Dr Thomas John Barnardo

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Dr Barnardo

Thomas John Barnardo was born on the 4th of July 1845 in Dublin Ireland.

He was one of 11 children. His mother was English and his farther was German with Jewish origins. The Barnardo family had moved from Spain to Egypt to north Italy and settled in northern Germany.

Thomas was a very sick child. At the age of 2 he lay critically ill, the doctor was called, as his parents knew he was dying. The doctor pronounced him dead, a second doctor was called and he to pronounced him dead. Thomas’s parents then called the undertaker with the tiny coffin made, all the undertaker had to do was prepare the body for burial. Suddenly the undertaker thought he saw a tiny flutter of movement, then he saw another then another. Tom Barnardo wasn’t dead.

Gradually Tom was nursed back to health to become a sturdy and resilient youngster. His family said it was a miracle, and knew he was a very special person.

 He described his nationality in terms of the blood that ran through his veins as a bit of all sorts. Because of all his nationalities it made him a hot tempered, stubborn and demanding child.

 He had a very loud voice and when he spoke everyone listened. He was totally different from his brother Harry as he had a beautiful singing voice, Tom became jealous of Harry as he was always asked to sing to guests in their house and was always rewarded with gifts and chocolate for his talent.

Tom was full of mischief, he was thoughtless and careless. His family said he was not born a saint. He gave a great deal of trouble at home. At his first school he was always in trouble and the same at his second school.

He was very good at reading, but caused concern with his parents and teacher’s with the books he was reading as atheist’s, who did not believe in God or religion wrote them. As he came from a very religious family this caused lots of problems for him. By the time he was 15 years old he told everyone he did not believe in God. Ignoring the religious knowledge he had learned from his Quaker mother or from the church of Ireland that he had been baptised into as a baby.

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He left school at 16 with no qualifications, he took up a business opportunity that his farther had found for him. His reading abilities began to show; through his love of reading it made the job boring for young Tom.

In the early 1860s religion made a powerful revival in Ireland masses of people gathered in the metropolitan Hall in Dublin to hear the preaching of men like Henry Gratten Guiness.

Barnardo had very little time for such things he had an answer for all the amazing things that were happening around him. He called it “emotional Hysteria”. Most ...

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