The doctor gave up his early ambition to become a missionary in China, and instead devoted himself to creating a better life for the children that society preferred to forget.
Just three miles from where Thomas Barnardo founded his influential and enduring charity in the 1860s, I sat in the grand surroundings of Somerset House to hear the Prime Minister relaunch his flagging big society initiative.
Dr Barnardo did not seek the approval of Benjamin Disraeli to open his first children's home in Stepney. Neither did he ask or expect the government to fund the development and scaling up of his idea, which was caring for more than 8,500 children in 96 locations by the time of his death in 1905. There was no Sure Start, Children and Young People's Fund or Futurebuilders in those days.
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