Social Concern Department

The Department began life as the Special Watch Committee in 1913 with a remit to work for the first object of the organisation ‘to uphold the sanctity of marriage’. The work of the Watch Committee however gradually developed to encompass many other social and moral problems such as the care and protection of girls, the prevention and treatment of VD and the publication of undesirable literature. In 1926 the Watch Committee became a departmental committee. In 1940 the scope of its work was enlarged to deal with such issues that ‘contributed to bad homes and other social problems’ and it was renamed the Watch and Social Problems Committee. In 1967 it became the Social Concern Committee, which lasted until the end of 1994, when its work was incorporated into the new Action and Outreach Unit.