Sight for Wight Celebrates 160 Years!
Sight for Wight (The Isle of Wight Society for the Blind) is the oldest working Island Charity and celebrates its 160th birthday this year. Further recent delving into archives has revealed that, in fact, the Charity was founded on the 5th April, the birth date of my 55th birthday. Sight for Wight is looking for 365 people who can each donate £160 to support the Charity for a day.
This would raise a staggering £58,400 which would fulfil 78% of annual fundraising needs of the Charity. We have been the very grateful beneficiary of donations for people in lieu of birthday presents and this gave me the idea of making this more official, recognising that individual, on their chosen day, as the person who has supported our charity for that day. Dates will be allocated on a first come, first served basis and we will only have one person each day.
But it is not just birthdays, I want to extend this to include companies celebrating the day they were formed, anniversaries, last day of school, first kiss, first date, receiving an award, accomplishing any personal goal or ‘just because.’ Sue Bungey, Chair of Trustees, praised the idea, “I truly believe that we can find 365 people to support our work; this fundraising idea really would allow us to meet the vast majority of our annual target, leaving staff and volunteers free to help our members even further by reducing time spent on fundraising. The remainder of our target will be through raising awareness events which are equally important.”
1865 to 1895
During the mid-Victorian period in Great Britain, interest and concern began regarding the plight of blind people and their families living in the community. This concern brought about the formation of societies whose
specific aims were to support “needy blind” people in the community. On the 5th April 1865 John Cooper wrote to the Editor of the Isle of Wight Observer asking vicars of all denominations and interested ladies and gentlemen to come together and form a committee to represent the needs of the blind and raise money. The Isle of Wight Society for the Blind was born!
The year 1920 saw the introduction of the Blind Person’s Act which laid certain responsibilities on Local Authorities to provide some services for blind people. It was permissible for Local Authorities to delegate some or all of these responsibilities to a voluntary agency and in 1921 this Society became affiliated to the Council and this remained true until 2007.
Home at Polars for blind IW residents
In 1946, GP, Dr Finley, proposed opening a home for the blind and by 1951 the Society had plans in place to build a 20 bedroom home at Polars, adjoining a council care home. A total of £22,750 had to be raised for the build; the County Press bore a front page fundraiser offering people the chance to purchase a brick for a shilling.
1950’s Blind Employees
1 chartered physiotherapist
3 chair caners
1 carpenter
1 boot maker
2 boot and shoe repairers
1 machine knitter
2 tea agents
1 hand loom weaver
It is believed this was the first home built after the National Assistance Act was passed in 1948 and the only one built in conjunction with an old people’s home allowing blind people to mix with sighted people and become friends. As I am now at the helm of the Isle of Wight’s oldest working charity, I stand in awe at my predecessors and what they have achieved. The early records show from 1928 – 1958, Mr S B Dore was the only employee and was famed for ‘his unfailing compassion for the blind.’ When ill health took control, he was followed by his daughter, Mrs Noreen Taylor, who introduced the Home Teacher and fought hard with the Isle of Wight Council to introduce, eventually, two full-time paid rehabilitation officers.
Ian Attrill followed Noreen Taylor who was a huge instigator in the Charity moving forward with the very significant increase in the number of members, both blind and partially sighted. In 1999, Olive Light took over gaining the Investors in People award. This would be followed in 2014 under Estelle Thomas with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. I took over from Miriam Tong in 2020 who saw through the change of name, ‘Sight for Wight.’ Since then, I have been at the helm with our amazing team of staff, volunteers, trustees and members. I am very sad to be retiring from the role but will remain in post until a suitable replacement is found.
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Along with this post is a picture from our Newsletter of a collection of photo’s over our 160 years of Sight for Wight. This includes fundraising events, group photos of groups, staff photos and photo’s of member activities.
