Brigade.

Manawatu Herald, 27 October 1892, Page 3

Brigade.

The late Mr John Macgregor, M.A,, (Rob Roy) was the originator of the Shoe Black Brigade, whose red jackets are so familiar at various stations in London The idea of forming a Ragged School Shoeblack Society suggested itself to him by his having noticed in foreign towns that persons wore in the habit of getting their shoes blacked in the streets ; he thought that foreigners coming over to the Great- Exhibition of 1851 would require the want supplied, and that this might furnish an opening for boys frequenting ragged schools. As the result, in that year, above thirty of these boys, each of whose histories had been carefully' gone into, marched through the great exhibition in their red jackets. The movement grew and prospered and has been one of increasing success. The boys themselves were and are trained in habits of religion and thrift, and very many of them, after saving sufficient from thv?ir earnings have from year to year tauigi'Mttd to America and English Colonies and afterwards risen to occupy responsible and useful positions.