Canada's Home Children
Orphaned and Impoverished UK Children Were Sent to Work in Canada
According to the book The Little Immigrants, by writer Kenneth Bagnell, over 80,000 of these children ended up in Canada (the Canadian government puts the number at 100,000).
Although eventually more than 50 different organizations would be involved in the Home Children movement, the chief proponents included Maria Rye, who in 1869 became the first person to send children en masse to Canada; Annie MacPherson, whose involvement would out last all others; and Thomas Bernardo, who, through his Dr. Bernardo's Homes, would alone be responsible for over 30,000 children sent to Canada, and lend the movement its name.
All were pious - verging on the fanatic - and firmly believed they were doing God's work (and a favour to British society) by taking children who were living in the streets, working for a subsistence in London's East End slums, or creating a burden on their impoverished families, and sending them to a country with vast agricultural potential, but a severe lack of a labour force. They were supported in their task by the governments of Great Britain and Canada, as well as local and municipal officials.
Short of running away, the children themselves had no say in their future. Prior to being sent overseas, they would be housed, fed, and instilled with discipline and a work ethic founded on doing much same menial jobs they were doing before being taken in. Armed with a rudimentary school education - but a substantial religious one - they would set sail by the hundreds. And once they got off the ship at journey's end, most would never see a familiar face again, including any brothers or sisters, who would usually be split up upon arrival.
On the receiving end, farmers requesting a child would enter into a contract with the specific Home - rather than any government agency - in effect making the child an indentured servant until the age of 18, and requiring the farmer to provide such basics as clothing, food and shelter. In most cases, farmers were required to pay the child ($1 per year was not uncommon), money to be held in trust by the farmer until the contract was up. Children were supposed to receive as much education as possible and, of course, attend church regularly.
While the evidence would seem to suggest the majority of the children were at least treated humanely, abuse of the system was rampant. With little-to-no follow up, and most often isolated in remote, rural areas, the farmers were free to treat the children as they pleased. Most worked from sunrise until dark. Children as young as eight or 10 who had previously known nothing but life on the streets of Britain's biggest cities would be expected to milk cows and till fields. Many never saw the inside of a church, let alone a school. When they did attend school, teachers would complain they wore no shoes, or coats, in the Canadian winter. Some slept in the barn or other outbuildings. Children were beaten and girls were molested. According to Bagnell's book, at least one inquest into the death of a child through neglect took place. The children would stand out by their accents, and be ostracized in the community. Their presence as a cheap labour source would be attacked by union organizers, and their character attacked by opposition politicians claiming Britain was dumping her future criminals into the Dominion. Occasionally, the media would back one claim or the other.
To add insult to injury, many children – by then young adults - never received the few dollars they had been promised upon their release.
Although occasionally someone would speak up for the welfare of the children – one of the first being Ontario’s superintendent of neglected children, J.J Kelso – their reports and recommendations would largely be ignored. It's telling that, in the province of Nova Scotia, for example, the Home Children didn't come under any government child welfare jurisdiction, but that of the Department of Natural Resources.
Thomas Bernardo, whose charitable organization still exists in the UK, died at age 55 in 1905, and the Home Children scheme lost its biggest champion. The Depression and World War II ended it. By the end, policy makers and social scientists were beginning to understand poor children were not livestock, and the Homes themselves were starting to evolve into something more resembling trade schools.
For more information, including the names of children included on ships' passenger lists, visit the Collections Canada website.
