The Britain in which Andrew Reed started his children’s charities in the early 19th Century was a very different place from today. The Industrial Revolution had brought hundreds of thousands of people into the cities, breaking up communities and families and making life very hard for those who, through misfortune, found themselves orphaned or fatherless. Although there was no Welfare State, the very poor would be ‘cared for’ in the workhouse. There was, however, no help for the middle classes. It was against this background, at the early age of 26, that Andrew Reed founded the East London Orphan Asylum in 1813. He was a Congregational Minister with influential friends and connections and his aim was ‘the protection of fatherless children who are respectably descended but without means for their adequate support’. In other words, middle class children who found themselves without family or money to protect them. Over the next 150 years, this first school - for children over the age of seven - was to change its name and location to become Reed’s School near Cobham.

The Revd. Andrew Reed D.D

After this initial success, Andrew Reed turned his attention to yet younger orphans. With the help of his good friend the Duke of Wellington, he was able to acquire Crown land on the edge of Epping Forest, where he built the Infant Orphan Asylum. When the foundation stone was laid by Prince Albert in 1841, everyone who was anyone in Victorian society attended the celebrations. Virtually the entire Cabinet and many other prominent politicians and personalities crowded into Wanstead to witness the birth of the Infant Orphan Asylum, another ambitious charity created by the energetic Andrew Reed. The orphanage (which later became a school) took 600 children, making it one of the country’s largest establishments as well as one of the best-known charities. Andrew Reed became a household name and soon afterwards Queen Victoria was the first in a long line of monarchs to become Patron of what successively became the Royal Infant Orphanage, and then the Royal Wanstead School.

Spiralling post-War costs and declining support from local education authorities on which the school had come to depend, led to financial crisis and the school closed in 1971.

Over the years the Royal Wanstead Children’s Foundation has developed an important new role to correspond with a new era. The Foundation today continues Dr Reed’s valuable pioneering work by supporting vulnerable children mainly between the ages of 11 and 18 in boarding schools around the country. Our founder’s vision has effectively been updated to help today’s disadvantaged children.

Even the tradition of Royal patronage continues uninterrupted. HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was Patron for 63 years until her death in 2002. Today, our Patron is HRH The Princess Royal.