| Administrative History | The Manchester and District Sunday Schools Association, belonging to the Unitarian Church, began in 1845. From 1919 it was known as the Northern Sunday Schools Federation.
It opened a convalescent home for children at Grundy Home, Squire Gate, Blackpool in 1896 and a Holiday Home for Sunday School parties in Great Hucklow, near Buxton, in about 1898. By 1907 it also ran Barleycrofts, a convalescent and holiday home for girls and women, in Great Hucklow. In 1917 it was proposed to build in Great Hucklow the Florence Nightingale Convalescent Home for Men as the National War Memorial for the Unitarian and other non-conformaist churches. The home opened in 1930. It was to be managed by representatives of the Sunday Schools Association and districts within 100 miles radius of Great Hucklow, although eventually, in the 1970s, the management was taken over by the General Assembly of the Unitarian Church. A proposed children's home as a war memorial after the 1939-1945 war was never built.
Changes in holiday patterns and church membership in the second half of the 20th century led to a change in emphasis in the use of the Nightingale Centre which became a conference centre and a holiday centre especially for church groups. |
| Custodial History | Acquired by Derbyshire Record Office in 2003 |