To be a Home Child
Saturday, September 28, 2019 was British Home Child Day. When I grew up in the Eastern Townships I used to hear stories about the British Home children from my Grandparents that had arrived from England in the early 1900s and made Cowansville, Quebec their home. They never really stated anything was horribly wrong, but the looks on their faces made me understand all was not well. I just felt that the words Home Children was a dirty word.
To tell you the truth I never really thought about it much until I moved to Lanark County, Ontario where a large number of children had also been sent. Sometimes I heard stories that made me embarrassed to be a Canadian. After I watched a few documentaries about them I wondered if Canada had been in the same league as slave labour. From 1870-1957 over 129,000 British Home Children were sent to Canada by over 50 British Child Care organizations.
These 4-15 year old children worked as farm labourers and domestic servants until they were 18 years old, and the organizations insisted that they were providing these children with a better life than they would have had in Britain. The UK organizations began to rid themselves of an unwanted group of their society and profited when they “sold” these children to Canadian farmers. Siblings in care in Britain were suddenly separated from their families and each other when they were sent to Canada. Most never saw each other again. Many spent their lives trying to identify their parents and find their siblings and most were unsuccessful.
They actually believed that these children would have a better chance for a healthy, moral life in rural Canada, where families welcomed them as a source of cheap farm labour and domestic help. According to the site, British Home Children & Child Migrants in Canada– the government began to provide a grant of $2 per child brought into Canada. This clearly expressed the government's approval of the importation of child labourers. Interesting also to note is that there was no bonus paid for children who came from the workhouses in England.
Julie–my grandmother, her older sister and younger sister were also taken to the Bernardo home from England. The little one was adopted by a family in Toronto. My grandmother and older sister were sent out to families to work. At 17 my grandmother was given a new dress and told she was going to marry. She was sent off with my grandfather who was in his 40s to be married. They lived in Knowlton, Quebec and had 6 children.
Sheila -My grandmother, Elizabeth, came over on the SS Parisian in 1900 from a Liverpool home, connected with The Barnados Home. Her mother and father had died and she was passed around amongst her siblings , and then sent to the home as they could not keep her. She was 13 when she came over with other Barnados children. She landed in Halifax , then on to the Knowlton Home, in Knowlton, Quebec. From here she was sent to different farms to work. At one she was abused , and the keeper from the home rescued her and brought her back to the home in Knowlton.she had left 3 sisters and a brother back in England . There were letters sent back and forth between her sister and a friend Polly , but she never saw her siblings , or any of her family ever again. She met my grandfather and married and had 8 children.
“To be a home boy—it’s so hard to explain—there’s a certain stigma. I know that for a fact. You’re just in a class. You’re an orphan. Years ago you counted as dirt. You were a nobody. That was only common sense. You were alone in the world.”