Leanne Dyck's blog: Home Children: Canadian History by Leanne Dyck

In 2011, the Canadian government designated September 28 as British Home Children day.

Paul Henderson, “British Home Children: BC women reflect on shameful period in Canadian history”, The Free Press, September 28, 2019

Who were the "Home Children"?

Socio-economic disadvantaged children were torn from their families and brought to a foreign land--Canada. Some were welcomed into loving families. Others... Others faced overwhelming cruelty. And yet... And yet...

photo by ldyck

Home Children

In the mid-1800s [,during the Industrial Revolution,] many children in the United Kingdom lacked adequate care. They were hungry, sometimes resorting to stealing, and many were living on the streets—think of the works of Charles Dickens. Even children living with their parents in the workhouses were not much better off, often worked 14-hour days or more with little food. Many died before they reached 20. [1] [And, as a result of the revolution, t]raditional extended families were broken up and many moved to urban areas to find work and a better life. And so, if anything happened to one of the parents, there was no immediate family nearby to take them in. [T]here was no social system in place to help [the families] through...difficult circumstances. [2]

Independently, several people of different religious backgrounds came to the same conclusion: the problem could not be solved in Britain. These children had to be removed from the streets and given food and clothing. They had to be taught to read and write, given work skills and solid religious training, then sent abroad where farm labour was desperately needed. They had no future in England, Ireland or Scotland…

Maria Susan Rye...arrived in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, in 1869 with a group of 68 children taken from the poorhouses of London and Liverpool. They were initially housed in a converted jail which Maria had brought with her own money and renamed Our Western Home. [Maria was the first of many women and men who brought groups of children from Britain to Canada.]

More than 80,000 children (some scholars even say 100,000), mostly ages 9 to 14 but some scarcely 3 years old, were sent...between 1869 and 1939. None of them was accompanied by a parent.

They were regarded as orphans, even though two-thirds had at least one parent who was still alive. [3][And, in fact, h]ome children were often told that their parents were dead so that they could break their emotional ties more easily. [1]

Sometimes [placing the children in these homes]...was meant to be a temporary solution until the family got back on their feet and there are cases on record where some parents went back to pick their children up, only to find that they had already been sent away. Sometimes the parents received an ‘after sailing’ notification, informing them that their children had been emigrated a week before. [2]

[The children were shipped] overseas to Canada with bright promises of a better life, with a home, a family, fresh air, and healthy food. [3]

Once in Canada, the children were sent to receiving homes right across the country until farmers picked them up or they were sent on their destinations with a cardboard sign around their necks. There were at least seven applicants for every child shipped to this country. [2] [The] farmers completed a Form of Indenture. [1] The terms would require the children to be housed, fed, clothed and sent to school. A small fee would be paid for fostering younger children, older children would help with chores, and more extended labour would be required from adolescents. At 18, the terms of indenture were to be discharged. [2]

[S]ome children did...find homes and families in Canada, others found nothing but poverty and misery. While many were well treated, many others experienced appalling living and working conditions and even in some cases psychological, physical or sexual violence. [3]

Children could be ‘returned’ and reassigned. Many were moved from one farm to another. Some ran away or simply disappeared, some died from ill-health or injuries resulting form neglect and abuse, some committed suicide…

[T]he belief in eugenics that was running rampant throughout the UK and North America caused children to be considered inferior stock to their Canadian counterparts. They were stigmatized as such, merely because they were poor and needed help. In communities where these children were meant to be fostered and nurtured, they were often taunted and made to feel shame for being a Home Boy or Home Girl. [2] [They] were shamed about their origins, shamed about parents who couldn’t care for them, and taught that a better life meant turning away from their primal identity of family. [4] This shame caused many Home Children to remain silent about their backgrounds their entire lives [2] [and is responsible for] a spate of suicides in the 1920s. [5]

[T]he majority of children continued to be sent right up until the advent of the Second World War, after which heightened social consciousness condemned the sending of any more children to Canada in this way… Britain not only sent children to Canada, they also sent them, up to the early 1970s, to South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

Despite all the trials that they had to endure, these...British Home Children...set down roots in Canada and contributed to the country’s social, economic and political development. Many of them served in the Canadian Army during the First World War and the Second World War. Today, over 10% of all Canadians are thought to be descendants of British Home Children.

Although...their story is part of the school curriculum in Ontario, the British Home Children [‘s] legacy of trauma and child abuse...is not well-known by the vast majority of Canadians.[5] [A]nd their descendants have yet to receive an official apology from the Canadian government such as those made by the government of Australia in 2009 and the government of the United Kingdom in 2010. [3]

By honoring their memory, [Home Children Canada, established in 2012] seeks to ensure that the Home Children’s contributions and struggles are never forgotten and their rightful place in history is acknowledged with dignity and compassion. [6]

[1] The Canadian Immigration Historical Society, “A Silent History: The British Home Children”, January 1, 2011 https://cihs-shic.ca/the-british-home-children/

[2] Lori Oschefski, Home Children Canada, “Who Are the British Home Children?” British Home Children in Canada https://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com/

[3] Lara Neilson Bonikowsky, “Uprooted Lives: the British Home Children”, in The Canadian Encyclopedia, April 13, 2013

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/children-lost-and-found-feature#:~:text=On

%2024%20February%202010%2C%20the,various%20British%20colonies%2C%20including

%20Canada.

[4] Barb Janes, “Shame, secrets and dark histories: Remembering the legacy of British home children”, CBC, September 28, 2019