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PRESS RELEASE: April 2009

Biography of Frank Mathews

Ludlow based Castle View Books in association with the Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic Environments has published “An Obscure Philanthropist” a biography of Frank Mathews, 1871-1948, by Dr Tony Rees.

Frank Mathews will be remembered by many as the leader of Birmingham’s Cripples Union from 1899 and the founder of the Cripples Hospital, now the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, whose centenary is celebrated this year.

After leaving the Union in 1922 he went on to found charities working for children with heart problems, then the biggest cause of death, and children with nervous and behavioural problems, pioneering new treatment regimes for both.

Much of this work was done in the counties of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire, where children were sent to local hospitals to recuperate or put under the care of foster parents on small farms.

Two years before his death he bought Bodenham Manor, just north of Hereford, which became, from its opening in 1950, a successful and influential therapeutic community for children under pioneering child care figure David Wills OBE.

This is the story of a man born into a middle class family but orphaned in childhood, who devoted his life to sick children, many from the poorest families. He inspired support from cabinet ministers and industrialists, factory workers, the parents of the children he helped and, later in their lives, the children themselves.

The story, written by someone who knew him, is told largely in his own words.

It brings back a world, largely forgotten after 50 years of the welfare state, when life for the many could be, and often was, terribly hard; but also a world of innovation in family and child care theory and practice, much of which has passed into use as best practice, and some of which is still to be re-discovered.

Frank Mathews' archives, and the archives of the Birmingham Society for the Care of Invalid and Nervous Children, are held in the Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre, in Toddington, Gloucestershire.