Archives of Jewish Care

Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor: minutes of the Board, 1869-1971; minutes of the executive committee, 1869-1977; minutes of the sanitary committee, subsequently the health committee, 1885-1922; minutes of ad hoc committees, 1869-1941, principally connected with emigration and the administration of relief; minutes of the finance committee, 1931-74; board letter books, 1881-1945; conjoint Russo-Jewish committee, formed 1891, on the exhaustion of the Mansion House fund for the victims of Russian persecution: Darkest Russia: a record of persecution (periodical), 1891, and press cuttings about Jewry in Russia, 1904-9; 'Chronological statement of the restrictions of the rights of Russian Jews 1882-1908'; papers relating to the proposed expulsion of the Jews from Moscow, c.1909; social workers' diaries, 1955-60; Tudor House convalescent home, (founded as the Baroness Clara De Hirsch Convalescent Home and run in close co-operation with the Board, certainly from c.1911), Hampstead, minutes, 1897-1926; industrial committee, minutes 1894-1968; executive of the industrial committee, minutes, 1894-1930; apprentices and industrial exhibition committee minutes, 1882-91; apprenticeship records, 1928-50; women and girls and children's welfare committee, 1947-50; annual reports of the Board, 1859-1932 (with gaps); legal papers, Isaac v. Defriez, 1757-1884 Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls, Women and Children: minutes of the general committee and council, 1885-1933; gentlemen's committee minutes, 1890-1925; general purposes committee, 1917-46; finance committee, 1920-37; foreign agents' address book; annual reports, 1936, 1940-5; Montefiore House (approved school for Jewish Girls), minutes of the general committee, 1912-40, attendance register, punishment register; Sara Pyke House (hostel for working girls), minutes, 1904-7, 1937-46; Charcroft House (hostel for unmarried mothers and their babies), minutes, 1885-9 Jewish Blind Society: minute books, council and committees, 1837-1989; register of pensioners, 1862-1924; investigation committee reports, 1910-32; minutes of housing associations, 1957-89; annual reports, 1927-88 Other papers: minute book of the general committee and sub-committee for Judith, Lady Montefiore's memorial (a convalescent home, also used for training Jewish domestic female servants), 1862-76

Jewish Care was formed on 1 January 1990 from an amalgamation of the Jewish Welfare Board and the Jewish Blind Society. Its objects are 'the relief of persons of the Jewish faith (wherever resident but in particular those residing in the United Kingdom) who are in need, or suffering sickness, hardship or distress, or who suffer visual or other physical or mental impairment resulting in disability or handicap', continuing the work of the three principal organisations it succeeded. The archives contain primarily the papers of these three organisations, the Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor, founded in 1859 and commonly called the Jewish Board of Guardians or the Jewish Welfare Board; the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls, Women and Children, founded in 1885 as the Jewish Ladies' Society for Preventive and Rescue Work, to counter the white slave trade; and the Jewish Blind Society, founded in 1819 as the Institution for the Relief of the Indigent Blind of the Jewish Persuasion. The Board of Guardians subsumed the activities of the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls, Women and Children on 1 January 1947; and, in 1963, there was an administrative merger between the Board and the Norwood Jewish Children's Society, although the latter retained its separate identity. (V.D.Lipman A century of social service 1859-1959: the Jewish Board of Guardians (London, 1959) provides a history of the Board and the Association.)

The Special Collections Division is available for anyone to use, regardless of whether you are attached to an academic institution. Access to the Archives and Manuscripts and Rare Books reading room, however, is by prior appointment to access the manuscript material. See our website for more details.

The earlier archives of the Jews' Hospital and the Jews' Orphan Asylum, the predecessors of the Norwood Jewish Children's Society, are now MS 127.