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Description area
Dates of existence
History
Millicent Lucy Coleman born 1910, daughter of John Albert Sidney Coleman and Jane Ketteridge; attended Lady Eleanor Holles' School, Hackney, 1921-1928; student in King's College London Department of History, 1928-1931; Day Training College and University of London Teacher's Diploma, 1932; supply teacher with the London County Council, 1933-1935; Inspector of Factories, 1941-1942; worked in intelligence testing at the National Children's Home, 1935-1942, served on the governing council of the Pestalozzi Village Trust, and as a Vocational Guidance Adviser and psychologist, and in an informal capacity at the NCH during retirement, 1942-[1985]; died, 1990.
Kathleen Mary Coleman, her sister, born 1915, daughter of John Albert Sidney Coleman and Jane Ketteridge; educated at the Lady Eleanor Holles' School, Hackney, 1921-1933; student at King's College of Household and Social Science, 1933-1935; on the Institutional Housekeepers' course, Northern Polytechnic, Holloway, 1935-1937; worked in Day Nursery, Tottenham, 1940-1941; worked as dietary adviser and buyer for the National Children's Home from 1937-[1975]; died, 1996.
The National Children's Home was set up as the Children's Home in Lambeth in 1869 by the Methodist minister, Thomas Stephenson, in order to provide a refuge to young boys. It soon after moved to new premises in Bethnal Green and admitted girls, changing its name to the National Children's Home (NCH) in 1908. The National Children's Home quickly recognised the importance of fostering and adoption and the charity was also at the forefront of the development of child psychology and established its own training programme to train child-care professionals. In recent years a focus on residential care has given way to its support of community projects particularly for the homeless and children with learning difficulties. The charity changed its name to NCH Action for Children in 1994 and NCH in 2001.
The Pestalozzi Village Trust was named in honour of the Swiss philanthropist and educationalist, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827). His work was aimed particularly at providing poor children with the practical skills necessary to earn a living. Dr Walter Corti rediscovered Pestalozzi's work in response to the problem of the large number of refugee children displaced during the Second World War. He established the first Pestalozzi Children's Village at Trogen in Switzerland to care for orphans and received support from all over Europe and in particular from the United Kingdom, where the second Village and Trust were set up in 1957 based at Sedlescombe in East Sussex. Refugee children were housed there and educated locally and in the Village's own facilities. The Trust is still active and older students, drawn mainly from the developing world, now either take a two-year International Baccalaureate Diploma course at Hastings College of Arts and Technology combining community and practical work, or remain in their countries of origin where their education is sponsored by the Trust. One of its principle aims now is to encourage sustainable development and promote knowledge and understanding of environmental issues.