Charlotte Learmonth

Charlotte Newell Bundy was born on 30th December 1896, in Vermont, USA.  She trained as a medical social worker in Boston and went on to set-up and work in the social work unit in the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.  She met her husband, Dr (later Sir) James Learmonth while they were both working there.  James Learmonth was from Scotland and undertook his medical training at the University of Glasgow.  He had been awarded a Rockefeller Scholarship at the Mayo Clinic in 1924-25 and he met Charlotte Bundy during this time.  The couple married in the USA on 30th June 1925 and lived between Scotland and the USA for the next seven years.  In 1932 they returned to Scotland, living in Aberdeen initially until 1939, where James Learmonth worked as the Regius Professor of Surgery.  The couple moved to Edinburgh in 1939 when James Learmonth took up the Chair of Surgery at the University of Edinburgh (Kyle, 2004).

Charlotte Learmonth (far left), Guild of Service reception, Edinburgh City Chambers 1971 

Charlotte Learmonth became involved with the Guild of Service (as it was known at that time) in 1944, joining its Committee.  Over her period of involvement with the Guild she held a variety of positions – all of them voluntary – including as a General Committee member, Vice Chairman and then Chairman of the Guild, Chairman of Edzell Lodge and later President of the Guild of Service.   

Charlotte Learmonth was instrumental in the opening of Edzell Lodge in 1946.  Edzell Lodge was a children’s home and was located on Inverleith Terrace, Edinburgh.  There had been a desire in the organisation – the particular vision of Kay Stewart – to open a children’s home for a number of years but due to a lack of funds, and the need to find the right house, it took some time for this to come to fruition.  The Annual Report from 1946 records how pleased the organisation was that the Home had finally opened, thanks to a large anonymous donation of money, and two ladies who owned Edzell Lodge being willing to sell it to the Guild at much less than it was worth.   

“Edzell Lodge is now open as a Home for children, of both sexes, and of any age, who may need its shelter for short or for long periods.  We shall try to make it as like a real “home” as possible, and so we shall limit its numbers to a maximum of fifteen, twelve “permanent” children and three “temporaries” who will be regarded as visiting cousins!” (Guild of Service, 1946, p10) 

Edzell Lodge was a different type of Children’s Home to those operating in Scotland at that time, which had been large-scale institutions.  However, there was “a general shift of opinions amongst child care professionals in the 1940s towards a more child-centred and family orientated approach to care” (Abrams, 1998, p105-106).   Edzell Lodge aimed to be a Family Group Home, with House Parents who worked closely with social workers to provide the children living there with as close as possible to a family-style experience of group living (Family Care, 1986).   

Charlotte Learmonth was also instrumental in setting up the Guild of Service thrift shop which opened in 1957 and was the first charity shop to be opened in Scotland.  While popular in the United States and Canada, charity shops were still rare in the UK.  The first charity shop in the UK was opened by the Salvation Army in the late 19th century in London.  Their vision was to 1) reduce waste in richer households 2) provide good-quality second-hand items to be sold at a cheap price to the working-class 3) provide employment for those salvage men who collected and transported the goods and 4) provide funds from the sales for the charities (such as the Salvation Army).  Charity and thrift shops began to be established in English cities, throughout the early part of the twentieth century but they grew in popularity in their current form throughout the 1960s (Horne and Maddrell, 2002).  

The thrift shop was an important source of both revenue and publicity for Birthlink.  Originally located in a basement at 7 Darnaway Street, Edinburgh it was open every afternoon, and one morning and one evening a week.  Staffed by volunteers, on its first day the thrift shop made £23.  The thrift shop moved to more permanent location on Bruntsfield Road in 1958 – and it is still located there today. 

Charlotte Learmonth was the President of the Guild of Service and then Family Care (as it was renamed in 1978) from 1966 until she retired in 1986.  She died shortly after this on 19th April 1986 and is buried is Vermont. 

References: 

Abrams, Lynn, (1998). The Orphan Country: Children of Scotland’s Broken Homes from 1845 to the Present Day.  Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd. 

Family Care (1986) Family Care: A Concern that goes on Caring 1911-1986.  74th Annual Report.  Edinburgh: Family Care. 

Guild of Service for Women and National Vigilance Association of Scotland (Eastern Division). (1946) 35th Annual Report of the Guild of Service. Edinburgh: Guild of Service.  

Horne, S and Maddrell, A. (2002) Charity Shops, Retailing, Consumption and Society, London: Taylor & Francis. 

Kyle, James, (2004). Learmonth, Sir James Rognvald (1895-1967), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press.