100 Years of Service

(Published in 1964)

Brighton Society for the Welfare of the Blind

100 Years of Service

This year our Society is celebrating its centenary. Although official records of the early years are practically non-existent we know that it was in January, 1864 that William Moon, LL.D., who had earlier invented the embossed type of reading which bears his name, started Sunday afternoon meetings for the blind in Brighton. Through these meetings Dr. Moon learned of the distress of many blind people and he started a Fund amongst his friends to give coal, food and clothing. Thus commenced Blind Relief and Visiting for the local blind.

In 1872 a general appeal for funds was made and subsequently a Committee was formed with Sir Charles Lowther, Bart., as President, Dr. Moon as Hon. Treasurer and his daughter, Miss Adelaide Moon as Hon. Secretary.

Dr. Moon died in 1894 and his work with the "Brighton, Hove and Sussex Blind Relief and Visiting Society" was carried on by his daughter. She died in 1914 and in 1915 a new Committee was formed with H. A. Bailey Esq., J.P., as Chairman and Miss E. Munro Ritchie (who had been assisting Miss Moon for seventeen years) as Secretary.

When the first Blind Persons' Act was passed in 1920 the Society became agent of the Brighton County Borough Council for carrying out statutory duties under the Act in conjunction with its own voluntary services. Such has been its dual role ever since.

In 1922 the Society's title was changed to its present one of Brighton Society for the Welfare of the Blind.

Miss Munro Ritchie retired in 1938 because of ill-health, thus completing 40 years of service to the blind. She died in 1942.

On 29th March, 1939, our present offices and social centre, The Lantern, 141 Preston Road, Brighton, were officially opened by the Duchess of Hamilton. It had long been Miss Munro Ritchie's aim that the Society should own such a centre so it was considered fitting that the Hall should bear her name.

On 5th February,1946, the Society opened a Residential Home for elderly blind men and women at "Kenilworth," Surrenden Road Brighton. This Home was sold to Brighton Corporation in September, 1951 and the proceeds of the sale used for extension and improvement of the Munro Ritchie Hall.

Registration of the partially-sighted became statutory in 1951 and the Society's Rules were later amended to allow of appropriate services to be extended to this class of visually handicapped person.

This is a brief summary of the history of our Society with mention of some of those who worked for it over the one hundred years of its existence.

But the Chairman and members of the Committee of to-day take pride in knowing that their predecessors were among the pioneers in the field of Blind Welfare in this country and that in this, as in other fields of progress, Brighton and certain Brightonians with good will and sympathetic hearts helped to lead the way to the standard of welfare for the blind as we know it today.

At The "Lantern"