Last year nearly 250 children in Edinburgh were wearing new warm coats and comfortable school shoes provided by the UK’s oldest police charity.
It is an act of philanthropy that started as long ago as the Victorian era, when the police fund started supporting children in need.
Founded in 1892, the chief constable of Edinburgh Police set up the Police Aided Clothing Scheme in response to widespread poverty in the capital.
It worked simply: providing clothes and shoes to youngsters found on the street dressed in rags and barefoot.
Police would take children to a depot to be fitted, and the clothes were then marked with indelible ink to prevent them being pawned.
A policeman would continue to keep an eye on the family to make sure the items were being worn.
Joan Fraser, who was chair of the Edinburgh and Lothian Trust Fund (ELTF) for ten years, explains: “Poverty was widespread in the 19th century. The Police Aided Clothing Scheme’s original purpose was to give out boots and jackets to destitute children.
“There was actually a scheme already in existence. The Edinburgh Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor had distributed clothing to poor children since about 1870.
“They worked closely with the police who helped to identify families in need. In 1892, the distribution was taken over by the city police, but the close working between the police and the association continued.”
By the turn of the 20th century, the scheme had grown and the wider community was more closely involved, with schools and the council working in tandem with the police.
The clothes provided also developed a distinctive appearance: instead of reworked donations, police paid for corduroy trousers and boots with three holes down the side, bringing a neat and uniform appearance to beneficiaries of the scheme – as well as making it harder for families to sell or pawn the clothing.
“There is still an emotional connection with the police – people know it is a police fund”
Alistair Rogers, Edinburgh and Lothian Trust Fund
While its mission has been unchanged for more than a century, the way the fund operates has evolved over the years – as has its name.
In 2024, it helped 247 children in Edinburgh buy warm coats and shoes, working with partners across the city to reach families.
Alistair Rogers, who works for the ELTF which has managed the fund since 2015, says dignity is at the heart of how the charity operates.
“It has moved on from the Victorian ethos,” he explains.
“Police used to visit families and take them their shoes. Now we have a much more flexible approach that puts individuals at the centre of our efforts to relieve poverty.
“We give grants to other organisations we work with. We aren’t here to support or replace statutory funding – rather we are picking up people who might otherwise have fallen through the cracks and make sure the children have a decent warm coat and shoes.
“It is a basic thing that many people take for granted – but there is a real need for the fund and it makes a big difference to the people we can help.”
“The policeman is the children’s friend – the good fairy who looks after the waifs and strays of humanity that throng our streets, gives them a wise and kindly word in season, puts them in the way of getting better clothes and better food, saves them from moral ruin”
The Quiver, 1909
In the past five years, the fund has reached 1,749 children, distributing more than £87,000.
Rogers adds: “The last few years have been very difficult for a lot of people – our largest fund has seen a 25 per cent increase in demand for our services. It is difficult for us to see an end of it.”
In 2023, what was then known as the Edinburgh Police Fund for Children was dissolved as an independent registered charity, becoming a separate fund within the ELTF.
“Historically, police would pay for the fund, by subscriptions and fundraising,” Rogers explains.
“While that is no longer the case, there is still an emotional connection with the police. People know it is a police fund.”
Its purpose has been the same since it started, and it is one that shines a light on how policing is about much more than fighting crime.
At the time, it marked a major shift in both how the police worked in their communities, and the public understanding of what officers did.
In 1909, British magazine The Quiver ran an article entitled ‘the policeman as philanthropist’, looking at police efforts throughout the country to alleviate some of the worst effects of poverty.
“The policeman is the children’s friend,” it said. “The good fairy who looks after the waifs and strays of humanity that throng our streets, gives them a wise and kindly word in season, puts them in the way of getting better clothes and better food, saves them from moral ruin.”
“Few of us,” it added, “realise what a policeman’s duties really are. To the public mind he is often and only associated with the most sordid side of human nature… this work, however needful though it be, represents only a fraction of the policeman’s services to civilised society.”
Doctor Mary Fraser, a historian specialising in police history at the University of Glasgow, explains that the development of police benevolence funds marked the beginning of a more modern approach to policing, as well as having a two-fold benefit to the constabulary.
“It brought the police into much closer contact with poor families, who were likely to be the majority of law breakers; the police on the beat liked the work as they became more popular with the families and with the upper classes who gave discarded clothing”
Doctor Mary Fraser, University of Glasgow
She has researched and published the history of police benevolence schemes that started in Edinburgh.
“It demonstrated the social conscience of the police, but also increased police surveillance of the underclass,” she says.
“At a time when children were portrayed as the future of the nation, benevolence provided protection for the bodies of the children who could safely be looked after by their families.
“It also ensured surveillance could identify which families were unable to look after their children and so should have them removed to be looked after by others.
“The police found that providing charitable help could give a closer and more detailed insight into the lives and circumstances of poor families which provided a means of continued monitoring.
“It brought the police into much closer contact with poor families, who were likely to be the majority of law breakers.
“The police on the beat liked the work as they became more popular with the families and with the upper classes who gave discarded clothing, cutting the clothing to make garments gave work to unemployed tailors at a time of austerity, and the police forged links with the upper influential classes by receiving clothing and donations for a worthy benevolent cause.”
Joan Fraser, who was also convenor of the Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations Council, says attitudes to poverty were very harsh in the 1890s.
The middle and upper classes took a “judgemental view of the poor, believing poverty was a result of fecklessness rather than due to low wages, unpredictable employment and disease”.
But the simple act of providing clothing continues to make a difference today.
“The police fund continues as before to support some of the poorest families in Edinburgh,” she says.
“The fund has a simple objective, but one that makes a difference. A lot of things have changed – but to keep providing shoes and jackets to children after more than 130 years is something quite special.”