Sunderland's East End orphan asylum was founded in 1853, it was a
purpose built building for the children of seafarers. With the help of
the Bishop of Durham and the Freemen of Sunderland the orphanage was
opened on Thursday 17th October 1861. The orphanage was equipped to take
40 boys at a time and despite the strict rules and regulations it was always full.
The first Master of the orphanage was Mr John Clark, another was Mr
George King but the title of asylum would not be erased until the
1930's, when Captain Hague became Master and called it the 'Sunderland
Boys Orphanage'. The orphanage uniform was a sailor suit but it was not
until 1936 that long trousers were introduced, even so the stigma of
having to live in the orphanage was always with the boys, as no matter
where they went, the uniform would tell people where the boys had come from.
According to reports the boys could be in no better place. An Echo
reporter in 1938 the boys were living in paradise and called the boys
'Sunderland's Lucky Orphans'. According to this reporter the quality of
food was excellent, but according to a report by one of the boys who had
lived in the orphanage, he said "The breakfast was prepared the night
before, the loaves of bread were cut up and the slices soaked in fat so
that at the breakfast table, you had two rock hard slices of bread to
get your teeth into. Of course we soon learnt to overcome this, for to
make the bread more edible you would place your tin mug of cocoa on top
of the bread and the heat would soften the bread up". This however was
before Captain Hague had taken over after that the meals did improve,
for breakfast the boys started to get a boiled egg, cornflakes and
butter on their bread.
Life in the orphanage was obviously not all roses as some boys were
persistent at trying to run away but their uniform was a give away, and
they were returned to the orphanage pretty quickly and punished. One boy
in particular from Seaham had actually hated the place and was always
running away, but it was only years later that he learned the orphanage
was so sick of him, that if he had run away once more they would have thrown him out.
On learning this one lad had said "What, if I'd known that then I'd have
run away again". In looking back the boys should be grateful there was
somewhere for them to go, but for some they were only grateful on the
day they left. A number of the boys that left the orphanage joined the
forces, and earned commissions some of who died in the war and others
became ship captains but all were classed as hero's.
The orphanage building is still there and was used, as the East End
Community Centre. Sadly it is now all boarded up.
