National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
On a trip to New York in 1881, Liverpudlian businessman Thomas Agnew was inspired by a visit to the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. On his return to Liverpool, he invited leading figures from the town to a town hall meeting and founded the Liverpool Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (LSPCC) on 19 April 1883. Similar societies were subsequently set up around the country, such as the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (London SPCC), founded on 8 July 1884 by Anthony Ashley-Cooper.[3] Ashley-Cooper was the first president of the London SPCC, with Reverends Benjamin Waugh and Edward Rudolph as joint secretaries. 1st Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts was one of the co-founder of the organisation which later became the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in 1889 with Queen Victoria as the patron.[4][5]
On 1 January 1877, the Child’s Guardian, the official magazine of the Society was launched.[6] The magazine was modelled on the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and was designed to educate the public on the nature of cruelty to children.[7]
After five years of campaigning by the London SPCC, Parliament passed the first ever UK law to protect children from abuse and neglect in 1889. The London SPCC was renamed the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children on 14 May 1889,[8] because by then it had branches across Great Britain and Ireland. In the same year the Chief Commissioners of the Metropolitan and City of London Police issued instructions that all cases of cruelty to children reported to them should be handed to NSPCC to be dealt with.[6]