A Grievance Against the City Gas Committee: Care of the Feeble-Minded: The monthly meeting of the Birmingham Trades Council was held at the People’s Hall, Hurst Street, on Saturday evening, Mr. W. J. Morgan presided. … … Mentally Defective: Mrs. Hume Pinsent keenly interested the members of the Council by an address dealing with the care of the mentally defective and the report of the Royal Commission thereon. She took two of the fundamental ideas of the new proposed Act. The first being unity of control and the second continuity of control. She held that as things were at present everything was done to discourage a working man from trying to obtain proper care and training for his child. If he did what it was his duty to do, he was made a pauper for so doing. Mrs. Pinsent showed the need of power to enforce residence in a boarding school where necessary, and of detaining cases after school when they were unfit for liberty. By means of charts she set forth in a striking manner the history of feeble-minded families and the generations of paupers and criminals produced. These illustrations demonstrated what degradation and suffering would have been saved by continuous treatment. Mrs. Pinsent asked her hearers to think of the urgency of dealing with the inefficient, or each year it would mean a fresh batch of boys and girls ruined and a fresh number of mentally defective, criminal and “workshy”. Mr. Fred Hughes said it was impossible to overestimate the value of Mrs. Pinsent’s work. The lines of dealing with the mentally defective proposed were largely preventive and would put them on the way towards the removal of a fearful evil in their midst. He commended the report of the Commission and hoped they would all do their best in pressing forward the need of reports. Mr. Eades said that if many of the workers would take the same interest in training their children as in training a canary or pigeon, or a whippet dog, much evil would be avoided. In replying to a vote of thanks, Mrs. Pinsent referred to several points raised in a discussion which followed her address. The first was that of “official interference,” and she said she did realize that it was a great difficulty in the minds of many parents. It seemed to her that the best way of getting over it was that of the Education Committee. A great many parents had objected to the official interference of the visiting officers and the interference altogether of those who had to administer the Education Act. The difficulty had, however, been got over to a great extent by voluntary work done by the Education Committee, and she thought that in the future if they had institutions for the care and control of the feeble-minded, they must all have very strong voluntary committees working in connection with them. In this way the feeling parents would have that there were ladies and gentlemen to whom they could apply for sympathy and help in their cases would do away with the unfortunate feeling of official interference. The question had also been raised of over-working imbeciles in some institutions. The feeble-minded, the imbeciles and all grades of the mentally defective were much better when regularly employed, but there again they wanted strong voluntary committees to overlook that king of work and see that no inmate was doing more work than he or she was fit for. She hoped these institutions would be under public control and not privately managed: (hear, hear). At the next meeting of the Trades Council the chairman said he should move a resolution urging the need of immediate legislation on the lines recommended in the report of the Royal Commission.
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Referenced
GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949