3-083-030 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late George Smith of Coalville, 1895. Engraving from a photograph. '@one of the most active, and unassuming of our philanthropists. Of humble origin, he worked as a lad in a brickyard, and he was impressed by the miserable isolation of the children from all humanising influences. By his exertions public attention was drawn to the question, and thousands of brick-children were consequently drawn into the schools. Mr. Smith brought the same agency to bear on the canal-boats, and a special Act of Parliament dealing with these vessels and their nomadic inmates was mainly due to his initiative. Of late years he had undertaken a much more difficult task, that of bringing the gipsy children and van-dwellers within the regulations of society. To put a gipsy in a Board School is like harnessing a household fly, and Mr. Smith was by no means popular among the people whom he sought to befriend. Nothing daunted, he worked manfully on till his last illness overtook him. A more unselfish spirit never breathed. He was the author of several unpretending little books dealing with the questions to which he had devoted his life'. Some of the children employed in the brickyards were as young as eight years old and worked for up to seventy-five hours a week. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.