Records of Henshaw's Society for the Blind

The records deposited in the Library consist of the minutes and financial accounts of Henshaw's Society for the Blind and its precursors, including a wide variety of committees, departments and meetings. Many of the minutes of individual committees include reports from other committees, relevant correspondence, and joint meetings between committees, and many of the volumes are indexed. As a result of the merger in 1980, some committees were abolished, whilst others were merged or remained as before.

The physical arrangement of the collection at the time of deposit was rather confused in places, probably because of disruption in transit to the Library, and rather confused in places, probably because of disruption in transit to the Library, and the collection is now arranged according to the administrative structure and practices under which they were created.

<p>Further material relating to Henshaw's, especially during the nineteenth century, may be found in the Local History Unit of Manchester Central Library in St. Peter's Square.</p>

• <corpname>Henshaw's Blind Asylum, 1837-1920s, Manchester, Lancashire</corpname>
• <corpname>Henshaw's Institution for the Blind, 1920s-1971, Manchester, Lancashire</corpname>
• <corpname>Henshaw's Society for the Blind, 1971-1980, Manchester, Lancashire</corpname>
• <corpname>Henshaw's Society for the Blind incorporating the Manchester and Salford Blind Aid Society, 1980-, Lancashire</corpname>

The collection was deposited on permanent loan at the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Deansgate, on 22 Feb 1995. It had previously been held by Henshaw's Society for the Blind and its predecessor institutions. The annual reports are still held by the Society.

The origins of Henshaw's can be traced to the will of the Manchester businessman and philanthropist Thomas Henshaw (1731-1810), who left £20,000 towards the foundation of a blind asylum in Manchester "to maintain and afford such instruction to the indigent blind of both sexes capable of employment as will enable them to provide, either wholly or in part, for their own subsistence and to afford asylum to the impotent and aged blind". The will was contested by Henshaw's widow for 23 years on the grounds of his mental condition, but in 1833 a committee of Manchester gentlemen was formed to put it into effect, and Henshaw's Blind Asylum was opened in Old Trafford in 1837, providing education, employment and welfare for the blind.

Henshaw's has gradually broadened the scope of its activities in relation to blindness and the assistance of blind people and their families, and since 1971 it has provided a service for the visually impaired as well as the blind. The Asylum was re-named Henshaw's Institution for the Blind in the 1920s, and in 1971 it became Henshaw's Society for the Blind. The Society was amalgamated with a parallel organisation, the Manchester and Salford Blind Aid Society, in 1980, since when its full name has been Henshaw's Society for the Blind incorporating the Manchester and Salford Blind Aid Society.