Threads of Caring, A History of the Anglican Trust for Women and Children
Ruth Greenaway and Megan Hutching
Reviewed by Elizabeth WardThe Royal Commission of Inquiry into Children in Care has placed the spotlight on institutions that provided residential care for children. Within an international context, New Zealand has taken much longer than many comparable countries to examine the ways children in care were treated. One flow-on effect of this is there has been very little critical history written about those non-governmental organisations which provided welfare services to children. As many of these were faith-based groups there has been a tendency to place the history of faith-based welfare within histories that focus on churches or dioceses, rather than see church-run welfare services as part of the wider fabric of welfare provision in New Zealand.
Threads of Caring, by Ruth Greenaway and Megan Hutching, is a notable exception to this. The book traces the ways the Anglican Trust for Women and Children tried to fulfil its mandate to help those in need, against the background of changes in the kinds of welfare that were required. It shows how the Trust has adapted and changed over the 164 years it has operated. Because the Trust and its antecedents were not associated with any particular Anglican church, its history of caring for women and children has remained separate from religious history, although the Trust was closely intertwined with the Anglican Church. This enabled Greenaway and Hutching to focus on how the Trust provided welfare for women and children from 1858 until the present day, rather than placing the work of the Trust within a religious history framework. The Trust began with the opening of an Orphan Home and at one stage ran two large children’s homes and a home for unmarried mothers. Today it runs a range of services that provide support to vulnerable women and children, and their families.
One of the strengths of this book is that it places a context around the work of the Trust. In each chapter, the authors discuss the wider trends within welfare and how the Trust reflected these. This gives a real depth of understanding as to why the Trust made the decisions it did. It also helps the reader to understand that practices that are now seen as cruel or potentially abusive were part of what was considered the best policy. This is best illustrated by the way the authors deal with St Mary’s Home for Unmarried Mothers. The home has faced accusations of forcing women into placing their babies up for adoption. Yet Greenaway and Hutching deal with this part of the Home’s history sensitively. They provide space for women affected by the adoption policy while also giving the wider background of government policy and societal pressures that led to the home acting the way it did.
Another strong point of the book is the way Greenaway and Hutching deal with the effects of the restructuring of the welfare state in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Significant changes in government provision of welfare put considerable onus on organisations like the Trust. This is a part of welfare history that has not had a lot of historical attention. Greenaway and Hutching’s chapter on the 1990s is valuable in illustrating how voluntary and faith-based organisations responded to the withdrawal of the state. It also highlights how the Trust began to work towards reaching Māori and Pasifika communities during this period. The 1990s was a period of tremendous change and this chapter in Threads of Caring adds to our understanding of how the non-governmental welfare sector responded.
The authors have worked hard to provide a voice to those who were cared for by the Trust. Even in the earlier decades of the Trust when less attention was paid to those the Trust housed and served, the authors include the voice of children in the Homes or the mothers at St Mary’s. This is done using material from reports and the Trust’s magazine Caring. In the later chapters these are supplemented with oral history accounts from children who were cared for by the Trust, women who gave birth at St Mary’s, and staff from the Trust’s various homes. The addition of personal stories and reflection gives another layer to the story of the Trust and prevents the book from slipping into a typical institutional history. The reader is reminded in each chapter that the Trust provided welfare for real people, many of whom had stories that resonate with people’s lives today.
The structure of the book is conventional, beginning in 1858 with the opening of the Orphan Home in central Auckland. The chapters then progress to deal with the work of the Trust in decades, with the second half of the twentieth century making up the bulk of the book. This allows the reader to follow the changes the Trust had to navigate, but it does lead to a feeling of disjointedness. As the Trust’s work expanded into different kinds of welfare from the 1960s it was slightly difficult for the reader to follow the progression of the various branches of welfare the Trust was running. However, the authors have worked hard to overcome this by structuring the chapters in a similar way.
Threads of Caring is a valuable addition to our understanding of New Zealand's welfare history. The fact that the Trust has provided welfare over such a long period of time means this book gives excellent insight into the changes in provision and attitudes around welfare. Not only is this book useful to welfare historians but it provides a window into the lives of New Zealanders over the 164 years the Trust has operated. Because the authors paid much attention to the wider context within which the Trust worked, the book increases and enriches our understanding of New Zealand’s past.Elizabeth Ward is a tutor in history at Massey University’s Palmerston North Campus.
She specialises in twentieth-century Aotearoa New Zealand history.
My Story Your Story Together Builds Communities; Ko aku korero ko au koero Ka whakamana te kotahitanga o te hapori: Auckland’s North Shore; Te Raki Paewhenua. Auckland North Community and Development Inc.
Yvonne Powley, Ruth Greenaway, Megan Hutching and Richard Howard. (2016)Reviewed by Phil Harington; School of Counselling Human Services and Social Work, Faculty of EdSW, UoA.
It’s a joy to contemplate a book, a record, an acknowledgement, a history like this. It is a grand project executed with grand style. Awesome that people with a story to tell find the time to undertake such a solid effort to not just publish a record of achievement and influence but also an acknowledgement of the immense collection of people and spirit that went into making it all. Kiwis are supposed to be too reserved for this bold and out-there form of celebration. We will have a scone and a cuppa or maybe give a gong or a farewell bunch of flowers but we are coy about detailing the effort and reluctant to beg penetrative questions about what all this going on means. ‘My Story, Your Story; Building Communities Together’ makes a tohunga of the biography and imagination of the people who developed and continue to extend the notion of community on the North Shore.
Becoming the North Shore could never be assumed. The separate parts, localities, histories and identities needed champions willing to build a canopy of vibrant strengths from their many grassroots. This volume has done a wonderful job of telling the story with both photographs and strong readable material that becomes way more than the sum of its parts. I can refer students to this text to explore the theory and practice of community development and indeed of a community’s development. We must thank everyone involved for what they have created here.
This is not however a usual textbook. It is located on land and its people. They came to the setting and understood the notion of citizenship. Acknowledged here are the personal and colloquial stories of how things came to pass. How connections were built and then pushed on as the early steps became reason to take larger strides. This is not a tool kit although remarkably and with justification you can see how a ‘North Shore Model’ of community development emerged and took hold with both theory and strategy. It was always the product of individuals acting with initiative and a willingness to collaborate. It linked neighbourhoods, patterns of settlement, levels of resources and a wide range of knowledge to find ways to do place-making and then more. The editors have honoured the legacy of community builders on the North Shore who made a huge contribution from an era when the North Shore was a city unto itself to today where the Shore has a vibrant stature as part of a supercity.
There is a strong sense of transformation here and a reader quickly becomes aware that the emergence of a community was never left to chance. There were people keen to step up. They could imagine a place, a setting, and ultimately networks and relationships that could be created with patience and resilience. There needed to be leadership and dispute resolution. Their activity shaped and nurtured organisations to deliver services even before they had any certainty of funding or continuity. People transitioned from being participants to being advocates and managers. They recognised the value of an active community and could see settings and circumstances where people needed to be included, not left out. There were many who could innovate where young families, new mothers, new citizens, young people, and neglected neighbourhoods needed effective support. They pushed the scope for responses and raised both public awareness and the funds for action. Some challenged the orthodoxy and as a result, we have an organisation like the Auckland North Community and Development Inc, who have seen the value in documenting a collection of this kind.
There is another charm in this collection; you tend to read on from what your eye catches. You find surprises in details and insights and it’s a credit to the writing and formatting that the pages just turn over and hold your attention. You find you have spent longer browsing than you might ever have spent close reading. Quite soon you are cross-referencing a point with another observation made earlier on. By its commitment to tell the stories of activity and achievement this is a volume that gets you thinking. In a longer overview of the material included here, one might consider how these biographies show affinities or differences. Clearly, gender, age, ethnicity, and the values of social justice have been elements in the mix of participation. Why the notion of community development was distinct on the North Shore in comparison to elsewhere could be explored from here or we might ask how development transforms communities with diverse assets and strengths. Indeed how does civic society work? In these few words, I want to congratulate Yvonne Powley and the team that has put this together and thank them for giving us a local resource to guide more effort.
It’s a joy to contemplate a book, a record, an acknowledgement, a history like this. It is a grand project executed with grand style. Awesome that people with a story to tell find the time to undertake such a solid effort to not just publish a record of achievement and influence but also an acknowledgement of the immense collection of people and spirit that went into making it all. Kiwis are supposed to be too reserved for this bold and out-there form of celebration. We will have a scone and a cuppa or maybe give a gong or a farewell bunch of flowers but we are coy about detailing the effort and reluctant to beg penetrative questions about what all this going on means. ‘My Story, Your Story; Building Communities Together’ makes a tohunga of the biography and imagination of the people who developed and continue to extend the notion of community on the North Shore.
Becoming the North Shore could never be assumed. The separate parts, localities, histories and identities needed champions willing to build a canopy of vibrant strengths from their many grassroots. This volume has done a wonderful job of telling the story with both photographs and strong readable material that becomes way more than the sum of its parts. I can refer students to this text to explore the theory and practice of community development and indeed of a community’s development. We must thank everyone involved for what they have created here.
This is not however a usual textbook. It is located on land and its people. They came to the setting and understood the notion of citizenship. Acknowledged here are the personal and colloquial stories of how things came to pass. How connections were built and then pushed on as the early steps became reason to take larger strides. This is not a tool kit although remarkably and with justification you can see how a ‘North Shore Model’ of community development emerged and took hold with both theory and strategy. It was always the product of individuals acting with initiative and a willingness to collaborate. It linked neighbourhoods, patterns of settlement, levels of resources and a wide range of knowledge to find ways to do place-making and then more. The editors have honoured the legacy of community builders on the North Shore who made a huge contribution from an era when the North Shore was a city unto itself to today where the Shore has a vibrant stature as part of a supercity.
There is a strong sense of transformation here and a reader quickly becomes aware that the emergence of a community was never left to chance. There were people keen to step up. They could imagine a place, a setting, and ultimately networks and relationships that could be created with patience and resilience. There needed to be leadership and dispute resolution. Their activity shaped and nurtured organisations to deliver services even before they had any certainty of funding or continuity. People transitioned from being participants to being advocates and managers. They recognised the value of an active community and could see settings and circumstances where people needed to be included, not left out. There were many who could innovate where young families, new mothers, new citizens, young people, and neglected neighbourhoods needed effective support. They pushed the scope for responses and raised both public awareness and the funds for action. Some challenged the orthodoxy and as a result, we have an organisation like the Auckland North Community and Development Inc, who have seen the value in documenting a collection of this kind.
There is another charm in this collection; you tend to read on from what your eye catches. You find surprises in details and insights and it’s a credit to the writing and formatting that the pages just turn over and hold your attention. You find you have spent longer browsing than you might ever have spent close reading. Quite soon you are cross-referencing a point with another observation made earlier on. By its commitment to tell the stories of activity and achievement this is a volume that gets you thinking. In a longer overview of the material included here, one might consider how these biographies show affinities or differences. Clearly, gender, age, ethnicity, and the values of social justice have been elements in the mix of participation. Why the notion of community development was distinct on the North Shore in comparison to elsewhere could be explored from here or we might ask how development transforms communities with diverse assets and strengths. Indeed how does civic society work? In these few words, I want to congratulate Yvonne Powley and the team that has put this together and thank them for giving us a local resource to guide more effort.
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