Child Action celebrates 120th pound day anniversary (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Child Action celebrates 120th pound day anniversary

1:43pm Thursday 21st June 2012 in Ribble Valley news By Gill Johnson, Features writer

HISTORY will come to life when a children’s charity celebrates the 120th anniversary of a traditional open day for families at Blackburn Orphanage in Wilpshire.

Old and young will be able to discover the story of Child Action Northwest this Sunday, June 24, at Pound Day.

It was June 24, 1892 when the first Pound Day was staged and was the inspiration of the orphanage’s founder, James Dixon.

He appealed to the local community to donate £1 to support the charity’s work with vulnerable children.

Those who couldn’t afford to give cash were asked to donate goods such as rice, oatmeal, sugar candles, soap or starch, in fact, anything that would be useful in the running of the orphanage.

Posters appeared urging local folk to be generous: “The appeal is made to everyone it said and if a fair number respond a substantial contribution to the orphanage will be the result.

“It is quite certain that the £292 promised in annual subscriptions will not keep the orphanage going.”

Arrangements were made for people to drop off contributions at Miss Cowburn’s umbrella shop in Exchange Flags, Richard Haworth’s picture shop in Preston New Road, or Mr E Airey’s picture shop in Station Road.

James Dixon’s granddaughter, Nancy Hill will be attending Sunday’s commemorative event which marks the culmination of a lottery-funded archive project, which has discovered and preserved a large collection of archive documents and photographs, which have been unearthed in the cellars of the charity’s headquarters in Wilpshire.

Event organiser, Harriet Roberts explained: “The lottery project has raised our profile at a time when we need to raise funds more than ever before. We’re grateful for the legacy of James Dixon who gave us this idea for a Pound Day when we can appeal to the community once again to ‘give a kid a quid’.

“There’s something magnificent about being able to stage the event on the very same date exactly 120 years since its inauguration and we hope to attract ex-residents of the orphanage as well as their families.”

Pound Day 2012 takes place on June 24, from 1-5pm and will include costumed characters, a heritage quiz and trail, storytelling, Victorian-themed attractions and a vintage tearoom.

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