Child Welfare Centres in the Polish Kingdom in Light of the Records Kept by the Central Welfare Council (1832–1870)

Abstract

The main aim of the article is to show the contribution of the Central Welfare Council (1832-1870) to the organization of protection for children in the Polish Kingdom in the 19^th century. Due to the destruction of the majority of the Council’s files during the Second World War, the research is based only on the residual team found in the collection of the Main Archive of Old Files in Warsaw. The preserved records show that the CWC tried to supervise the protection activities in the Kingdom of Poland and mobilized local philanthropists to establish new ones. At the same time, it took care to maintain certain standards as to the premises and financial security of the planned protection. The CWC attached great importance to the fact that the functions of guardians were entrusted to trustworthy people, whose primary goal was the welfare of children. All abuses were eliminated. In the 1860s, in the Kingdom of Poland, there were several dozen or so guardianships for children, while on a mass scale they started to be established at the beginning of the 20^th century. The CWC, which had previously prepared the ground for this type of activity, certainly had considerable merit in this respect.