Kingsway Children's Centre opened in September 1977. It was started by a group of parents and trade unionists who were campaigning for good quality childcare provision. It took two years of negotiations between the trade unions and employers involved to get the centre established.

Participating employers funded two thirds of the cost of childcare places for their employees’ children, as well as making an initial grant towards establishing the nursery. Parents paid the remaining third of the cost of their child's nursery place.

The employers involved were the National and Local Government Officers Association (NALGO), Camden Council, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, Thames Television, London Weekend Television, City Limits and the National Association of Community Relations Councils.

The London Borough of Camden gave a loan to help the nursery get established, and the West London Mission allowed them to use their creche premises in Wesley House rent free for the first three years. The creche had been established in 1888 and was the first creche in Britain. In their 1984-85 annual report the Children’s Centre wrote:

‘By a happy chance we stumbled into Kingsway Mission, who welcomed us in, and showed us up to the sixth floor where, to our amazement, was a whole nursery. It lay in quiet and dusty disuse, with little chairs and loos, just waiting for us.’

A leaflet produced by the Children's Centre explained that it aimed 'to overcome the traditional and arbitrary separation of day-care and nursery school education and to provide a combination of the best of both.'

The centre was run by a management committee of parents, union representatives and the nursery staff.

The centre provided up to 35 spaces for children from three months to five years old. It was open from 8:30 am - 5:45 pm, which allowed parents enough time to work a full day and collect their children.

Staff at the centre had a range of qualifications. They were all paid on the same scale, worked the same hours and had the same holidays.

In the 1984-85 report the centre wrote that ‘staff generally stay in the same rooms for a period of time such as a year, and if they move, it is arranged so that they can accompany a group of children “up” to the next room, so that the children do not lose continuity of care.’

The group of trade unionists who established the nursery believed that sufficient provision for under-fives was an important step toward achieving equal work opportunities for men and women and saw employer subsidised facilities as a step towards full state provision. As well as the childcare the centre provided, it offered advice to trade unionists and employers who wanted to start similar ventures or be put in touch with other interested groups and gave space for evening or weekend creches for trade union meetings or conferences.

The West London Mission sold the building to property developers, leaving the nursery’s future uncertain. To safeguard the nursery the Greater London Council bought Wesley House in 1983. The building was refurbished (the nursery relocated to a portacabin on the South Bank while this happened) and became a home for many women’s groups, including the National Child Care Campaign and the Fleet Street Nursery, along with Kingsway Children’s Centre.

After the refurbishment the nursery had twice as much space for the toddlers. Back in the building in 1985 they wrote:

‘Our facilities are spacious and warm, and include a fully equipped baby room, airy bright rooms for the toddlers and specially designed pre-school section, as well as a kitchen, a laundry, staff room, bathrooms, and a safe and colourful roof garden and play area.’

In 1984 the nursery faced a new threat when the government began taxing employer-subsidised childcare, with many parents liable for years of back tax charged until the Inland Revenue agreed to only charge the tax from April 1985 onwards. Parents involved at Kingsway Children’s Centre were at the forefront of opposing the tax and helped set up the Workplace Nurseries Campaign. The tax meant that parents’ fees would double. Their 1984-85 annual report wrote:

‘It has been an exhilarating year, but we have spent much of it asserting with exasperation, our independence and value in the face of a tax system that seems determined to close down nurseries like ours. … Management committee members have a special glazed look only endowed on those with 39 things to do by Wednesday and a toddler.’

A grant was secured in 1985 for a ‘Sick Children at Home Scheme’ from the Greater London Council (GLC). This meant the nursery employed an extra worker who was able to go to a child’s home when they were not well enough to go to nursery and look after them while their parents go to work. The inspiration for this came from a Workplace Nurseries Campaign joint conference with NALGO where a Belgian trade unionist spoke about a similar homecare scheme they had there. It was discussed in the Daycare Trust and National Child Care Campaign summer 1989 newsletter, so it seems likely the scheme continued until at least 1989.