Harold Nelson Burden
Reverend Harold Nelson Burden (20 March 1860 – 15 May 1930) was an Anglican minister, missionary and, with his wife, founder of institutions for the care of inebriates and people with mental disabilities.
He also later claimed he worked in the slums of London where he met his future wife Catherine Mary Garton (16 July 1846 - 25 November 1919).
To this end he was ordained Deacon by the Bishop of Carlisle, and Harold and Kate married on 26 September 1888 and sailed from Liverpool the next day.
Harold became ill and they were forced to return to England, after having built or improved 4 churches and a new parsonage in his circuit.
In 1895 Harold and his wife moved to Bristol to take up the post of clerical secretary of the Church of England Temperance Society, Police Court and Prison Gate Mission.
This opened in 1897 in front of Horfield Prison as the Royal Victoria Home, for Inebriate Women, licensed as a (Voluntary) Retreat under the 1879 Habitual Drunkards Act.
Harold set up the first Licensed Reformatory at Brentry House funded by the Royal Victoria Home Charity and a consortium of Councils who purchased beds.
He and Catherine bought the original Royal Victoria Home and then rented a series of buildings around the country to create the National Institutions for Inebriates.
[7] Burden had good relations with the Home Office as he had created most of the accommodation needed for the Inebriates Act.
Sandwell Hall, near West Bromwich, opened in 1907 as an Industrial School for Mentally Defective Children, and quickly reached full capacity at 200 boys.
By 1917 the Stoke Park cluster housed 1528 people, making it largest licensed institution in the country.
[9] After Rosa Burden's death the NIPRCC continued running the colonies and also provided accommodation for St Christopher School, founded by a Stoke Park secretary.
Uniquely, it was argued that the Act only nationalised the company that operated the institutions and the Minister of State was forced to purchase the properties off the Trustees.
