John Stansfeld

Started the Oxford and Bermondsey Boys Club and whose work helped to define the shape of modern boys' club work and social policy more widely.

John Stansfeld was born in Lincolnshire in 1854. He worked in the Civil Service while studying at Exeter College, Oxford and after transferring to London completed his medical training at Charing Cross Hospital.

He was associated with The Oxford Pastorate, essentially an evangelical reaction to the Oxford Movement, and was invited to Bermondsey by Henry Gibbon and Edwyn Barclay. After his visit they invited him to set up a medical mission. At this time the area of Abbey Street and Dockhead in Bermondsey where he began to work was one of the poorest and most deprived areas of London. Work in what became known as the Oxford Medical Mission began in 1897 in a small house in Abbey Street. 'The Doctor' lived upstairs. No charge was made for treatment or medicines but there was a box for gifts which largely paid the drugs bill.

As a condition for receiving free medical treatment young men and boys were asked to attend a Bible class on the next Sunday. These classes became the centre of the work and it was out of these that clubs initially formed.

John Stansfeld died in 1939 but during his life was able to gather a remarkable group of men around him in Bermondsey. They made a significant impact not just on boys' club work but on social policy generally. As a doctor, worker and priest he also had a very direct impact on people's lives.

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