Horsfall

I drive past this sign every day and wonder what it's all about, but have never once googled it. Today was the day!

42nd Street is a mental health charity providing free and confidential services to young people who are experiencing difficulties with their mental health and emotional wellbeing.

They launched The Horsfall, a venue and programme to explore ways to engage with heritage and creativity to improve mental health and wellbeing. 

Inspiration for the project came from the Ancoats Art Museum;
a unique social and artistic experiment established in Manchester at the end of the 19th Century by Victorian visionary, Thomas Horsfall. 

The Ancoats Museum (also known as the Horsfall museum) created opportunities for the most disenfranchised people of Manchester to experience beauty in their lives through visits to the gallery, attendance at concerts, classes in woodwork, music and dressmaking and countryside rambles.

Horsfall was a strong believer in the idea that art had an educational and moral role to play in society. In 1877 he began the movement to establish free galleries for the poor. In a letter to the Manchester Guardian, he wrote, "I may be asked why are we to do this work which it might seem is chiefly work that should be done for the city by itself - by its governing body. The answer is - we must do it, because we are willing to do it and can do it."

Horsfall argued that local employers should donate money to the gallery rather than pay higher wages to their employees because "for we (the middle-class) alone have learnt that money may have other powers than that of buying beer and bread."

At a lecture, he stated: "A considerable measure of success in spreading knowledge and love of beauty may, I believe, be attained by means of a sensibly managed art gallery; and it is certain that if art galleries can be made to spread amongst work-people love of beauty, which includes hatred of ugliness, art galleries will be effective ... I think all such galleries should be, in a district filled with work-people's houses. As we intend that the museum shall contain only things which must make those who study them 'think nobly' both of the world and its Maker, and of that wonderful human nature whose powers are revealed by art, we feel that no sensible person can object to its being open on Sunday afternoons and evenings, as well as on the evenings of all work days."

Sounds like he did wonderful things for the people of Manchester.

In other news today, I've just heard that I've successfully passed my Level 1 British Sign Language course!

Quote for today:
Philanthropy is not about the money. It’s about using whatever resources you have at your fingertips and applying them to improving the world.
- Melinda Gates