Background Information

A total of 150,000 British children, mostly in state care, are thought to have been transported abroad from the UK in various waves. The majority of British children were transferred alone to the "new Dominions" between the 1870s and the mid-1930s, however the first child migration from the UK occurred in Virginia,in the USA, in the early 17th century. During this time, they were transferred to South Africa, Australia, Canada, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and New Zealand, all of which had been colonised as part of the British Empire.

Most children were removed by the poor law guardians in parishes, to reduce the unsightly scrounge of destitute children on cities and towns streets, but also to reduce the financial burden on the poor law rates paid by the property owners.

Starting in the 18th century criminal children who were convicted from the age of seven, were transported to the United States and Australia.

From the 1850s started the years of the great philanthropist or child savers. They established organisations to facilitate emigration of children from Britain to the colonies, including Dr Barnardo, Annie MacPherson, Church of England waifs and strays society and the Catholic Church to name a few. Britain was keen to populate its colonies, and the colonies wanted to increase their numbers with British stock and a ready supply of labour for farms and domestic servants. Young children could be moulded into good colonial citizens and girls would be sent out to offset the colonies desperate shortage of women.

The Doyle report of 1875, the government inquiry into child migration painted the miseries in store for children and concluded forcefully that child migration was wrong. It's criticisms and recommendations we are constantly ignored for the next 100 years.

Immigration of Home Children to Canada

More than 100,000 children of various ages were transported from the United Kingdom to Canada between the late 1860s and 1948 in order to work as domestics and indentured farm labourers. Of those Canadians thought were orphans, only about 12 percent were. More than 50 organisations, including the well-known and still operating charity Barnardo's, The Salvation Army, and Quarrier's, to mention a few, sent these kids to Canada.

Barnardo's sent over thirty thousand children here and was by far the largest organisation sending children to Canada. Many BHC were referred to be "Barnardo Home Boys" even though many of them were recruited from other groups.

Most of these kids weren't taken from the streets; instead, they came from intact families that had fallen on hard straits due to the illness or even death of one of their parents. The family had no choice but to turn their children over to the organisations since there was no social structure in place to assist them in overcoming these challenging conditions.

There are documented instances where parents returned to pick up their children only to discover that they had already been sent away, indicating that this was occasionally intended to be a stopgap measure until the family recovered. Parents occasionally received a message stating that their children had been emigrated a week prior, known as after sailing.

These kids should not be confused with "Guest Children," who were temporarily transferred from evacuation zones in the United Kingdom to Canada during World War II in order to protect them from places that were being attacked. Some of the British Home Children never saw their families again after being sent off to labour.

The Industrial Revolution gave rise to the child migration program. In search of employment and a better life, many people relocated to cities, breaking apart traditional extended families. Therefore, there was no direct family nearby to take them in if one of the parents passed away. Workhouses were overcrowded, and British children who had been abandoned lived and perished on the streets.

However, the terrible reality was that many children were virtually abandoned to new lives that were worse than their previous ones, and that monitoring of children's placements was frequently neglected. The siblings were split apart. In addition to helping with children and household chores, girls also helped farm women in the fields. Boys were turned into incredibly overworked farm labourers.

Many of these youngsters suffered, even if some of them were practically adopted and accepted into the households they worked for. Children might be reassigned and returned. A lot of them were transferred from one farm to another. Some committed suicide, others fled or just vanished, while yet more passed tragically from illnesses or injuries brought on by abuse and neglect.

At the very least, children in the United Kingdom and North America were viewed as inferior to their Canadian counterparts due of the widespread eugenics concept. Just because they were impoverished and in need of assistance, they were stigmatised as such. These kids were frequently made to feel ashamed and ridiculed for being Home Boys or Home Girls in the communities where they were supposed to be raised and cared for. Many Home Children kept quiet about their origins for the rest of their lives because of this embarrassment.

Dr Barnardo

The year 1845 saw the birth of Thomas John Barnardo in Dublin, Ireland. He relocated to London as a young man to pursue medical training.

Poverty and illness were so pervasive at the time that one out of five children passed away before turning five. Barnardo realised that the children left behind required assistance after a cholera outbreak devastated London's East End, killing 3,000 people and leaving many children orphaned.

He established a "ragged school" in 1867 where kids could receive a free foundational education. Jim Jarvis, one of the school's boys, made Barnardo aware of the plight of the kids in the East End, where they were sleeping in gutters and on roofs. He was so moved by what he seen that he abandoned his medical education to devote all of his energies to aiding underprivileged youngsters.

Nearly 30,000 children were moved by Dr. Barnardo's organisation between 1882 and 1939, with the bulk reaching Canada before 1924. After the children were rescued from their parents or the streets, Barnardo's established two homes in England, one for boys and one for girls. Before being sent to one of Barnardo's reception homes in Canada, some kids were first placed with couples or families in England for a few months to a few years. In Russell, Manitoba, Barnardo also established a farm for boys. Among the child migrant organisations, Barnardo's is the most well-known and continues to operate today.

Both Canadians and the British organisations that provided funding initially embraced these and related organisations. On both sides of the Atlantic, however, suspicion and charges of financial gain, child mistreatment, and fraudulent marketing surfaced in a matter of years.

Controversy around Dr Barnardo

While Barnardo is well-known for aiding thousands of children by giving them free schooling, food, shelter, training, and general advice, some people have doubts about how he accomplished all of this.

He was charged with kidnapping children from families he believed were not providing adequate care and bringing them to one of his organisations in order to improve their quality of life. Legal documents state that things frequently occurred without the parents' consent or knowledge. In actuality, Barnardo appeared in court more than 80 times, primarily for kidnapping. Furthermore, because of his skill at eloquence and his good name, he was never actually imprisoned, despite the fact that he frequently admitted to these charges.When it came to'rescuing' children from problematic households, he himself believed that the goal justified the means.

It was also claimed that several of his residences and schools lacked adequate conditions to house children and were unhygienic. Finally, he put youngsters to labour in former colonies, which led to a significant child migration controversy from which he would never fully recover.

Link Below to view the Newspaper article.

https://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/27th-october-1877/9/dr-barnardos-case

What was brought on the journey?

Girls Outfit 

1 winter coat 
2 hats (1 straw, 1 felt) 
1 cap 
3 service frocks 
1 working frock 
1 winter best frock 
1 woollen house coat 
Aprons 
2 sets underwear langerie 
2 print dresses 
4 print aprons 
3 white aprons 
5 pair stockings 
2 pair boots 
1 pair slippers>Handkerchiefs 
1 hair bursh and comb 
1 housewife and other necessary perquisites 
1 Bible 
Writing material  

Boys outfit 

1 Overcoat, Scharfe 
Hat & cap, gloves 
3 suits 
4 shirts, collar buttons 
4 soft collars, 2 ties 
Handkerchiefs 
1 jersey 
1 overalls 
1 pair braces, belt 
2 pairs boots 
1 shoes 
3 pair socks 
2 sets woollen underwear 
1 hair brush and comb 
1 housewife (sewing kit) 
1 Bible 
Writing material  

It is understood that no personal possessions, keepsake or toys were allowed to be taken on the journey. Each child was given a trunk and a small bag or suitcase on carry on board.

Both Lilian and Olive Martin were sent to Hazelbrae Girls home, Peterborough Ontario . Percy was sent to Barnardos reception home in Toronto, split from his sisters.  

It is commonly known that some of the children were abused, and many were poorly treated by today’s standards. Many of those stories have been told and are heartbreaking to read.

What is less known is that most experienced a better life in Canada than if they had remained in the urban slums of Britain, trapped in poverty and held back by a rigid class system.

In Canada, many home children went on to own farms themselves. Others became teachers, carpenters, doctors, nurses, merchants, secretaries, clergy, tradespeople, politicians and a wide variety of other occupations. Many enlisted with the Canadian and British armed forces during the South African War and the two world wars.

As adults, some children from Barnardo’s Homes wrote to that organization’s magazines, telling about their life experiences. In the Guild Messenger, for example, there is a letter from Harold Green in 1970. He wrote that he was brought to Canada in 1901 and later worked in farming and lumbering. He served in the First World War, took an auto mechanics course and eventually worked for the Ontario Forestry Service, retiring at age 70 with a pension.

What happened to the Martin family?  

Lilian Victoria Martin  

Married Henry Rollings 5/9/1930 in Cobourg, Ontario  

They had 5 children  

Died 1993 in Cobourg, Ontario  

  Olive Martin  

Married Joseph Smith in 1920 in Cobourg, Ontario  

Had one son Merlin Smith  

1951  

  Percy Martin  

Died 13 Sept 1930 in Lethbridge, Alberta , Canada aged 27  

In the Lethbridge Herald, 17^th Sept 1930   

“ Percy Martin, died of Typhoid, resident of New Drayton, Alberta. United Church. Survived by his mother Mrs Lillie Partridge in Ipswich Suffolk, 2 brothers and 2 sisters in Ontario. Brother of Mrs J Smith, Coulbough, Ont. 

Acknowledgement and Apology

In the decades since Britain formally stopped shipping children abroad, numerous inquiries and investigations, along with testimonies from former child migrants, have highlighted the enormity and tragic reality of forced child migration schemes.

In 2009, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to Britain’s former child migrants and forgotten Australians. The next year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivered an Apology, acknowledging the shameful way British former child migrants were treated by their country, and announced the Family Restoration Fund to reunite families that were torn apart.

However, the struggle for appropriate recognition and redress isn’t yet over. The Child Migrants Trust is currently campaigning for the UK Government to Honour the Apology of 2010.