Dr. George C Cossar

Dr. George C Cossar was the originator of schemes for improving the position of slum lads of Glasgow. He was one of the outstanding figures in philanthropic work in Glasgow. who devoted much of his time and means to helping boys drawn from the poorest districts of Glasgow in preparation for emigration to the colonies.

He opened a home at Anderston Quay in 1908 which could accommodate 100 boys up to the age of 21. When a by-law passed by the Glasgow Corporation 4 years later prohibited lodging houses from housing boys under 18 years old Dr. Cossar bought larger premises in the High Street. The Glasgow Lads' Home could accommodate 250 boys.

He also purchased a large farm in New Brunswick, Canada where the boys were sent once they had received training.

In 1910 he secured a lease of Girgenti House in Ayrshire. It had 53 acres of arable land where 160 boys were taught market gardening, pig farming, poultry farming and dairying in the first year.

In 1911 Dr. Cossar because his farm in New Brunswick needed him to be absent from Scotland he arranged with the Scottish Labour Colony Association, of which he was a director, to take over Girgenti as a labour colony for boys.

He later worked with the Scottish Council for Women's Trades on a scheme for training city girls who wished to go to Canada to take up farm or domestic work.

In 1914, when war broke out, George Cossar entered medical school. After he completed his medical degree he went to France where he was awarded the Military Cross for valour while under fire.

John J Jackson and his wife managed the New Brunswick Cossar Farm.

In 1922 George Cossar bought a farm called Craigielinn, near Paisley in Scotland.

see http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=HNS192312...

In 1929 new regulations regarding minimum height requirements caused many of Cossar's boys to be rejected and he felt that he was unable to continue with his emigration work.

Further Reading

British Home Child International

Extract

http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/acadiensis/article/view/10831/...

Cossar’s Colonists: Juvenile Migration to New Brunswick in the 1920s

Marjory Harper - University of Aberdeen

[Much more to read at this link]

Born into a wealthy Glasgow family in 1880, Cossar attended Rugby School and Oxford, where he graduated in civil and mining engineering before taking up a temporary post in Peru. His charitable conscience had been aroused in his student days, when he saw the plight of homeless men sleeping on the Thames Embankment. But it was disadvantaged juveniles whom he sought to rehabilitate on his return to Glasgow, opening missions, soup kitchens and clubs in the city centre. He also purchased a training farm in Ayrshire, Todhill, to instruct and then place boys in farm service at home or abroad.30 To facilitate Canadian placements, he purchased a 700-acre farm — which included a 18th-century colonial farmhouse — at Gagetown in 1910. Recruits were sent there for training, either directly or via Todhill, before being placed with individual farmers in the province. Cossar managed to persuade the Canadian immigration authorities to grant him the statutory commission of £1 per head, on the grounds that the boys were legitimate agricultural labourers required to work on his farm. In 1911 he escorted his first recruits to Gagetown, along with a man and wife from Stirlingshire, hired to superintend the venture. He subsequently purchased three adjacent farms to increase his holding to 1,000 acres. By 1913, when G. Bogue Smart submitted a report on the farm, 250 boys had passed through its doors, and by 1922 this had risen to 800. Although Smart suggested that Cossar was naive in expecting his recruits to repay their fares, he reported that each boy, when interviewed individually, had expressed enthusiasm for his work, and concluded that "Mr Cossar’s plan of supplying a good class of young Scotch immigrants is not only commendable but advantageous to Canada and deserving of encouragement".

Extract

http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=15943

The Cossar Farm Site is designated a Local Historic Place for its association with pre-Loyalist settlement and for its continuous agricultural use. The land was granted to General Thomas Gage in the latter third of the 18th century. It is significant that he actually lived in a splendid pre-Loyalist house here. Images of this house are extant, for it existed here until 1929 when it burned. The current Dutch Colonial residence was constructed in 1930 by Dr. Cossar. For about a hundred years this land was farmed by a Scot, George Fox, and his descendants. In 1910 another Scot, Dr. George Cossar of Glasgow, was visiting in the Saint John River valley and was charmed and delighted by the wonderful scenic arable farm land in this spot. He purchased a large tract of it immediately and began his Canadian farm. Cossar began to introduce modern farming practices and expanded the apple orchards there, as well as beginning a herd of dual purpose Shorthorn cattle. But probably he is best remembered for his practice of bringing Scottish boys from difficult financial circumstances to his farm where they lived and learned Canadian farming practices. Then they went on to work on other farms, many becoming farmers themselves. The Cossar Farm operated until sometime in the 1940’s and, after a period of limited activity, it was purchased in 1954 by the Nova Scotia orchardist, A. R. Stirling. It has been in their family ever since. Some of the outbuildings that exist today were there in Cossar’s time.

Source: Queens County Heritage Archives – Gagetown Historic Places files

References, Sources and Further reading

• One-Name Study of this name - http://www.one-name.org/profiles/cossar.html
• Portrait - http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/X10074?Lang=...
• http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19420207&id=U1pAAAAA...
• http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=15943
• http://www.rubycusack.com/issue80.html - one of the boys who went to Canada
• http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/acadiensis/article/view/10831/...
• http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=HNS192312...
• http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/australian-studies/arti...