From “Gutter Children” to Home Children: child migrants in the archives of the Canadian Museum of Immigration

Summary

In the nineteenth-century United Kingdom, the social ills associated with industrialization particularly afflicted children. A country-wide network of children’s homes developed in response, but was overwhelmed by demand. From the 1860s onwards, some of these homes organised the emigration of the children in their care, including to Canada. The children were failed by the governments of both countries, which did not sufficiently regulate the schemes. In Canada, the “Home Children” were often met with neglect and ill-treatment rather than the promised opportunities.

by Sorcha Clarke

This is a guest post from Visiting Researcher Sorcha Clarke, a PhD candidate at Ulster University / Queen's University Belfast. It contains frank discussion of the difficult circumstances encountered by Home Children before and during their placements in Canada, including physical and sexual abuse. While this content will be upsetting for all readers, this difficult knowledge is an important part of Canada’s immigration history.

Background

The British Context

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, British industry underwent significant transformation. This drove urbanisation, with the increasing concentration of factories in cities and large towns drawing in workers from rural areas in search of employment. Population growth accompanied this, with London, already a city of one million in 1800, home to 1.4 million as early as 1821.[1] Between 1801-1851, Manchester’s population increased from 75,000 to 303,000, whilst Glasgow grew from a town of 13,000 to a city of 104,000.[2] By 1870, urban centres of over 10,000 had a forty-two percent share in the population.[3]

The subsequent pressure on housing brought about the rise of slum and tenement housing in Britain’s cities, with multiple families commonly residing in one house and entire families in just one room. By 1911, over 758,000 Londoners were reported as living in overcrowded conditions.[4] Furthermore, living conditions were severely wanting. Sanitation was extremely poor, facilitating regular outbreaks of diseases like cholera. When the dangers inherent in industrial work were added into the mix, life expectancy was low, at just forty-six years for England and Wales between 1891 and 1900.[5] Infant mortality rates were high, with 150 deaths per thousand live births in London in 1901.[6] An 1874 letter to the editor of The Times illustrated ‘the misery and vice of London poverty.’ The author referenced slum housing, which looked ‘well enough outside, but indeed prove whited sepulchres when you find that each one is inhabited by at least ten families, and that in the garrets are living families of from five to ten persons, with hardly any fireplace and no convenience whatsoever.’[7]

Children were not spared from the worst aspects of life in Victorian and early Edwardian Britain. Necessity drove many working-class parents to send their young children out to work in factories, as chimney sweeps, matchbox makers etc., with their small wages contributing to the family economy. The 1851 census recorded a profession for 64 percent of boys and 32.5 percent of girls aged five to nineteen in London.[8] However, legislation introduced throughout the nineteenth-century sought to protect children in the workplace. By 1901, 22 percent of boys and 12 percent of girls aged ten to fourteen were officially employed, falling to 18 and 10 percent respectively by 1911.[9]

Charity

As the nineteenth century progressed, the social ills associated with life in urban-industrial centres came into increasingly sharp focus, giving the philanthropically-minded myriad causes to dedicate themselves too. This is reflected in the range of charities and societies (some secular, some religious) that had sprung up across the country by mid-century. The Protestant evangelical revival of the 1860s inspired further concern that life in the slums of British cities was negatively affecting morality and religious adherence of the poor. Of concern here were women, and, in particular, children. Vulnerable youths subsequently found themselves the subjects of initiatives providing religious and moral instruction, as well as food and training in relevant trades. These efforts evolved into a country-wide network of children’s homes. However, the large number of homeless and orphaned children meant that they quickly became oversubscribed, and alternative avenues for care were required. From the 1860s onwards those running the homes began advocating for the organised emigration of children. Key actors here include Maria Rye, Annie Macpherson, Thomas Middlemore, and Dr Barnardo.[10]

The Canadian Context

Following Confederation in 1867, immigration provided one of the foundations upon which the Canadian government made decisions. It desired the settlement of remote, rural areas, and the development of agriculture in the west, as well as the growth and consolidation of industry. This necessitated a large workforce, and as Canada could not draw upon its own population, it looked outward. The Canadian government’s approach to immigration was fluid and changed over time in response to factors including internal economic needs, public opinion, and domestic attitudes to issues such as race and nationality, as well as wider international developments.

But what did this mean for child immigrants? The sheer number of youths that were emigrated suggests that it had purposes other than reducing Britain’s home children population. Indeed, it was mutually beneficial, with these children an in-demand source of cheap labour in Canada. Small family farms proliferated in rural areas, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, leading to a reliance on child labour.[11] Girls were also sought after for domestic service, as Canadian women preferred better paid, and more highly regarded, factory work.[12] Thus, children arriving steadily from Britain filled these gaps in the labour market. Approximately 500 immigrated throughout the 1870s, increasing to around 1,500 annually between 1879 and 1882.[13] This trend continued into the early twentieth century, with 33,500 children arriving in Canada between 1901 and 1915. Yet, demand still often exceeded supply, with close to 300,000 applications for Home Children received during this period.[14]

The First World War slowed the immigration of all demographic groups, and it did not recover immediately once the conflict had ended. In the decade preceding the war, overall immigration from Britain totalled 99,000 annually, but only reached approximately 54,000 throughout the 1920s.[15] In order to combat this, the Canadian government introduced a number of initiatives. The Empire Settlement Scheme of 1922 provided transportation assistance to agriculturalists, farm labourers, domestic workers, and young people. Whilst it did not quite attain the desired level of success, it encouraged the immigration of 127,654 individuals by 1931.[16] It also prolonged the immigration of Home Children, with the government receiving 10,000-30,000 excess applications for young British workers annually.[17] Despite 1924 legislation stating that only children aged over fourteen were eligible for assistance, admissions continued to range from 1,000 to 2,000 each year, rising to over 4,000 in 1930.[18]

Home Children Interviews held at the Canadian Museum of Immigration

‘“Another little brat:”’ Journey

Memories of early life in the UK are often marred by experiences of poverty and struggle, leading to institutionalisation in state- or privately-run homes. The difficulties single mothers faced in supporting and keeping large families together are often highlighted. Jack Dove, aged 9 when he was taken to Canada in 1905, recalled that ‘my father left one day. My mother took me to this house and made arrangements to keep me and other children at these Dr Barnardo houses, and the woman grabbed me and said “another little brat” and I didn’t see my mother again for six years.’[19] He was most likely taken to Barnardo’s Stepney Causeway home in East London.

The Davis family, of Haseley in Birmingham, underwent similar experiences. Twins Albert and Edward were cared for by their maternal grandmother and aunt whilst their mother, Jane, worked as a cook at an estate in Yorkshire. However, a local physician advised that Jane admit them to the Middlemore Home after her mother became too old to care for them. Their admission record, dated 8 March 1912, stated that the boys were ‘nice children, above average of our class, clean and tidy. Children are twins and mother has struggled bravely for them for eleven years.’ Albert and Edward’s records revealed more details on their family background, stating that ‘she [Jane] has been receiving on and off money from the father but he has not kept up his payments at all regularly as stated in the agreement drawn up by a firm of solicitors. He has recently been married so there will be a greater difficulty now in keeping up his payments.’[20]

Admission to a home often did little to improve these children’s lives. George Flower’s recollections of the MacPherson home in London, which he was handed over to aged seven, are harrowing, and his memories of going hungry stand out: ‘food was meagre … Sunday we looked forward to because we had meat pie for dinner after church, this was a treat. Going to church we walked two abreast and used to fight to be on the outside to find a fruit peel along the sidewalk to eat it. The experience was not pleasant. There was bed wetting due to lack of food and warmth.’[21] In contrast, some had positive memories. Despite talking about his mother ‘left standing in the doorway crying’ when he was taken away to a home in Southampton following his father’s death, Henry William Burnabeer stated that he was happy there until he embarked for Canada at the age of nine in October 1912.[22]

These accounts confirm that children were primed for emigration from a very young age. That their future lay across the Atlantic appears to have been subtly introduced to many youths. Henry Burnabeer remembered that ‘we were shown pictures of Canada.’[23] It has been noted that the Canadian government sponsored advertising campaigns aimed at target demographics.[24] The prospect of a new life in Canada was met with a mixture of enthusiasm, hope, trepidation and naivety. George Flower spoke of the prospect as ‘an escape because there was lots to escape from, because Canada was like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.’[25] When volunteers to emigrate were asked for at the Dakeyne Street Lads Club, Charles Davenport recalled that ‘I stood up, I was impulsive and always pushing ahead,’[26] whilst Robert Clapham and his peers, ‘when we got the chance to go across the ocean and find a new home we took it … we thought it would be fun.’[27] Others appear to have completely misunderstood what emigration would mean for them. Agnes Fenton ‘didn’t know that we would never see England again, didn’t realise we were going to another country.’[28] This raises questions around issues of consent, or lack thereof in many cases.

The interviews document the immigration process in detail. Being selected and the ordeal of being fitted out with clothes and luggage comes through repeatedly. J.D. Betts, who left the Sheltering Home in Liverpool at the age of eleven in 1927 recalled that ‘they just give you a trunk of clothes, and tell you [that] you are coming out to work on the farm.’ At Stepney Causeway, Jack Dove had his photograph taken and remembered being ‘lined up in rows and there were trunks in a long line, and we had to stand behind the trunk. And they would write your name on the trunk. And then another man would come with hats to give you one, and then the next day again maybe we would do the same again and they would try more clothes on us until we got everything. Didn’t see the trunk again until Canada.’[29] There is little mention of medical examinations, which became compulsory from 1925 onwards, but just three of the interviewees emigrated after this date.[30]

Memories of the voyage itself loom large. Undoubtedly a strange new experience, the interviewees attached a range of different emotions to it. J.D. Betts spoke of ‘excitement because it was a big ocean liner.’[31] Charles Davenport remembered his ten-day journey positively, and although he and many of his peers suffered from seasickness for the first few days, they spent time with a group from Ukraine who were travelling to the west of Canada. He built a strong bond with one woman, whom he described as ‘the motherly type,’ and wanted him to remain with her.[32] Fear and nervousness, along with sadness and bewilderment at sudden separation from siblings and family, comes through in other stories. Elizabeth Phelan Wright, just eight at the time, said that ‘they fed us well on the boat, but I was scared and others were sick.’[33]

‘There was no comfort offered for me. It was a rude awakening:’ Arrival

After disembarking in Canada, there is a sense that the youths viewed it as a strange new land which had previously only existed in their imaginations. Elizabeth Phelan Wright contrasted the countryside with British cities, remarking that ‘before I came here I had never seen darkness at night, because Birmingham was always lit up.’[34] Charles Davenport was somewhat underwhelmed, his first impressions of Halifax was that it was ‘dismal.’ The reality of the situation appears to have set in for many by this stage, leading to homesickness. Davenport, a teenager when he left Britain, approached the matter pragmatically, describing that ‘the rest of the boys were crying but I wasn’t upset at all. Maybe because the foster parents in England had already hardened me to this. I was a realist and had to take what was coming.’[35] George Flower admitted that he was ‘very homesick and started to cry. I wanted to go back to the home.’[36]

Confusion as to their intended destination appears to have continued, even after the children boarded trains at the port city into which they had arrived. Jack Dove confirmed that ‘you didn’t know where you were going and you just had a card tacked on you with a name and a number. They told us some would be going to Toronto, Halifax, Vancouver, Winnipeg.’[37] Elizabeth Phelan Wright’s memory is comparable. She knew that she would be separated from her sister, and outlined that ‘there was a number on our jacket and our name, and on travelling bag too.’[38] Agnes Fenton stated that ‘when we went to Cape Breton some of them got off at railroad stops, one girl got off in a funny place. I didn’t realise a lot of the girls went to places other than Nova Scotia.’[39]

None of the interviewees spent more than a few days in a receiving home. J.D. Betts was in the Belleville home for around a day, whilst Robert Clapham spent the night in a home in Hamilton.[40] Memories of being handed over to their host family are much more vivid. The overwhelming impression is one of practicality, that taking on a British Home Child was a business transaction for many Canadian families. Robert Clapham likened his experience to the cattle trade: ‘They took us in a big room and farmers looked over us like looking for a prized cow at an auction. I was one of the first to go.’[41] George Flower felt like he was ‘interviewed’ by his prospective family. He ‘remembered when I was called in to be interviewed by this farmer. Farmer came with his five-year-old son. There were ten of us in the room, and asked if any of them could sing. And I sang, and after it was over the son wanted me. I was told to pack and I was taken by horse and buggy to the farm.’[42] Negative first impressions of the host families abound. George Flower felt that ‘there was no comfort offered for me. It was a rude awakening,’ whilst Robert Clapham recounted that ‘the farmer didn’t welcome me, told me to change and get to work.’[43]

‘I was just a slave:’ Belonging

Once placed with a host family, the challenge of building a sense of belonging and assimilating into the community began. For the Home Children, this started in their new home, with schooling and work a central focus. The boys were expected to work long days carrying out backbreaking labour on farms. By the age of thirteen, Jack Dove ‘was doing a full man’s work.’ He did household chores, as well as miking cows, feeding animals, and ‘in the summer I had to take a team of horses to the field all day, and milk the cows. Nobody ever helped me. I had to help harvest and all these chores to do after that. Sometimes I would be so tired I would just fall asleep on the ground.’[44] It was not uncommon to find girls farming as well as carrying out domestic work in the home. Margaret Gray said that ‘I didn’t work as a girl, I worked as a man.’[45] As part of the Home Children schemes, it was stipulated that they were paid a wage once they reached a certain age. As per a circular circulated in Canada by Maria Rye, ‘the children vary in age from nine to twelve years … [they] are bound, till they are eighteen years old, on the following terms, viz., up to fifteen years old they are to be fed, clothed, and sent to Sunday school. From fifteen to seventeen they are not clothed, but paid $3 a month wages, and $4 a month from seventeen to eighteen.[46]

Indeed, a number of the interviews mention receiving wages (or not receiving them). When George Flower arrived at his second home, the Marchmont receiving home sent a contract requiring that he was clothed and paid $5 on 1 December each year.[47] In addition, Home Children were to be sent to school. However, many attended erratically, mostly during the winter months when there was less farming to be done. J.D. Betts ‘only went for about two years and then that was it’ and Henry Burnabeer recalled going to school until he was given the option of working for proper wages.[48] Thus, Flower’s comment that ‘it was a business basis’ certainly rings true for many of the interviewees.[49]

This is corroborated by a 1924 report into child migration, which noted that ‘the demand in Canada for children from Great Britain is due in a few cases to a genuine desire on the part of childless persons … to take a young child into their household as a member of the family,’ and went on to comment on how unusual it was that the legal adoptions of the children were rare. It confirmed that ‘in the majority of cases, however, there is no doubt that they boy or girl is required in the capacity of a help. We found that many of the farms were of such a size that the farmer and his wife did not need, and in fact stated that they could not afford, adult assistance. In many of the larger farms we found that the farmer was glad to have the services of a boy or girl in addition to the adult help which he hired. The younger children were usually expected to assist the wife in her household duties and to perform the light tasks which the children of farmers are usually brought up to perform.’[50]

Living conditions and the treatment of the interviewees varies. Some had fond memories of their early years in Canada. When recalling her first home with a farmer and his elderly mother, Elizabeth Phelan Wright described feeling wary of the woman, who mostly spoke Gaelic and only some English: ‘… the really old lady couldn’t speak much in English but made me understand. I was scared of the old lady but she wasn’t so bad.’[51] She indicated good treatment overall, in that ‘I had lots to eat and my clothing, and they were kind to me. I wasn’t old enough to work but they let me go picking berries.’[52] Henry William Burnabeer, who was placed out in Napanee, Ontario, with a Mr and Mrs William Hill, stands out in terms of his experience. He came to call them ‘mother’ and ‘father,’ and although he was expected to work hard, was treated well. He clearly became one of the family, and mentioned that ‘after Mr and Mrs Hill passed away I was left $400 in the will after twenty years with them.’[53]

However, others experienced neglect and abuse at the hands of their new families, with their quality of life no better than it had been in Britain. Beatings, going hungry, and inadequate clothing are recurring themes. Phelan Wright, who lived in a succession of different homes following the death of the farmer’s mother, did not fare as well in her subsequent placements. At her second home in Boularderie in Nova Scotia, she was well clothed but ‘I was hungry nearly all the time there,’ and she described an incident during which ‘I was piling wood and I didn’t do it right and he slapped me and told me it wasn’t good and to do it again.’ At her third home in Whycoomagh, Nova Scotia, where she lived with a married couple and their young daughter, her ill treatment intensified. She was afraid of feeding the horses, and when the husband observed this ‘he beat me with the horse whip.’ The local doctor noticed her injuries and bandaged her face, but she knew she ‘would have to take it off before I got back to the house because then they would really beat me.’ At a later date, Phelan Wright was blamed for an accident leading to the daughter falling onto a stove. As a result, ‘she [the mother] beat me and beat me. Then told me to go get buckets for water, and kicked me down the steps and said not to come back.’ Once again, the doctor intervened and even threatened to have the couple prosecuted. Phelan Wright was eventually removed from that home and moved on once again.[54]

Although it is a relatively short narrative, Margaret Gray tells a particularly hard-hitting story. She found herself in New Brunswick with a family who had a son whom she felt received preferential treatment to her. He ‘could never do anything wrong. I always got the lacing.’ She references sexual abuse, stating that ‘they denied their raping me,’ reinforcing this later on in her interview with the assertion that ‘the men always denied raping me.’ We get the impression that she attempted to seek help, and tell someone about these incidents. However, it appears that no one listened to her, and that instead she ‘would get a whipping for lying.’[55]

Thus, the Home Children schemes have been subject to intense criticism, both during and after they ceased operating. Such abuse was possible because of loose regulation by British and Canadian authorities. From the outset, there were attempts to monitor children once they had been placed out via annual inspections. However, this was hampered by an inadequate number of inspectors, and poor infrastructure in the rural areas in which most Home Children resided. In response to growing concerns from as early as 1874, Andrew Doyle was instructed to observe and report back to the Local Government Board, mostly on Maria Rye and Annie Macpherson’s schemes. He accompanied a group of Rye’s children from Liverpool to Quebec, and visited receiving homes at Knowlton, Belleville, Niagara, and Galt, before inspecting around 400 children.[56] The report was damning, with Doyle’s closing paragraphs stating that ‘no class of Canadian would consent to accept such terms of service for their own children.’[57]

The report temporarily stemmed the flow of child immigrants. The Canadian government attempted to quell the criticism which was subsequently levelled against them with new legislation. The 1897 Act to Regulate the Immigration into Ontario of Certain Classes of Children required that child immigration agencies be licensed and subject to inspection. Similar legislation followed in Manitoba, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.[58] Where the placements were inspected, children often did not reveal ill-treatment due to fear of repercussions. Charles Davenport remarked that ‘a government man came to visit once a year with a guy from the home, and we were scared to say anything was wrong because the farmers would retaliate after they were gone.’[59] Likewise, Margaret Gray’s host family were reported by neighbours who saw her carrying out needlessly difficult work. However, the family lied, claiming that Gray was being cared for, and sent to school and church.[60] As a result of these deceptions, the 1924 report into child immigrants painted a falsely positive picture, claiming that ‘from our own personal observations and the manner in which the children themselves and those with whom they are placed spoke of the inspectors, we gained a very favourable impression of the personnel of the inspectorate, and their work.’[61]

Cultivating a sense of belonging went beyond the host families, and extended to the wider community. Here, a number of different attitudes can be identified, on both a wider national level and in a more local context. Canadian opinion towards Home Children, as with all immigrants, diverged. The government viewed the British generally as particularly desirable and imposed few restrictions upon their entry. Industrialists and those committed to expanding the Canadian economy were keen to bring in workers from abroad. However, this did not necessarily reflect popular opinion, particularly in the countryside where the British were not always regarded highly as workers, and were seen as ill-prepared for rural life.[62] Home Children were viewed similarly.

Despite continuing government endorsement of Home Children schemes, criticism came from some quarters. The labour movement and trade unions denounced the importation of cheap child labour which deprived adult Canadians of employment or made it more difficult to obtain, and drove down wages for those who could. Law enforcement officials, concerned about the effects these ‘delinquent’ youths could have on society, raised issues. So too did some medical professionals, who cited eugenics when arguing against the Home Children schemes.[63] Prejudice filtered down through the general population, and is evident in many of the interviews. Londoner George Flower described that ‘my accent was very pronounced being born in Paddington and had a Cockney accent, and it led to a lot of teasing. Or worse they called me bloody Englishman. Resulted in many fights.’ In an attempt to rid himself of this stigma, he ‘soon learned to shed the accent and now I haven’t any accent at all.’[64] J.D. Betts lamented that he ‘didn’t get the same treatment as Canadian kids.’[65] Even the inspector’s reports noted that this differentiation between Canadian and Home Children was problematic, and advised avoiding terminology marking them out as different. The 1924 report observed that youths placed out by the Children’s Aid Societies were widely known as ‘Shelter Children.’ It further noted that they were ‘themselves marked off in this way from other Canadian children. We doubt the desirability of adopting any system which would merely substitute one distinguishing mark for another.’[66]

‘We survived and are maybe better citizens because of the experience:’ Outcome

Growing up as a Home Child in Canada undoubtedly had long-lasting effects and shaped the later lives of those involved. Many left the farms they had lived and worked on as children and teenagers for better paid employment. Charles Davenport was offered work in Kentville by a Mr Robertson who owned a ship chandlers’ business in Halifax. There is a sense of relief in this section of his narrative: when he left ‘there was no goodbyes … when I got in his car I was really happy for the first time in my life.’ Many of the boys joined the army during World War II. Following a period of unemployment, Davenport joined the army ‘because of the benefits.’[67] Robert Clapham left the farm in 1942 to work in a Hamilton factory, but was called up to the army four months later.[68] Some of the interviewees talk about trying to reconnect with family in Britain. Unfortunately, some were unsuccessful, like Clapham who was unable to find his mother despite repeated attempts.[69]

The memories and attitudes the interviewees expressed towards the Home Children schemes are complex and multi-faceted. Robert Clapham simultaneously expressed that he did not hold any resentment or anger towards the schemes themselves, but acknowledged that mistreatment could have been prevented. He ‘held no bitterness against anyone or anything, department of immigration could have been a little better … The system might have given us a chance in life, maybe. But the conditions were so bad. We were looked down on, people today can’t fathom what it does to a person.’[70] Jack Dove was also generally supportive, remaining convinced that it offered poor British children the best possible future. He thought ‘it was justified to bring kids to Canada under the circumstances. What would they have done with the children in England at that time? There was nothing to do with them at all. I know more people in Toronto that collected money for the Home Children’s homes than in England. England may have had the money but they were not giving it. WWI alone there were more than 4,000 children in homes run by Dr Barnardo. I can understand why the kids were not fed the way they should be, they didn’t have the means.’ Like Clapham, he was more critical of the running of the schemes, and of the inspectors in particular: ‘I blame the inspectors who didn’t inspect the children just the people that hired the home boys. Dr Barnardo was a great man, it was his inspectors that were awful.’[71]

Conclusion

These interviewees were victims of both the British desire to confront the issue of the ever-growing home population, and the Canadian search for cheap labour to help fuel economic expansion. Brought across the Atlantic Ocean under the auspices of the Home Children programme, they were failed by the governments of both countries, who largely failed to sufficiently regulate and monitor the schemes. Thus, this particular chapter of British and Canadian history is a dark one, characterised by the often non-consensual emigration of British children who had already experienced great difficulty to new homes abroad. Here, the new life with better prospects which they had been promised rarely materialised, and they were instead met with neglect and ill-treatment. The collection of oral history interviews held at the Canadian Museum of Immigration is significant as it contributes to present-day efforts to ensure that the stories and memories of Home Children are acknowledged. As the President of the charity Home Children Canada, Lori Oschefski, commented after the discovery in Glasgow of an antique box containing eighty glass negatives of photographs taken of Home Children, ‘Canada was built upon the backs of these children and that needs to be recognised and needs never to be forgotten.’[72]


  1. Susie L. Steinbach, Understanding the Victorians: politics, culture and society in nineteenth-century Britain (New York: Routledge, 2023), 109.
  2. Eric Hopkins, Industrialisation and society: a social history, 1830-1951 (London: Routledge, 2000), 7.
  3. Brian Ahearn, ‘The British industrial revolution in a European mirror’ in The Cambridge Economic History of Britain, Volume I: 1700-1870, ed. Roderick Floud, Jane Humphries and Paul Johnson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 9.
  4. Richard Rodger, ‘Political economy, ideology and the persistence of working-class housing problems in Britain, 1850-1914,’ International Review of Social History, 32:2 (1987), 112-13.
  5. Simon Szreter and Graham Mooney, ‘Urbanisation, mortality, and the standard of living debate: new estimates of the expectation of life at birth in nineteenth-century British cities,’ The Economic History Review, 51:1 (Feb 1998), 88.
  6. C.H. Lee, ‘Regional inequalities in infant mortality in Britain, 1861-1971: patterns and hypotheses,’ Population Studies, 45:1 (1991), 57.
  7. The Times, 27 April 1874.
  8. Peter Kirby, ‘A brief statistical sketch of the child labour market in mid-nineteenth-century London,’ Continuity and Change, 20:2 (August 2005), 232.
  9. Lionel Rose, The erosion of childhood: childhood in Britain, 1860-1918 (London: Routledge, 2002), 5.
  10. For more on this, see G.H. Corbett, Nation builders: Barnardo children in Canada (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1997); C. Mainville, ‘The Middlemore boys: immigration, settlement and Great War volunteerism in New Brunswick,’ Acadiensis, 42:2 (2013), 51-74; Lillian Birt, The children’s home finder: the story of Annie Macpherson and Louisa Birt (J. Nisbet, 1913); Moira Martin, “‘A future not of riches but of comfort:’ the emigration of pauper children from Bristol to Canada, 1870-1915,” Immigrants and Minorities, 19:1 (2000), 25-52.
  11. Ninette Kelley and Michael Trebilcock, The making of the mosaic: a history of Canadian immigration policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 91.
  12. Kelley and Trebilcock, 87.
  13. Kelley and Trebilcock, 91.
  14. Kelley and Trebilcock, 126.
  15. Kelley and Trebilcock, 193.
  16. Kelley and Trebilcock, 193.
  17. Kelley and Trebilcock, 196.
  18. Kelley and Trebilcock, 198.
  19. Interview with Jack Dove, interviewed by Heather Laskey, Canadian Museum of Immigration (hereafter CMI) Collection (R2017.963.11-12).
  20. Immigration Story of Bert and Mary Davis, CMI Collection (S2018.82.1).
  21. Interview with George Flower, interviewed by Heather Laskey, CMI Collection (R2017.963.2).
  22. Immigration Story of Henry William Burnabeer, CMI Collection (S2012.1855.1).
  23. Immigraton Story of Henry William Burnabeer.
  24. Kelley and Trebilcock, 78-87.
  25. Interview with Flower.
  26. Interview with Charles Davenport, interviewed by Heather Laskey, CMI Collection (R2017.963.9-10).
  27. Interview with Robert Clapham, interviewed by Heather Laskey, CMI Collection (R2017.963.11).
  28. Interview with Agnes Fenton West, interviewed by Heather Laskey, CMI Collection (R2017.963.10).
  29. Interview with Dove.
  30. Kelley and Trebilcock, 190.
  31. Interview with J.D. Betts, interviewed by Heather Laskey, CMI Collection (R2017.963.2.3).
  32. Interview with Davenport.
  33. Interview with Elizabeth Phelan Wright, interviewed by Heather Laskey, CMI Collection (R2017.963.13).
  34. Interview with Wright.
  35. Interview with Wright.
  36. Interview with Flower.
  37. Interview with Dove.
  38. Interview with Wright.
  39. Interview with West.
  40. Interviews with Betts and Clapham.
  41. Interview with Clapham.
  42. Interview with Flower.
  43. Interviews with Flower and Clapham.
  44. Interview with Dove.
  45. Interview with Margaret Gray, interviewed by Heather Laskey, CMI Collection (R2017.963.16).
  46. Great Britain, Pauper children (Canada), 36; H.C. 1875 (9) lxiii, 255.
  47. Interview with Flower.
  48. Interview with Betts; Immigration Story of Burnabeer.
  49. Interview with Flower.
  50. British Oversea Settlement Delegation to Canada, Report to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, President of the Oversea Settlement Committee, from the Delegation Appointed to Obtain Information Regarding the System of Child Migration and Settlement in Canada: Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of His Majesty December, 1924 (London: HMSO, 1924) (hereafter, Bondfield Report) in Library and Archives Canada, Immigration Branch fonds, RG 76, Volume 51, File 2209, “Dr. Barnardo’s Homes - Training Home for Juvenile Immigrants,” part 4, xv, 137 [Cmd. 2285]; H.C. 1924-25, xv, 7.
  51. Interview with Wright.
  52. Interview with Wright.
  53. Immigration Story of Burnabeer.
  54. Interview with Wright.
  55. Interview with Gray.
  56. Great Britain, Local Government Board, Pauper children (Canada), Copy of a report to the Right Honourable the president of the Local Government Board, by Andrew Doyle, Esquire, local government inspector, as to the emigration of pauper children to Canada (London: HMSO, 1875), 3-4; H.C. 1875 (9) lxiii, 255.
  57. IH.C 1875 (9) lxiii, 255.
  58. Kelley and Trebilcock, 94.
  59. Interview with Davenport.
  60. Interview with Gray.
  61. Bondfield Report, xv, 137 [Cmd. 2285], H.C. 1924-25, xv, 10.
  62. Kelley and Trebilcock, 125.
  63. Kelley and Trebilcock, 216-18.
  64. Interview with Flower.
  65. Interview with Betts.
  66. Bondfield Report, xv, 137 [Cmd. 2285], H.C. 1924-25, xv, 11.
  67. Interview with Davenport.
  68. Interview with Clapham.
  69. Interview with Clapham.
  70. Interview with Clapham.
  71. Interview with Dove.
  72. Eloise Alanna, “British Home Children: Antique box tells heart-breaking history,” BBC News, 24 December 2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67809153