SUMMARY.The gestation of the National Children's Bureau, originally the National Bureau for Cooperation in Child Care, is examined. Conference papers of 1954 give a flavour of the social concerns over children and their special needs when preparatory work on forming a Bureau was supported by the National Council of Social Service. It took a decade to reach formal inauguration and the concerns of 30 years ago are illustrated, confirming a commitment to knowledge based on information, research, and multi‐disciplinary disseminatio