’ in relation to visual impairments which were inherited from parents. 39 According to a 1934 article in the British Medical Journal, much of the blindness seen amongst children was ‘due to dysgenic births or to the unrestricted production of children in poor or bad circumstances.’ 40 Given the number of blind babies born as a result of conditions from venereal diseases, such as ophthalmia neonatorum from gonorrhoea and interstitial keratitis from syphilis, the issue of blind babies was a social, political and economic concern. Its long association with venereal disease added the social complication of stigma associated with the birth of a blind child in a family, and the number of infected soldiers from the First World War increased the numbers of children affected. 41 Blindness was amongst the most visible of disabilities, and its presence directed attention towards parents and exposed them to vilification and judgement, especially working-class people who had neither the space nor the means to hide the birth of a visually impaired child.
Parents’ role was complicated and ambiguous, as they were both protectors and vectors. On the one hand they were responsible for safeguarding their children's eyes, yet neglect, a lack of surveillance and their own intimate activities prior to a child's birth put their children's sight at risk. Venereal disease in the community and the risk of contagion fuelled fears of potential disabilities which destroyed innocent childhoods. The emotive language implored individuals to reflect on the implications for innocent children, with an underlying threat of a wide variety of stigmatising disabilities. In 1920, an article in the Portsmouth Evening News pointed out, ‘Surely none can remain unmoved at the thought of hundreds and thousands of little children, who instead of being happy, laughing infants, are, solely on account of venereal diseases in their parents, miserable, suffering, diseased, deformed, blind, deaf, and imbecile’. 42
In 1921, the National Baby Week Council reminded its audience that in spite of its concerns around blind babies, but less around some other types of disabled children, its efforts were ‘directed against the causes which result in defective children’. 43 Throughout the 1920s, articles appeared in the Eugenics Review revealing levels of concern centred specifically on blindness and heredity. During this period, eugenicists turned their attention to the senses, and blindness was conceptualised as an undesirable and hereditary trait which threatened Britain's racial fitness. Mathew Thomson has argued that physical and sensory disabilities remained on the periphery of eugenic discourse, as eugenicists concentrated their attention on mental deficiency, partly owing to the fact that ‘feeble-minded’ people were able to pass as ‘normal’, hiding their ‘social and moral failings’. 44 Historians have discussed eugenicists’ interest in children born with learning disabilities, but have focussed less on contemporary eugenic understandings of visual impairment in Britain. 45 Nonetheless, physical and sensory disabilities, particularly blindness, were an on-going part of eugenic discourse and concern, owing to fears about the hereditary nature of blindness, and about blind babies’ behaviour which mimicked children with learning disabilities. As Sara Vogt points out, the umbrella category of ‘feeblemindedness’ often referred to a range of disabilities including blindness. 46
As the government intervened more closely in health matters, particularly those of children, maintaining the next generation's sight became the dual responsibility of parents, mainly mothers, and the state. Essentially, working class parents were believed to be vectors of disease and poor health, and did not possess sufficient knowledge to care for any but the most robust of children. Furthermore, the number of children born to poor families was a cause of concern, as it contributed to the belief that poor families were unable to care for their blind infant amongst the many children clamouring for their attention. Many of the beliefs about poor families’ inability to cope with their blind infants were informed by generally held convictions about poor families. Authorities believed professional care outweighed some poorer parents’ ability to look after their blind infant, and it was incumbent on them to remove a child from their family home in order to improve their life chances. Lydia Murdoch goes further, arguing ‘If institutionalized children were not already orphans in fact, many welfare reformers hoped to make them orphans in practice by permanently separating them from their indigent parents’. 47 Surviving source material is not entirely clear when it comes to the specific conditions that contributed to an unsuitable home for a blind baby, but poorer families were more frequently subject to the removal of a blind infant from the family home before they were five years old. In order to achieve the conditions for this separation, in some cases, poorer families’ homes were represented as unsuitable environments for a blind baby, and mothers neglectful in their duties towards their blind infant.
The narrative of the neglectful mother and unsuitable home
In a report from 1914, George Newman, the Chief Officer to the Board of Education declared ‘the environment of the infant is its mother’. 48 Poor mothers were failing in their inability to provide an appropriate environment for their blind child; instead they were represented as overwhelmed, careless or neglectful. Claudia Nelson and Ann Sumner Holmes point out that the home was supposed to be the source of comfort, and the mother was at the centre of the home. 49 It was clear to the authorities that the requisite expertise to provide the blind baby with a good start in life through in an ideal domestic environment was beyond the poor mother's capabilities, and their inaction threatened their child's capacity to be a productive member of society. Instead, an alternative home, the Sunshine Home was represented as a solution to an uncaring mother beset by poverty and an unhealthy environment, as authorities intervened to rescue blind infants from their unfortunate circumstances. As a 1919 article in The Beacon noted, ‘It is clearly impossible for the harassed and poverty-driven mother to give proper attention to the handicapped little one’. 50 As the responsibility for the family largely rested with the mother, attention turned to reasons why she was unqualified to bring up her blind infant. The special attention a blind baby required increased the likelihood of other children being neglected, so it was argued that the birth of a blind infant in a working-class household had a deleterious effect on the whole family.
The discussion centring on the unsuitable home and the damage caused by poverty played out in the press and articles focused on a wide range of issues, from highlighting the challenges for the mother of a blind infant to vilification of the mother's inability to understand what was best for them, a presumption of incompetence which informed contemporary views on poor mothers. 51 Additionally, mothers were criticised for their poverty, and the concomitant destitution born of ignorance. A 1920 article in The Beacon pointed out ‘that it is a sad thing that very often parents are the persons least fitted to bring up their own children’. 52 Many of the newspaper articles placed local authorities in the role of protector—saving the vulnerable blind infant from neglect—and placed the onus on the authorities to protect a blind infant from their parents, who were damaging their child. Newspaper articles supported the removal of blind children from their families; in 1917 the Westminster Gazette called for donations for the Sunshine Home, which had been ‘initiated for the benefit of those pathetic members of the very poor, the little blind babies, who are often neglected and uncared for’. 53 Another article in The Times in the same year stated: ‘the blind baby is often very unwelcome in a working class home and is neglected, as the mother often has no time to look after it’. 54 The Nursing Record's article on the work of the National Institute of the Blind was scathing about poor parents, ‘when we remember that many of these sunshine children are the offspring of ignorant or careless parents living in overcrowded and squalid homes, the value to these little children in health, happiness, education, can scarcely be overestimated’. 55 The Sunshine Homes offered a way to ameliorate the impact of negligent families on vulnerable blind infants.
This discourse, which extended from criticism with an undercurrent of sympathy to vilification, presented a number of simple reasons to remove a blind infant from their family. The language of the press stressed the benefits of removal for the infant, and highlighted the parents’ and authorities’ moral obligation to a child's welfare. An article in The Globe in 1919 stated: ‘there are only two pathetic qualifications for a baby's right of entry to Sunshine House - poverty and blindness’. 56 Furthermore, the impact of blindness was limited if vulnerable infants were taken away from their neglectful mother and placed in a home supported by expert care. An article in Quiver in 1921 asked readers to reflect: ‘Imagine what it means to many to be removed from the haphazard attentions and scanty food of a squalid home into splendid air, beautiful surroundings and a nursery life amidst those “A1” influences that are all important during the first years of childhood’. 57 A letter in a local newspaper in 1920 appealing for funds for the Sunshine Homes outlined the benefits for the infant: ‘They come from poor homes in which the harassed mothers are unable to find the time or spare the trouble essential for the bringing up of the blind baby in such a manner that it will become as nearly like other children as possible’. 58 This separation of a young child from their family was in direct contrast to the efforts of and advice from the authorities for non-disabled children, who espoused the belief that the mother's presence in the home was essential to babies’ health.
Interest in blind babies’ health and welfare remained central to authorities and charities, and the National Baby Week Council and the National Institute for the Blind retained a close relationship. Through its charitable efforts and its association with Baby Week, the National Institute of the Blind kept itself and its work in the public sphere, and its reputation for expertise meant that its exhortations to separate blind babies from their families were taken seriously. Newspapers reported positively on the Institute's attempts to keep blind babies in the public consciousness; The Times reported on a conference held at the Armitage Hall in London during Baby Week, where blind babies were discussed.
59
An International Conference in July 1921 focused on the appropriateness of residential care for the blind baby.
60
The interest centred on blind infants lasted into the 1930s—one report noted in 1936, ‘The care of the blind baby in the important developmental years from two to five is one aspect of the general appeal for the better care of all toddlers which the national Baby Week council is marking this year on the occasion of the 20th national Baby Week’.
61
It was clear that for blind infants from poor families, this developmental period was meant to be spent in an institution. Essentially, a place in a Sunshine Home was considered an advantage and parents were being offered an opportunity for their child to have a better future. Supporters of the Sunshine Homes highlighted the positive aspects of early intervention: Special care must be commenced early. If intelligent care is exercised from the beginning and the child is otherwise well, he has a good chance of ordinary development incapacity and behaviour. If he does not obtain special care, it is certain that he will become progressively more abnormal. This fact must be impressed upon parents because at first the child is entirely in his mother's hands in most cases. Nothing can impress the parent of a blind child more than a visit to a Sunshine Home for blind babies. There they see clean, tidy cheerful children, moving about comparatively freely and in natural attitudes. They play games readily and comport themselves suitably at table. They speak nicely and frankly; they have initiative but they are obedient.
62
In addition to the practical consideration of family life, the emotional toll on parents judged ill-equipped to cope with their blind child's needs was offered as supporting evidence for removing a young child. In a 1919 ‘Lecture on Blindness’, it was noted that parents were too devastated by the birth of a blind baby to maintain emotional fortitude: ‘They are often too absorbed in their own sorrow at having a child thus afflicted, too sure that loss of eyesight means loss of mental vigour, to realise that their own attitude, their own self-pity, may prove a greater handicap to the child than blindness itself’. 64 It is clear poor parents were expected to comply with the removal of their infant with emotional fortitude. At no point in The Beacon's story is Peters’ mother's emotional state revealed. She was an ambivalent character, who merely represented the poor mother's inability to cope with her blind infant. While there was no active cruelty, Peter's mother did not offer the right environment; the inadequate comforts were rough, and the home unstimulating. Despite the creation of the neglectful, uncaring mother in the press and by medical and state authorities, there is little evidence that mothers themselves found their blind infants burdensome. However, surviving sources reveal little evidence or interest in the emotional toll on families whose infants were removed to Sunshine Homes, and few details on parent's efforts to keep their blind baby at home. For the most part, parents were expected to stoically accept the removal of their child to benefit from the Sunshine Homes for their visually impaired babies.
From darkness to light
It was clear that, in addition to representing the poor blind child's home as a locus of neglect, the Sunshine Homes were presented in the most positive way possible; an antithesis to the dark and dingy working-class home. The positive stories promulgated through newspapers and the National Institute for the Blind's propaganda centred on the warmth of the institution versus the uncaring environment of the poor working-class home. Many of the benefits of the Sunshine Homes were conveyed through the image of the blind child moving away from an environment of unhealthy darkness and towards healthy light—where beams of metaphorical and literal sunshine offered hope for a better future: Think of the pitiful baby down in a back street living room, wedged into a corner by a towel rail fence, counting its dirty little fingers as it sits there in the dark, with nothing to occupy the baby mind, no chance to learn what visions of joy, what interesting games of play are possible even for the baby that is blind if someone only lets the sunshine through the darkened windows of the mind.
65
Sunlight metaphors were common through the interwar period, and reflected the curative and cultural aspects of this free therapy. By 1925, sunlight was recommended for people of all ages—the Sunlight League was established by Caleb Saleeby in Britain that year, and its magazines recommended regular exposure to sunlight to maintain good levels of health. Adults enjoyed the sun, but children's health was affected more positively by sunlight. In Soaking Up the Rays, Tania Anne Woloshyn points out the particular association between children and exposure to sunshine, as children were the main recipients of this therapy. 66 In many polluted cities and in the dark corridors of the slums’ backstreets, where children had few places to play in the sunlight, parents were encouraged to take their children to light clinics in order to take advantage of the health benefits of exposure. National Baby Week made sunlight one of its themes in 1927, thus highlighting the link between health and sunshine for children and implicitly reinforcing the propaganda of the Sunshine Homes.
Sunlight was beneficial for all children, but, in particular, it informed therapies for disabled children in the first half of the 20th century. The sun was central to many health regimes for these children, including open-air schools, which were established in Britain from 1911, and earlier in countries such as Germany. 67 The power of the sun as a curative for disabled children reached its zenith in the interwar period, and many disabled children were exposed to its health-giving rays. Open-air schools for delicate children and orthopaedic hospitals were a testament to the belief in the sun as a curative regime, as Anne Borsay outlines in her study of children's orthopaedic medicine. 68 The sun was judged to have curative powers, and in some cases possessed preventative qualities. There were claims sunshine might have the power to prevent blindness in children; an advertisement in 1922 for the British Commercial Gas Association pointed out there would be fewer babies ‘born blind’ if homes and cities were cleaner, as children could benefit from the sunlight. 69
For Peter, whose blindness could not be prevented, the sun was more than a health-giving therapy—it was relentless in its ability to bestow warmth and comfort on the blind infant. Sunlight offered additional heat that was not merely physical; its healthy light offered emotional sustenance. Sunshine took on a warmth which was both curative and maternal, and was physically and mentally stimulating. The Beacon article presents a clear metaphor of the curative potential of sunlight in Peter's case: ‘Through a loophole in the curtain a sunbeam steals and rests on his face, as though the sun is never tired of trying to melt its way through those little sightless eyes and light up the brain that dwells in everlasting darkness’. 70
New families at the sunshine homes
If poverty and neglect were the problem for the blind baby and their family, then the Sunshine Homes offered the remedy. The results achieved by the Sunshine Homes were detailed in a 1921 article in The Lancet: ‘So many of these little inmates were not wanted children and had been so badly neglected when they reached the home, that there did not seem much prospect of improvement, but in a short time astonishing progress was noted’. 71 Throughout the interwar period, other articles went further, suggesting that the regime in the Homes promoted superior behaviour in blind babies in comparison with sighted children. One report noted that one of their most outstanding characteristics was ‘an entire absence of fear’ in relation to people, strangers, friends and objects. 72 This essentially baseless observation, with its positive connotations of bravery and independence shown by blind babies, supported the notion of the appropriateness, indeed the benefit, of institutionalisation for these infants. 73
The blind babies were provided with material and spatial advantages that were lacking in their previous homes, which were judged so harshly by the authorities and commentators in reports and the press. The grounds were spacious—the first home in Chorley Wood consisted of nine acres. The interior environment of the Homes reflected the curative power of sunlight, which was so important to these babies. Efforts were undertaken to ensure the homes were physically and metaphorically warm and homely. This idea of home and homeliness was not a new concept. In her study on Victorian and Edwardian institution for children, Claudia Soares reveals that welfare officials recognised the creation of a sense of home was important in children's institutional settings. 74 Jane Hamlett has explored the environments of residential institutions, and demonstrated the way they reflected domestic ideals, and presented pleasing and homely spaces. 75 According to commentators in the press, when the first Sunshine House opened, visitors felt that the house was well named, as the décor reflected the sunlight theme. One noted: ‘it was, in truth, a trap to catch sunbeams’. 76 One description of the house in a report from the National Institute of the Blind pointed out that in many of the homes the dining room was lemon yellow, the front hall was orange, the school room was bright yellow and the nurseries pale primrose yellow. As the children could not see their colourful environment, it is clear that the metaphor of warmth and light expressed through colour was directed towards the public, who were potential supporters of the National Institute of the Blind's charitable work.
Gifts were part of the efforts to create a comfortable home. During holidays and celebrations, the infants were supplied with numerous comforts; at Christmas, the tree was well-decorated, with numerous gifts placed underneath. An article from 1933 reported the children's bulging Christmas stockings and gifts of ‘fluffy dolls and wooden animals, trains that run and balls that tinkle, and instruments of music that make much noise’. 77 These material advantages were another justification to any sceptical individuals for the removal of infants from their families, as these Christmas riches were beyond the financial capacity of parents from poor working-class homes.
One of the many newspaper articles stressed that the young children lived together ‘like big happy families’. 78 Similar to many 19th century organisations, the Sunshine Homes were modelled on practices in families. 79 A wide number of individuals, driven by pity and charitable onus, acted as families to the children, remaining interested in them and taking on their care and support. The readiness of these extended families further displaced the babies’ parents, who were effectively shifted away—in public at least—from their children. Essentially, the blind babies of the Sunshine Homes became wards of the nation.
Called a ‘monument to human sympathy’, the Sunshine Home for blind babies shifted parenthood, especially motherhood, to an institutional level, replacing biological mothers with professional nurses. Maternal love was delivered institutionally through the nurses who were reportedly employed because of their love for children. Some of the techniques of bringing up a young child according to modern methods were replicated in the Homes; children were encouraged to play, discipline was not stressed, and health and happiness were the main aims. Emphasis was placed on the affection and care shown to the infants by the nurses so as to dispel any doubts expressed about the removal of a baby from their biological family in favour of these wider family networks. Maternal love was important to supporters of the Sunshine Homes; many upper- and middle-class women were influenced by advice manuals published in Britain and also imported from the United States on the social and emotional needs of children, reading books on the topic and advice in women's magazines.
80
The employment of nurses and nannies was common within homes amongst wealthy British households, many who supported the Sunshine Homes, but the removal of a young child from their biological family challenged established notions of motherhood and the spaces in which it was undertaken, so love was lavished on the infants, and was detailed in the charitable and national press. Due to their expression of maternal love in the absence of the biological mother, nurses were an acceptable replacement for day to day care—creating another family for the blind babies: The task of caring for and training these children is extraordinarily difficult, but the devotion of the matron and nurses who give abundantly of their young energy and affection to the children is rewarded in the happiness of all and the slow but sure improvement of many of those cared for in the Home.
81
In spite of what looked like efforts to distance infants from their relatives, there is evidence that parents endeavoured to maintain familial bonds, although these connections were challenging to maintain. Long absences potentially caused estrangement, and Claudia Soares has detailed the irreparable damage to familial relationships as a result of permanent institutionalisation. 83 The children at the Sunshine Homes were not entirely separated from biological relatives, and it is clear some efforts were made to maintain emotional connections with children—surviving sources reveal controlled visits took place. It was reported in The Beacon in 1926 that parents visited their children on Boxing Day, but not Christmas Day, and there is no further evidence that additional arrangements were made for children to spend long holidays with their families. 84 Effectively, once young children were placed in the Sunshine Homes, their biological families were rendered invisible in reports, newspaper articles and charitable propaganda which focused on the Homes and the happy babies within them. One newspaper image in 1924 entitled ‘First Hull Baby for Sunshine Home’, told the story of the first child from Hull in Northern England to go to the Sunshine Home. The story was accompanied by an image showing an official—a Mrs Hill from the National Blind Institute—and the baby, named as John Cowey, yet the woman holding the 2-year-old, who may be a nurse or his mother, is not named. The improving light emanating from the Sunshine Homes overshadowed biological parents presence in their children's lives and presented opportunities for the institutional and extra-institutional families to fill the gap. The public family comprised of donors or visitors who supported the Homes also had access to the infants, establishing a parental role in their lives, shifting the babies relatives to the background, in favour of ‘voices you called “lady” or “gentlemen” according to their quality’. 85
Blind babies were an emotive subject that elicited charitable support; the nation offered itself as a surrogate family for the babies through organised activities such as flag days and campaigns centred around donations. Advertisements in newspapers around the country exhorted individuals to help the blind babies, and profits from events and competitions were given to the homes. Class and wealth were not a barrier to the willingness to offer support, and many events were held around the country—the small events that raised a few pennies were shown the same appreciation as large sums of money from wealthy people. Well known individuals, often women, eagerly supported the charity throughout the interwar period—from an elocution competition judged by ‘actresses of distinction’ (Lilian Braithwaite and Sybil Thorndyke) to ‘At Home’ events advertised in the society pages. 86 In addition, the upper classes used their connections with wealthy individuals to elicit donations and publicly demonstrate their sentimental attachment to these piteous children. Visits to the home by emotional wealthy benefactors were reported to confuse Peter, as ‘sometimes those strange voices would suddenly become shaky and husky, and often, held tenderly by two hands, his little body would be lifted off the floor and a face pressed against his’. 87 These interactions were uniformly positive, mainly owing to the fact that individuals who established and supported charities exercised powerful influence on the ways their activities were reported in the press and periodicals. 88 The ‘avid’ British readership of all classes wanted to hear positive stories about the blind infants and their substitute families and these articles in the philanthropic and mainstream press were carefully controlled, as negative reports had the potential to limit sources of fiscal support so fundamental to benevolent work. 89 Yet this national family felt more than charitable onus—there was a sentimental attachment that linked these vulnerable infants with the public.
Sentimentality and the acceptability of supporting the blameless and tragic blind baby established strong financial and social links with the upper classes. Before too long, the children at the Sunshine Homes gained the attention of another highly influential family, well-known for their charitable efforts around the country. King George V and Queen Mary had a strong grasp of, and were involved in, visiting individuals affected by poverty—to slums, hospitals and child welfare centres. 90 During the war, they expanded their visits to hospitals and convalescent homes where disabled ex-servicemen were undergoing therapeutic and retraining regimes, visited factories and sent messages to bereaved families. 91 By the time the Sunshine Homes were opened in 1918, the royal family had earned themselves a reputation of supporting philanthropic endeavours for those considered vulnerable.
Frank Prochaska has highlighted the monarchy's skill in maintaining their mystique yet enjoying a relatively benign relationship with the public, as King George in particular was considered an ‘unpretentious family man’. 92 Similar to other royal women, but perhaps more actively occupying the role of mother of the nation—in the same way that King George was judged to be the father—Queen Mary specialised in causes that related specifically to women and children, so the blind babies were part of those interests. From the outset, Queen Mary was involved in the Sunshine Homes; she donated £50, and the dowager Queen Alexandra pledged £100 to support the purchase of the house and equipment when the prospect of a home for blind babies was mooted by the National Institute of the Blind in 1917. 93 Other members of the royal family put themselves forward to support the Sunshine Homes’ work, and King George's sister Princess Beatrice was installed as President. At an event in 1919 attended by the Princess and the Queen of Spain, six of the young children from the home came on stage to bow their thanks, and later the theatre lights were shut off for 60 seconds so that the audience could experience how it felt to be blind. 94
Throughout the interwar years, the King and Queen maintained their links with the home, including them in their many charitable visits, and after King George V's death in 1936, the new king, George VI, and the Queen retained the family interest and responsibility toward the blind babies at the Sunshine Homes. Their daughters, the young princesses Elizabeth (Elizabeth II) and her sister Margaret were involved with the philanthropic work of the royal family in relation to the homes. In 1936, the princesses loaned two of their own dolls to an exhibition at the National Institute for the Blind in aid of the Sunshine Homes. 95 The blind infants’ access to toys was often highlighted in the press to demonstrate how fortunate they were; and the link between the princesses’ dolls and toys for blind children established a connection between these privileged royal children and the blind infants. The association was long-standing, in 1939, The Times reported an event at the National Institute for the Blind in London, which members of the royal family and the blind babies’ attended, demonstrating that the commitment to these blind babies was a commitment that mirrored that of parental devotion. 96 This on-going royal interest fixed the Sunshine Homes into the public's consciousness and maintained a long-standing charitable and emotional link between the blind infants and the nation.
Overall, the Sunshine Homes were judged a success and the National Institute of the Blind was never criticised in the interwar period for removing very young blind children from their biological families, and institutionalising them. A 1931 article in The New Beacon proclaimed, ‘Twenty years ago the majority of blind babies were brought up in ignorance and squalor; today, thanks to the Sunshine Homes, every baby may be brought up in happy and healthy surroundings’. 97
Conclusion
Trained experts such as health visitors, alongside infant welfare centres and public campaigns, offered opportunities for mothers to learn how to bring up healthy babies in the interwar period in Britain. Amongst this impression of contented mothers confidently dealing with bringing up healthy and happy children as a result of what they learned, the blind infant was of unique and on-going concern to the authorities, especially given the growing association between national degeneration and blindness by eugenicists who held significant sway in public discourse. In order that this association might be broken, and the blind child turned into a productive adult, there was a concerted effort to remove some blind babies from homes, especially those of the poor, which were deemed unsuitable environments for these infants.
In order to support the notion that certain blind babies were better off away from their families and that the Sunshine Homes presented an opportunity rather than a loss, poor homes were represented as unsuitable and unhealthy, and poor mothers of blind babies were constructed as overwhelmed and neglectful. In contrast to this maternal disregard and its consequences, the lifestyle offered by the Sunshine Homes in the company of other blind children aided the babies’ development and prevented them from turning into ‘little animals’. By enforcing this message through propagandistic narratives and the metaphor of sunshine as bringing enlightenment and knowledge, authorities shifted the blind infant's care from the unskilled and overwhelmed mother to the expert, professional Sunshine Homes nurse, who met all the child's physical and emotional needs—creating a loving institutional family. Images of nurses and babies that featured in the Sunshine Homes’ propaganda supported this impression of maternal love, with nurses holding, feeding and touching the happy and healthy babies. It is clear that parents tried to keep in touch with their children (though not to what extent); but they were forced to compete with surrogate families who provided material and emotional comforts, and who limited the time they might spend with their children.
The blind baby was placed in an idealised domestic and materially comfortable setting established by influential individuals who sponsored many of these charities, such as the National Institute for the Blind. Public awareness of the homes was increased still further by the interest and actions of the upper class and the British monarchy, who, due to their appearances in caring spaces and working-class environments, were growing in the public's mind as notional heads of a national family. Peter's representative story and those of the small number of babies sent to the Sunshine Homes in the interwar period speak to the nature of intervention, specifically relating to the appropriateness of institutionalisation for very young children, overshadowing the emotional links within the biological family through the power of expert voices and professionals, and love and material goods from the wealthy. These private family matters played out in public arenas through articles in the charitable and national press which essentially supported the creation of multiple and competing forms of family. These reconstituted families extended outside the boundaries of the institution, and combined with charitable support and emotional surrogacy reinforced the presence and commitment to blind babies in the Sunshine Homes within the nation's consciousness.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Wellcome Trust.
