Born in Dublin in 1845, Thomas John Barnardo was a workaholic Irishman whose non-stop efforts in the cause of children's welfare landed him in an early grave at the age of sixty. However, in his own area of work it's fair to say he changed Britain forever, as much as any one man can. Much of modern child welfare started with him.

Martin Levy digs into the filth and rot of what was the world's biggest empire to discover what this man was up to, what he was up against and how wonderfully well he succeeded. In the cause of the children, he went banging on the door of his Victorian world and refused to stop until the day he died.