Training records of Sidney and Lilian Branner, residential social workers

Training notes; notebooks on visits and needlework; circulars re conference of heads of children's homes and tutors of courses on the training of residential staff and students.

Sidney Branner (1915-2005) and Lilian Branner (1919-2011) were amongst the first cohort of trained residential social workers after the Second World War. They had been very active in the Scout and Guide movement prior to this and, believing (mistakenly) that they were unable to have children of their own, decided to become residential social workers. After qualification from South West Essex Technical College, they had some short-term contracts in various parts of the country and applied for the posts of Superintendent and Matron of Long House Children's Home in Oxfordshire in 1950 to gain interview experience. They were appointed to the posts despite their relative inexperience but because of their recent training. One of Sidney Branner's first acts as Superintendent was to forbid corporal punishment at Long House. Sidney and Lilian Branner stayed at Long House until their retirement in 1980.

This collection is available to researchers by appointment at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. See https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/using/

Link to full catalogue: https://mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/BRR