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Extract from Leamington Courier June 10, 2011:

WHEN Lord Algernon Percy called the first meeting of the Warwickshire Association for the Blind's committee 100 years ago there were, according to the limited responses of a survey sent to parish clergy, 250 blind people in the county.

Lord Percy, the High Sheriff of Warwickshire and a former Conservative MP, spoke of the difficulties experienced by blind people in finding employment.

Other members said more involvement was needed in the support work which was taking place in other parts of England.

The association's first objectives were the prevention of' blindness and to find blind people in Warwickshire in order to promote their welfare.

Ten decades on and the charity still puts much emphasis on sending its representatives out into communities to help those who are blind or partially sighted.

By 1925  WAB was working with Warwickshire County Council - a partnership which continues today - and the charity's first home teacher was appointed to make visits throughout the county

At the end of the Second World War the charity ran centres in Leamington, Shirley, Sutton Coldfield and Tamworth and able-bodied blind people were encouraged to register under the Disabled Persons Employment Act.

In 1950  WAB bought Huntley Lodge in Northumberland Road, Leamington, as a home for 22 elderly blind people to be run by the County Council.  The money for this came from the Midland Societies for the Blind, which was funded in part by Warwickshire Miners.  The lodge was closed in 1980 and the money returned to WAB.  By that time  hundreds of people were volunteering to help the charity.

A report by the Royal National Institute for the Blind in 1991 showed there were three times more visually impaired people than previously thought. A new development plan for  WAB was written and its previous arrangement with social services was formalised.

Social services delegated keeping the register of blind and partially sighted people to WAB and by 1995 2,525 people were registered.

Financial changes led to the charity restructuring its staff and selling its Puckerings Lane site in 2004.  But by 2009 WAB, now a company limited by guarantee while remaining a charity, had moved into its current headquarters in Warwick.

Most recently the charity set up the Vision Support Help Desk at Warwick Hospital's Machen Eye Unit.  The WAB now has about 4,000 people on it's database of whom almost 2,800 are registered blind or partially-sighted.  However the RNIB estimates that there are about 17,500 people in this area who have uncorrectable vision problems that cause them practical problems.