How much more difficult than for those of us engaged in researching British Home Children. Not only do we have to contend with organisations that are not always helpful and will charge an arm and a leg, but the records can be deposited 3,000 miles away.
For my Canadian colleagues trying to track children born over here and navigate diverse sources of information which can be anywhere in the country must be daunting. In some cases the records of the workhouses where the children stayed have been destroyed, in my case just heaped on a skip to moulder 15 feet down on a landsite tip. Many of the personal files still held by the agencies which sent the children are locked by the 100 year rule of disclosure and are costly to access. Nor given the fact that most Canadian BHC are now dead and did not talk much about their early life it can be almost impossible to track down family members.
On the other hand for those of us wanting to follow the trail of a family member in Canada we stumble soon after they set foot in their adopted country. During the early years of the settlement of these young people records were not always kept and when they left their placements in their late teens not all were checked to see that they had prospered in the outside world.
Having said that the online resources of the Library and Archive of Canada are a wonderful first stop, and there are sites set up by the Canadian descendants of BHC, offering forums, help, news and databases.http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/lac-bac/search/arch
I have been luckier than most. Some of my great uncle's personal records have survived. This is the application form made out by a farmer in NB requesting a BHC and it was the first farm my relative was placed.
It reveals much of the expectation and relationship between the farmer, and the Middlemore agency and what was expected for the welfare of the child.
So it was agreed that the farmer would “provide proper food and clothing”, “medical attendance” and attendance at school for at least 5 months of each year as well as “Sunday School and Divine Worship.” The young person was to be paid $5 per month once he had reached 16 and would be retained until the age of 18.
And in the event that things turned out badly the child would be returned to the Middlemore Home “after not less than a month’s notice with a good supply of clothes as when I received him.”
Moreover to avoid the exploitation of the child he could not be “placed in another home.” Finally there was provision for regular reports back on the boy to the agency. In the case of my great uncle these have also survived but make for grim reading.
All this was fine and dandy but was less the case in the early years of settlement and there are both anecdotal and official reports from both children and inspectors that the reality did not live up to the intentions of the agreements.
Some children lived awful lives, badly treated and enduring the harsh winters of Canada and while a few were fully adopted by the families they worked for it was never the idea that they should become an integral part of the family. They were there as hands and as the document makes clear it was the manager of the Middlemore home who was to be regarded as “guardian”.
There will be those who dismiss such agreements as fiction arguing that the attitude of some farmers fell along way short of the spirit of the contract. Even so they are a priceless insight into a brief period in my great uncle’s life.
Not only do I have the names of the farmers he stayed with but I have tracked down the locations including one farmhouse which still stands and written to people who remember the families who took him in. Not much I know but still a powerful link to a relative I never met.
Picture; detail from the Middlemore agreement with Sayer Vernier Griffiths of Sheffield, Sunbury NB, February 10th 1914, in the collection of Andrew Simpson
No comments:
Post a Comment