Church Farm School, Church Hill Road, Barnet, Greater London
These two cottages were built in 1887-8. They were part of The Boys' Farm Home, an Industrial Boys Home. It was founded in 1860 for 'the training, maintenance, and education of destitute boys not convicted of crime'. It was created as part of the Industrial Schools Act. Industrial Schools were intended to help those children who were poor but who had not as yet committed any serious crime. The idea was to remove the child from bad influences, give them an education and teach them a trade. It was felt that the children needed to be removed from the environment in which they had been living. Depending on the circumstances of the child they either attended the school daily or they were able to live in, as here. Magistrates had the power to sentence children between the ages of 7 and 14 years old to a spell in one of these institutions if they were homeless.
