Abstract
IT has long been felt by those concerned either with the health or with the education of children that a close study of growth and development, both physical and psychological, conducted on the same group of children in a parallel series of observations, would yield valuable basic material. In 1947, Dr. D. H. Geffen, medical officer of health of St. Pancras, and Prof. Alan Moncrieff, of the Institute of Child Health, University of London, placed before the governors of the Foundling Hospital in London a scheme for utilizing their residential nursery, day nursery and nursery school at Coram Gardens for teaching and research purposes. It was also suggested that a maternity and child welfare centre might be started on the same site. The next development arose when the Central Council for Training in Child Care, concerned with the training of boarding-out officers and house mothers under the Children‘s Act, found a shortage of seniors who could take up posts of a supervisory character or as tutors in the various education schemes. The Institute of Education of the University of London and the Institute of Child Health therefore decided to put forward a plan for a joint training and research centre at the Foundling Hospital site. This was discussed with representatives of the Home Office, of the Ministry of Health and of the London County Council Public Health and Education Departments. Eventually a scheme was agreed, under which the financing of the teaching side would be undertaken by the Institute of Education and that of the research side shared between this Institute and the Institute of Child Health with the approval of the University of London authorities.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Child Development Study in London. Nature 163, 15–16 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163015d0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163015d0