Getting in to Reedham Orphanage
A hundred years ago,
a child without parents
might end up on the streets,
in the workhouse,
or in an orphanage.
Reedham was Croydon's biggest orphanage.
To get in, children had to be,
"healthy,
free from deformity,
fatherless,
above the pauper and criminal class,
but in need".
The orphanage was more like a school
than a workhouse.