Volunteer Opportunities - Extend your horizons and gain new skills while helping our work to grow

Keep up to date with the Archive and Study Centre News Blog

SURVEY

of People, Places, and Organizations involved in progressive education and therapeutic community-related approaches to living and working

Barns Hostel School
(1940-1953)

Barns Hostel School, a residential provision for unbilletable boys, opened in 1940 as a War Emergency and was subsequently adjudged a War Charity under the War Charities Act (1940). It took its name from Barns House in Manor, near Peebles, which was made available to the Ministry of Health by the Wemyss Landed Estates Limited rent free in return for the Government's taking responsibility for rates and taxes and the general upkeep of the house and gardens.

The idea for Barns came from the Society of Friends in Scotland, which in October 1939 initiated discussions and then meetings concerned with those boys who were giving trouble in their billets and for whom the only alternative was return to frequently unsuitable homes. The scheme which developed involved the Cupertino of the Scottish Department of Health, which sanctioned expenses; the Peebleshire County Council, which paid the accounts and the salaries of domestic staff and gardener; the Edinburgh Education Committee, which paid the teaching staff and supplied school equipment; and the Society of Friends, which was responsible for the choice of the Warden and the payment of his salary. Friends also took responsibility for the raising of additional funds through an Amenities Committee, and formed the greater part of the membership of the Management and other Committees. The warden selected to open Barns was W. David Wills, an English Friend who, from 1936 until the end of 1939, had pioneered psychoanalytically-oriented group and environmental methods of working with difficult and disturbed young men at Hawkspur Camp in Essex.

Barns House became available to the Committee on Whit Sunday and Barns Hostel and School opened to children on July 1, 1940, running as such until the end of 1944 [as detailed in David Wills' The Barns Experiment (Allen and Unwin, London, 1945)]. In late 1944, with the end of the Government's evacuation scheme in sight and with Barns' status as an evacuation hostel and its war-time tenancy coming to an end, plans were made to launch Barns on a permanent footing in new premises. On (or about) December 20th Barns relocated to Templehall House in Coldingham, Berwickshire, Barns House being returned to the Wemyss Estate on December 31st. On February 13, 1945, David Wills left for work in England and headmaster Ben Stoddard became responsible for the day-to-day running of Barns. Meanwhile, organisational meetings in December 1944 and July 1945 relaunched Barns Hostel and School simply as Barns School.

Faulty electrical work in the attic of Templehall House led to a major fire in early February, 1946, and the School was temporarily rehoused in Broomlee Camp (under the Scottish Special Housing Association) while a search was made for new premises. Tenancy of Ancrum House in Ancrum was assumed on May 3, 1946, and on May 6 the boys moved in. Seven years later, on July 15, 1953, Barns was forced to close, the owner of Ancrum House having required possession and no other premises having been secured. The Management Committee remained in existence until at least November 19, 1954, the last date for which the Society of Friends' Collection in Edinburgh has minutes.

Association of Therapeutic Communities	PLANNED ENVIRONMENT THERAPY TRUST	Charterhouse Group
Therapeutic Community Open Forum		RadioTC International
The WebSearch the Site

This page authored by: Craig Fees