It has taken a long time but the story of British Home Children is taking one more step out of the shadows with an exciting new exhibition opening on October 17 in Liverpool.*
British Home Children were those who were migrated from Britain to Canada, Australia and other parts of the old empire from the 1870s onwards.
It is still a story which is not well known, especially in this country and for many of us who stumble across a relative who was sent it is a revelation often shrouded in mystery, and the search for their lives made more difficult by the absence of official documentation.
That said in Canada great strides have been made in researching both individuals and piecing together the story which should not surprise us given that over 100,000 children were sent across the Atlantic and some estimates suggest that up to 10% of Canadians are descended from a British Home Child.**
At which point I shall declare an interest as one of my great uncles was sent under the care of the Middlemore Trust by the Derby Workhouse in 1914.
His was a story I knew nothing about and until I began some belated research on the family I did not even know of his existence which was compounded by the fact that neither mother nor my grandparents ever referred to him.
Since then some official documents have come to light but sadly they are fragmentary and the trail fades away sometime after 1925 in western Canada.
It is an experience shared by many who have relatives who were migrated, made more difficult because few of them shared their stories.
And so for that reason we know more about those young people sent to Australia some of whom were still being sent as late as the 1970s.
In some cases having been told their parents were dead and in almost all cases denied any real knowledge of who they had been or why they were sent.
It is a story which was exposed by Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker in the 1980s.
Her work in providing a history for all those Australians who grew up with no knowledge of a family in Britain or the circumstances which led to them being sent to Australia is documented in her book Empty Cradles which in turn became the film Oranges and Sunshine.***
All of which takes me back to that exhibition which is a collaboration between the Australian National Maritime Museum and National Museums Liverpool.
And amongst the material is some from the Together Trust which was the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuge.
The Refuge migrated 2,129 children to Canada between 1870 and 1914 and within the archive there are details “providing family information, living conditions leading up to their admittance to the charity and personal letters written home.”****
Now this makes the Together Trust an important first stop for anyone who believes their relatives were migrated by the charity.
As the archivist stresses in this week’s blog post, “the charity works to provide information to any individuals who believe their descendants may have been emigrated by us.”
All of which adds one more piece to the story of British Home Children and a powerful reason to both read the charities blog and get along to Liverpool.
Pictures; Emigration party outside Manchester Town Hall, 1897, Letter in 1888 describing life in Canada, courtesy of the Together Trust, report and signing off document on Roger James Hall from the collection of Andrew Simpson
* On their own: Britain's child migrants, 17 October 2014 to 4 October 2015, Merseyside Maritime Museum, http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/exhibitions/child-migrants/
**British Home Children in Canada, http://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com/
*** Growing up in Australia with no past, no family and just unanswered questions ..... Empty Cradles, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/growing-up-in-australia-with-no-past-no.html
**** On their own: Britain's child migrants, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/
 |
| Emigration party outside Manchester Town Hall, 1897, |
It is still a story which is not well known, especially in this country and for many of us who stumble across a relative who was sent it is a revelation often shrouded in mystery, and the search for their lives made more difficult by the absence of official documentation.
That said in Canada great strides have been made in researching both individuals and piecing together the story which should not surprise us given that over 100,000 children were sent across the Atlantic and some estimates suggest that up to 10% of Canadians are descended from a British Home Child.**
At which point I shall declare an interest as one of my great uncles was sent under the care of the Middlemore Trust by the Derby Workhouse in 1914.
 |
| Report on my great uncle, 1916 |
Since then some official documents have come to light but sadly they are fragmentary and the trail fades away sometime after 1925 in western Canada.
And so for that reason we know more about those young people sent to Australia some of whom were still being sent as late as the 1970s.
In some cases having been told their parents were dead and in almost all cases denied any real knowledge of who they had been or why they were sent.
It is a story which was exposed by Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker in the 1980s.
Her work in providing a history for all those Australians who grew up with no knowledge of a family in Britain or the circumstances which led to them being sent to Australia is documented in her book Empty Cradles which in turn became the film Oranges and Sunshine.***
 |
| Signing off document on my uncle, 1916 |
And amongst the material is some from the Together Trust which was the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuge.
The Refuge migrated 2,129 children to Canada between 1870 and 1914 and within the archive there are details “providing family information, living conditions leading up to their admittance to the charity and personal letters written home.”****
Now this makes the Together Trust an important first stop for anyone who believes their relatives were migrated by the charity.
 |
| Letter describing life in Canada, 1888 |
All of which adds one more piece to the story of British Home Children and a powerful reason to both read the charities blog and get along to Liverpool.
Pictures; Emigration party outside Manchester Town Hall, 1897, Letter in 1888 describing life in Canada, courtesy of the Together Trust, report and signing off document on Roger James Hall from the collection of Andrew Simpson
* On their own: Britain's child migrants, 17 October 2014 to 4 October 2015, Merseyside Maritime Museum, http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/exhibitions/child-migrants/
**British Home Children in Canada, http://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com/
*** Growing up in Australia with no past, no family and just unanswered questions ..... Empty Cradles, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/growing-up-in-australia-with-no-past-no.html
**** On their own: Britain's child migrants, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/
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