Scotland’s Lost Son
Child migrant Scott Hewitt’s emotional reunion with the family he never knew existed after being separated for 80 years
LITTLE Scott clung to his granny’s hand as he stood shivering on the doorstep. He turned to wave goodbye to the family he’d never see again as he was sent – alone – to Australia. It was 1938 and Scott was just three years old.
Andrew Scott Hewitt, known as Scott, was one of the hundreds of thousands of British children sent to Commonwealth countries during the 19th and 20th centuries. Tragically, many then faced a life of slave labour and abuse and were told they had no family.
Scott didn’t go to Australia as initially planned, instead being sent to the Fairbridge Society in England for the duration of the Second World War. Aged 10, he was sent to a Fairbridge Farm School in Canada.
Throughout his life, until the age of
83, Scott believed he was an orphan, sent to Canada because he had no one in Scotland to care for him. It was only after his son Brian began some family research that he discovered he did have living family – siblings, cousins and more – who didn’t even know he existed.
Before this young boy left for the New World, his cousin Andrew Aitken, then 15, gave the toddler his scarf for the long journey but never knew who the little boy was and why he was being sent so far away. Andrew wondered about the boy for the rest of his life, and later related the story to his daughter Judith – who could never have guessed she would come to meet him one day, bringing about an emotional reunion with the family he never knew. On reading about children sent to Australia and Canada in child migration schemes, Judith, 66, made the connection to the little boy with the scarf. The reports Judith read were shocking, describing horrific ill-treatment and abuse. “We believed him to be in Australia. I could never speak to anyone about this through
a mixture of sadness and guilt. It all happened long before I was born, but I still felt shame that this had happened in my family,” she said.
In 2019, however, Judith came face to face with that same young boy after she found a post on Dumbarton Memories Facebook page from Scott’s son, asking for information about his father’s family.
“One evening, I came across an entry from someone called Brian Hewitt, resident in British Columbia, Canada. He was seeking relations of his father,” said Judith.
As Judith read his plea, a realisation dawned on her, “I truly turned cold when I read Brian’s post.”
“Jessie, my father’s aunt, had been married to Charles Hewitt and had a child called Aileen. We were also told about an illegitimate baby she had in Glasgow in 1935.”
Judith and her brother Alisdair made the connection to the little boy with the scarf and got in touch with Brian.
Brian, a Canadian-born son of a Scotsman, was also spurred to investigate his family history after seeing a social media post.
“I was scrolling through Facebook in my truck, when I came across a friend’s post about British Home Children. Knowing my father had come from Scotland via England to Canada as a child, I was intrigued.
“As I was reading the article, a photograph appeared.
There was my father at 10 years old, along with the other children sent in his party to Fairbridge Farm School. I was blown away!” said Brian.
“I’d never seen this picture in my life. I knew it was my dad right away. I was shocked!
“This unexpected discovery on Facebook was just the start of a whirlwind of events that quickly led me down an amazing path of discovery.”
Brian’s father, Scott, had always been proud of his Scottish heritage but knew little else about his family. Brian inherited this sense of Scottish pride and had
“I’d life” never seen this picture in my
always craved more information about where his father came from. After discovering his father’s photograph in the online article, Brian showed it to his parents.
“Dad had never seen it before but he gave me a large envelope of paperwork and said, ‘here, it’s all in there, read about it if you want to.’
“It was his file from the Fairbridge Farm School Society. Dad had been sent it in 1985.”
Scott had never looked in the envelope as it related to his time at Fairbridge Farm, which wasn’t an easy time.
“Dad was bullied at Fairbridge and his cottage mother was not a nice person. He told me he felt like a complete outsider. ‘The Lone Ranger’ as he put it,” said Brian.
“I took the envelope home. I spread it all out on the table, put it in chronological order and started reading. “It was heartbreaking.”
“Dad had been sent to the Fairbridge Society in 1938 when he was just three years old. I cried. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“There was information about dad’s family and that he had been put into care by his granny. The first question I had was, how does someone just give their child away?”
“That question lead to several hundred more, so I started making notes. I had a list of names relating to my dad and dates associated with his admittance into care.”
Brian then turned to the internet for answers and this is where he connected with Judith.
Brian received many responses to his online pleas. “My phone just started buzzing like crazy!,” said Brian.
“It was on the Dumbarton Memories page that I got a post from a lady called Judith Johnston.
“On that same thread I got a message from Margery Froome, who also said that she had information for me.”
Brian also heard about a lady on genealogy website ancestry.com called Maureen Baker whose family tree listed a couple of names from his father’s family. Brian contacted Maureen asking if her mother was Jessie Lottey and if her grandmother was Mary Smith from Dumbarton – which would make Maureen his aunt and Scott’s sister. “Then I waited,” said Brian.
He didn’t have long to wait, however, as the following
day Maureen contacted him from Australia. “She confirmed everything I had suspected and I now had proof that my dad had siblings and that they were alive! It was an incredible moment,” he said.
“Maureen was shocked to say the least. They never knew about my dad. She confirmed that Margery was her sister and that my dad’s oldest sister Aileen was still alive and living in Detroit.”
Judith also got in touch and confirmed that she and her brother Alisdair were Scott’s cousins once removed.
“Everything started falling into place from there,” said Brian. “But how was I going to tell my dad that after 83 years of being an orphan, I had found his entire family in less than two days?”
“I went over to mom and dad’s house after work and told him everything. I showed him pictures of his mom, his grandparents, his sisters, everything!”
“Dad was absolutely floored,” said Brian.
While chatting, Brian’s phone rang. It was Maureen from Australia. “I pushed the Facetime button and she and her sister Margery appeared on the screen. I handed the phone to my dad. There was a moment of silence and gasps, then the love and the tears flowed,” he said.
“That was an amazing moment in my life. Truly one I will never forget. Then my phone rang again. This time it was Aileen. Same thing again. I pushed Facetime and there she was! Aileen is a few years older than my dad and remembers him when he was a baby,” he said.
“She let out a gasp and then said, ‘my wee baby brother’, and then we all cried again. I’m crying now just thinking about it.
“Word got out to the family and they all were calling to hear the story and welcome us to the family. I have never felt more love in my life. It was amazing!”
While giving evidence at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry in Edinburgh early in 2020, Scott said of discovering he had family, “It blew it off the face of the earth. I do live. I do exist. I do have family.
“I thought I was all alone. It was a real big shock. “I’d say it was like being broke all your life and then you buy a lottery ticket and it’s a $50m lottery ticket.”
Although there are still many unknowns surrounding how Scott ended up separated from his family, Brian’s efforts uncovered some important details.
Judith said, “One of the many tragedies of this story is that Scott’s father, Andrew Paxton Scott was killed in a motorcycle accident and looking at the dates, he probably didn’t know about Jessie’s pregnancy.”
“The stigma attached to an illegitimate child in the