Family Welfare Association Library

Founded in 1869 as the Society for Organising Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicity and from 1871 to 1946 called the Charity Organisation Society, the Family Welfare Association deposited its library of 5,000 volumes of books and pamphlets on permanent loan in the Goldsmiths' Library in 1963.

The Library contains mostly late 19th and early 20th century publications, with 100 pre-1851 items, 300 volumes of pamphlets and over 100 volumes of government publications. It covers all social questions, with an emphasis on poverty and the Poor Law; education, mental and physical health and the blind. Donations include those of Thomas Mackay, Sir Charles Stewart Loch and William Harris, who gave a collection of books on the care and teaching of the blind. The library also contains the bequest of William Pare, the co-operator, many of whose books are in distinctive bindings, marked by his initials, including a scrapbook and much other material relating to Robert Owen, assembled for an intended biography which was never completed.

Related collections include the Goldsmiths' Library and the Ron Heisler Collection.

A large proportion of the collection is included in the Main Catalogue.
Please refer to Historic Collections staff for typescript book list and information on finding aids for pamphlets

shl.specialcollections@london.ac.uk 020 7862 8470