Duxhurst Industrial Farm Colony

rdf:langString Duxhurst Industrial Farm Colony

rdf:langString Duxhurst Industrial Farm Colony

rdf:langString left

rdf:langString women

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rdf:langString Funded by

rdf:langString Lady Henry

rdf:langString World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union

rdf:langString Duxhurst, near Reigate, Surrey, England

rdf:langString treatment and cure of habitual alcoholics

rdf:langString "To comfort and help the weak-hearted, and to raise up them that fall."

rdf:langString "We endeavor as far as possible to make every woman who comes to the home take up some occupation in which she has not been engaged before. I lay great stress on this. It breaks off continuity with the past, it gives to the women a new idea, and it absorbs them in occupations which have no associations."

rdf:langString Duxhurst Industrial Farm Colony (1922, Lady Henry Somerset Homes; 1923, Princess Marie Louise Village for Gentlefolk) was a British voluntary in-patient residential institution for the treatment and cure of habitual alcoholic women. It was founded in 1895 at Duxhurst, near Reigate, Surrey, England, by Lady Henry Somerset. Lady Henry was the first woman in England to pay attention to the inebriety of women, and she founded, at Duxhurst, the first industrial farm colony for alcoholic women. Using gender-specific religious treatment, Duxhurst was the largest of the retreat institutions in England in its day. It was funded by Lady Henry with contributions from the National British Women's Temperance Association (B.W.T.A.) and the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.WC.T.U.). The colony combined the work of a retreat, under the Act of 1879, with that of a reformatory for selected cases. The experience of this colony proved that "committed" cases are usually of a type so much inferior to the "voluntary" cases that it is impossible to maintain efficient control and secure good results when they are mixed. Early in 1903, however, owing to pressure from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the managers decided to admit selected cases committed under Section 1 of the Act for drunkenness and consequent neglect of children, the National Society undertaking to make full investigation respecting the moral character and general suitability of proposed cases. With regard to employment, Duxhurst made a successful attempt at the steady occupation of its inmates. All cleaning and laundry work necessary for the proper conduct of the colony was done by its patients, but in addition to this, some regular industries were provided, to the educational advantage of patients and to the financial advantage of the institution. Much importance was rightly directed to garden work, which occupied manyinmates in open air and under glass; they helped in fruit culture and in the subsequent picking and despatch for market; they assisted in the care of bees and in the management of poultry, and they were employed in seed sorting and the like. Dairy work also provided occupation for others. But the most interesting part of the colony was the workroom with its spinning-wheels and hand looms. Here many different forms of textile fabrics were woven with fine finish. Rug-making was a special feature, and all sorts of delicate embroidery and fancy work was made for public sale. Documenting the work done at Duxhurst, including statistics, anecdotes, and photographs, Lady Henry published Beauty for ashes (London, L. Upcott Gill & Son) in 1913. After her death in 1921, the site became repurposed. By the 1960s, all of the buildings were dmolished.