donations were beginning
to come in, offers of subscription also, and it was evident that the
enterprise, begun in the cellar, was to grow and develop. Bessie found
that to make provision for supplying work, only in the homes of the
blind, would seriously restrict the industries to be carried on, some of
which required a special workshop. She saw that much more would be done
for the blind in a shop or factory, where they would find the requisite
material, often bulky as well as costly, and the requisite appliances.
These could not be provided in the single room of a blind man with a
wife and family. There was also a daily increasing demand amongst the
blind, not for charity but for work. It was not men only who applied.
Poor, respectable women, condemned by blindness and poverty either to
beggary or the workhouse, began to turn to her, to implore her to save
them also, to teach them a trade, and enable them to earn an honest
living. The opportunity for the employment of women was not to come for
a year or two, but the appeal issued on the behalf of work for blind
_men_ was changed to one on behalf of blind _persons_.

After six months in the Holborn cellars and eight months in the little
room in Cromer Street, it was decided that Levy should take a house and
shop at 21 South Row, New Road (now Euston Road), and that in the first
instance four rooms should be rented by Bessie at L26 a year. Levy was
henceforward to receive 12s. 6d. a week as manager, and his wife was to
serve behind the counter and to have, as a temporary arrangement, 25 per
cent on all articles sold in the shop.

This increase in the expenses made it necessary that Bessie should
obtain help from the outside public; and the change of her work from a
private to a public undertaking was anxiously discussed in her own home.

The Bishop urged that there should be a Committee of Management as soon
as subscriptions were asked for; and pointed out to his daughter the
responsibility of administering money belonging to others. Having done
this he left the matter in her hands, and she, like a dutiful child,
submits her case when she has come to a decision. She writes on her
Foucault frame in July 1855, from 31 Queen Anne Street:--

MY DEAR PAPA--I wanted to have spoken to you about what I am now
going to write, but had no good opportunity before you went. The
situation of the shop in Cromer Street stands very much in the way
of the sale o