Britain's Child Migration - Organisers

Britain's Child Migration -

Organisers

The practice of sending poor or orphaned children to British colonies, to help alleviate the shortage of labour, began in England in 1618, with the rounding-up and transportation of 100 vagrant children to the Virginia Colony.

Before the second half of the twentieth century, the Home Children programme was seen as a way to move impoverished children to a "better life" in Australia, Canada and elsewhere, also providing good "white stock" to former colonies.

In total 130,000 children were sent from the UK to Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and Australia.

Child emigration was undertaken by religious and charitable organisations. One of the earliest of these being the Children's Friend Society established in 1830 (see 1 below), which sent out its first party of child migrants to Australia in 1832. In 1844 the Ragged School Movement began, and sent out 150 children to New South Wales in 1849. In 1850 Parliament legalised Poor Law Guardians to fund emigration of children to the colonies.

The object of this project is to list individual people who worked towards improving the lot of destitute and poverty stricken children in Britain.

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Charlotte A. Alexander

• Alexander Balfour (1824-1886) - founded the Duke Street Home, to provide better conditions for sailors, and orphanages for seamen's children.
• Emma Barber - managed the home at Knowlton, Quebec for MacPherson and then her sister Mrs. Birt.
• Dr. John Thomas Barnardo (1845-1905) Canada and Australia
• Agnes Beddoe, wife of Dr. John Beddoe
• Ellen Agnes Bilbrough (1841 - 1900) Married to Rev Robert Wallace below.
• Louisa Caroline Stirling Birt (nee MacPherson) (1837-1906) Canada
• John Clavell Mansel-Playdell (1817-1902) founder of Blandford Reformatory School.
• William Booth (1829-1912) (Salvation Army) - Canada and Australia
• Captain Edward Pelham Brenton (1774-1839) founder of the Children's Friend Society.
• Mrs. Ellinor Close established the farm near Rothesay (King's County) New Brunswick.
• Dr. George C Cossar 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.
• Father/Rev. (Lord) Archibald Douglas who in 1874 took over St Vincent’s, Hammersmith, a small orphanage for boys, and started a printing press and bakery to provide work for boys. Under Father Douglas a threefold development took place. (1) Boys from all parts of the country for whom no patron could be found were received. (2) Appeal was made to the public conscience for funds. (3) A new and great development was made in organising the emigration of children to Canada. To Father Douglas succeeded Father Douglas Hope in 1886. Three years later he succumbed to rheumatic fever and died. Two years before that Father Barry had opened homes in Stepney, and these were amalgamated under Father Barry with St. Vincent's on the death of Father Hope. The Stepney Homes were transferred to Enfield and became the present St. Joseph's Home. Father Barry extended the work to the rescue of girls. http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/23rd-april-1910/25/crusade-o...
• Kingsley Fairbridge (1885-1924) - Perth, Australia
• James William Condell Fegan (1852-1925) - Canada
• Vere Foster (1819-1900) Canada
• Rev. Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1803-1873)
• Francis Horner
• John Houghton
• Mrs. Ellen Joyce
• Mrs. Margaret Lacy (supervisor of Shaw Street Home for Child Emigration)
• Annie Parlane MacPherson (1833-1904) Canada
• Alfred Mager
• John Clavell Mansel-Playdell (1817-1902) Canada
• Sir John Throgmorton Middlemore (1844-1924) Canada and Australia
• Father James Nugent (1822-1905) Canada
• Rev. William J. Pady
• John Pounds (1766-1839)
• William Quarrier (1829-1903) Canada
• Edward de Mountjoie Rudolf
• Maria Susan Rye (1829-1903) Australia, Canada and New Zealand
• Rev. Thomas Seddon
• Thomas Sedgewick
• Leonard K. Shaw
• Reverend Dr. Thomas Bowman Stephenson (1839-1912)
• Emma Sterling of Edinburgh, Scotland
• Dr. E. A. Struthers (1855-1935) - manager of Russell Manitoba Training Farm
• Reverend Armine Styleman Herring of the Clerkenwell Emigration Society. Canada
• Ellen Smyly (Franks) of the Smyly Homes of Dublin. Canada
• Richard B. Taylor
• Rev Robert Wallace (1855 - )
• Benjamin Waugh
• Henry Willett born Catt (1823-1903) was a founding father of Brighton Museum. Willett also set up the Brighton Emigration Society to assist poor people living in the Brighton area to emigrate to Canada.
• Stephen Williamson
• Rev. R. F. Winter
• Miss L M Yates and her niece A Yates (supervisor of Shaw Street Home for Child Emigration who replaced Mrs. Lacy)

Other individuals of interest

• Andrew Doyle, a senior inspector commissioned by the Local Government board in 1874 to report back on the schemes for emigration of workhouse children to Canada, with particular concern expressed about the schemes operated by Maria Rye and Annie MacPherson. Following his critical report, the Local Government Board stopped the emigration of children from workhouses in March 1875, a decision that forced Maria Rye to suspend sending out more children for two years.
• Margaret Humphreys 1986 set up the Child Migrant Trust to assist former child migrants to reunite with their families.
• Charles Mair of Winnipeg - assisted George Bogue Smart.
• George Bogue Smart, born in Brockville, Ontario, became the first and only person to hold the position of Inspector of British Immigrant Children and Receiving Homes on 13 May 1864. Hired in June 1899 to assist the immigration agent at Halifax and to accompany new arrivals to the west. He retired in 1933.

Opponents to the emigration of Childen

• Alfred F Jury
• Daniel J O' Donoghue

Organisations

• The Children's Aid Society founded in 1853 in New York sent out orphans from New York by "orphan train" to the farming states of the mid-west at Kansas, Ohio, Michigan and Iowa.
• The Children's Friend Society - Cape of Good Hope and Swan River Colony in Australia. Canada
• Church of England Waifs and Strays Society - Canada, Australia and Southern Rhodesia
• Clerkenwell Emigration Society
• Liverpool Sheltering Homes
• Middlemore Homes - Canada
• National Children's Homes and Orphanages was founded by the Methodist Reverend Thomas Bowman Stephenson, Francis Horner and Alfred Mager, 1869. Canada, Australia and New Zealand
• Nugent Society Care Homes Canada and USA (Founded by Father James Nugent)
• Revival Refuge and Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London (Founded by Annie Parlane MacPherson)
• The Sisters of Providence received “Home Children” brought from England by Mrs. Lacy of the Catholic Protection Society of Liverpool from May 1888 to September 1891. http://www.providence.ca/?cat=88

Managers of the Distribution Homes

this project is in History Link