One cold night in the winter of 1867, a young medical student in his early twenties discovered, huddled on the roof of a shop in London's East End, eleven ragged urchins, barefooted, half-starved and almost naked. The student was Thomas John Barnardo, who, moved by the discovery that there were thousands of hungry and homeless children like these, decided to devote his life to saving them.
This book tells the remarkable story of how he saved 250,000 children from misery and starvation and provided them with homes and much more besides - though he himself was often reduced to his last shilling. It tells of how Barnardo began teaching in a 'ragged school' in one of the toughest parts of London; of the shocking conditions he found there and how, helped by Lord Shaftesbury, he worked to improve them; how he founded the first 'Home' in Stepney and admitted the first waifs, who were in an appalling state of dirt and neglect; of the struggles he had to gain recognition for his life's work. The story is exciting in itself, and at the same time brings to life an important period of England's social history.
A previous biography of Dr Barnardo by Norman Wymer was adopted by Dr Barnardo's Homes as the standard biography of their founder and was on the basis of a BBC television play.