BRITISH HOME CHILDREN IN CANADA
  • Home Page
  • This site is maintained by Home Children Canada
  • Home Children Canada website
  • How to Research Your BHC & Contacts for files
  • The Sending Organizations
    • Barnardo's >
      • Dr. Thomas Barnardo >
        • Dr. Barnardo bio
        • Articles of Association Barnardo
        • DR. Barnardo's Funeral
        • Barnardo's medical credentials
        • Various articles
        • Home for the Homeless 1888
        • Broughall Legacy Letters
        • THE DOCTOR'S CHILDREN 1995
        • The Barnardo Publications >
          • The History of the Publication
          • Our Darlings - Barnardo's >
            • Barnardo's "Our Darlings"
            • Winter in Canada
            • Coloured Plates
            • Monotints
            • Articles of interest
          • Barnardo's "Night and Day"
          • Barnardo Boy's Mag
          • Taken out of the Gutter
      • Barnardo Homes in Britain >
        • Promotional material
        • Boys Garden Village - Barnardo
        • Babies Castle - Barnardo's
        • Watts Naval Training School
        • William Baker School - Barnardo
        • Barkingside
        • Stepney Causeway
        • St. Christopher's Babies Home
        • Teighmore, Channel Islands
        • Other British Homes
        • Vintage post cards
      • Barnardo shipping lists
      • Immigration Parties
      • Russell Manitoba - Barnardo's
      • Toronto Barnardo Homes
      • Hazelbrae Barnardo Home
      • Winnipeg Receiving Home
      • Barnardo's Musical Boys
      • E A Struthers Day Book 1905
      • Crime or Misdemeanors list
      • Promotional post cards
      • Toronto Maternity Home
      • Indenture Contracts
      • Various Barnardo Doc's
      • Barnardo Government Reports
      • Alfred B Owen
      • Excursion's to England
      • Good Conduct Medals
    • Application Fees for children
    • Agreements and indentures
    • Hotel Dieu, Kingston, Ontario
    • Catholic Emigration - 10,000 emigrated >
      • Crusade of Rescue documents
      • Catholic Emigration Records
      • St. Georges Home - Ottawa
      • Monsignor James Nugent
      • Father Hudson
      • Father Seddon
      • St. Vincent Rescue Home
    • Annie Macpherson - 8,000 emigrated
    • Ellen Bilbrough and Robert Wallace
    • William Quarrier- Brockville Ont 7,200 immigrated
    • Quarriers - Scotland
    • Louisa Birt - 6,000 emigrated >
      • Louisa Birt files (some)
    • John T Middlemore - 5,000 emigrated >
      • Middlemore Placement Lists
      • Guthrie House, London, Ont
      • Fairview Nova Scotia
      • Middlemore Letters
      • Who was John Middlemore
    • Maria Rye - 4,200 emigrated >
      • Maria Rye-Niagara on the Lake
      • Maria Rye Children's Letters
      • Inspections of Rye Children
    • ​HAVELOCK FARM Woodstock
    • National Children's Home 3,600 emigrated
    • Janet Wallis - Hurst Home
    • Fegan's >
      • Fegan's Home in England
    • Mr. Gold, Melbourne, Quebec
    • Shaftsbury Homes
    • various British organizations
    • Selling Insurance to BHC
    • Visitor Reports
    • John Joseph Kelso
    • 1911 Census of Canada
    • Elinor Close-New Brunswick
    • Vimy Ridge Training Farm
    • Fairbrige Farm Vancouver
    • Inspection of children 1893 to 1894
    • Emma Stirling of Hillfoot Farm >
      • Hillfoot Farm - Emma Stirling
      • The du Pont Inscription
      • Grace M Fagan - A Stirling Girl
      • Florida Humane Association
      • Emma & Bailey’s Bluff
      • The Wm Bingham Estate
    • Bristol Emigration Society
    • Grosse Isle
    • MRS. MARGARET BLAIKIE'S
    • Dakeyne Boy's Farm
    • Salford Catholic Protection Society
    • Ellen Smyly
    • St. Patrick's Home in Ottawa
    • Stanley Boys Home
    • W. J. Paddy
    • Charlotte Alexander
    • Chase Farm School
    • Bristol Union Children 1905
    • Manchester & Salford Boys' and Girls' Refuges
    • Church of England
    • Miss Brennans Home - Montreal
    • House of Providence, Kingston Ontario
    • The Salvation Army
    • G.C. Cossar
    • Mr T. E. Sedgwick
    • Overseas Settlement Committee
    • The Children's Friends Society
    • Church Army
  • The Children's Society Records
  • Beacons of Light BHC Tribute
  • BHC Registry, over 86,000 children registered!
  • Ups and Down's Magazine
    • Ups and Downs 1895 - 1896
    • Ups and Down 1897 - 1898
    • Ups and Downs 1899 - 1900
    • Ups and Downs 1901 - 1902
    • Ups and Downs 1903
    • Ups and Downs 1904
    • Ups and Downs 1905
    • Ups and Downs 1906
    • Ups and Downs 1907 June
    • May 1910, 1913 & May & Aug 1912
    • Dec 1915 Ups and Downs
    • July 1939, Dec 1940, Dec 1942, Dec 1946
    • Our Old Friends Directory
    • December 1945 Ups and Downs
    • some articles
    • Names of child in the Ups and Downs
    • Pictures of Children 1903
    • Alfred Jolly
  • BHC Fact Page
  • First World War Casualty Index
  • BHC Burial Index
  • The Park Lawn Cemetery Monument
  • Children's Trunks & Bibles
  • Receiving Homes in Pictures
  • Ships the BHC Came On
  • History of the BHC - Film
  • 2016 BHC Memory Quilt
  • The 2010 Memory Quilts
    • BHC Memory Quilt (Ont)
    • BHC Memorial Quilt (Ab)
  • Service in the Wars
    • First World War Causalities
    • Second World War Service
    • Served in Both Wars
    • Lives Shortened
    • First World War service
    • Lists of boys who served
    • Individual Service Stories >
      • Private William Francis Conabree
      • John Mash
      • Sydney James Bevan
      • Alfred Mist
      • Cecil Bennett
      • Links to stories of BHC WW1 service
      • Newspaper clips - BHC service
  • BHCARA Upcoming Events
  • British Home Child Books
    • BHC Books for Children
    • Historical Books
    • True stories of BHC
    • Fiction Stories
    • Vintage Books
    • Downloadable Books
    • Kenneth Bagnell
    • Perry Snow - Neither Waif nor Stray
    • The Bitter Cry of Outcast London
    • Farm Life in Canada
    • PDF's for downloading
    • Films
    • BHC Articles >
      • Silence
      • Better Life or the Empire Fodder
      • EMIGRATION WORK IN CANADA 1905
      • THE EMIGRANT GIRLS HOME IN CANADA 1877
      • Kennington Cove
      • The Barnardo Boy
      • BHC to Nova Scotia
      • Personal Discovery 1935
      • The Land of the Lost Children
      • Rye's Western Home
      • Church Apologies to Child Migrants
      • Life in the Workhouse
      • Woman Miners
      • Victorian Child Labourers
      • Evicted London
      • Historical News Articles
      • Articles in the British Press
  • The Hazelbrae Memorial
  • Stories of British Home Children
    • Collection of various stories >
      • Reunited Families
      • Other mentions of children
      • Gone too soon
      • BHC Obituaries
      • BHC Mug Shots
      • Our Lost Children
      • 1901 census
      • First World War deaths
      • The darker stories
      • Discontented Maids
      • Lost Children
      • Quotes from BHC
      • Links to other BHC stories
      • BHC Posters
      • British Home Children Burial Records
      • Shorter BHC Stories
    • Stories A to M >
      • The Bagley Family
      • John Bolton
      • James Arthur Ball
      • The Bates Family
      • Hilda Blake
      • Charles Bradbury
      • Joseph Barnett
      • The Lost Children
      • Augustus Bridle
      • Percy Brown
      • Rev A. H. Brace
      • John & Benjamin Butterworth
      • The Brocklebank Family
      • William Joseph Carter
      • John Cawsey
      • Two Gun Cohen
      • Fifi the Clown
      • Henry Richard Cooper
      • Violet Elizabeth Chaffee
      • Edith Cherryholme
      • BHC Centenarians
      • Arthur Clarkson & Lily Wood
      • Albert McCarthy
      • Ronald Chamberlain
      • Anthony (Tony) Chambers
      • Cherryholme-Gizzard-Sharpe Family
      • Herbert Clifford
      • James E Cowell
      • George Daintree
      • George Martin Day
      • Esther & Elizabeth Dawson
      • Leslie Henry Baden Fielding
      • Charlie, Ted and Bill Elliott
      • Wallace Ford
      • George Frost
      • Gladys Fudge
      • Annie Garwood Letters
      • John Lydiet George
      • Annie Gevaux
      • Albert Edward Gill
      • GRIMES, Arthur
      • Arthur Mcgregor GODSALL
      • Harry Gossage
      • George Everett Green
      • Robert "Robbie" Gray
      • Elsie Hathaway
      • Books and mentioned children
      • Stewart Harris
      • Cyril Hewitt
      • Margaret Healey
      • George Hollingshurst
      • The St. George's Memorial
      • Walter Leigh Lockett/Rayfield
      • Sydney Howarth
      • Bill Holtum
      • Tom Isherwood
      • General information - Heritage
      • Edward Jones
      • Cecelia & Ethel JOWETT
      • Frederick John Kempster
      • George Marlow Leeson
      • George & Annie McMaster
      • Edgar Evan Marselle
      • Will, Elsie & George Maybury
      • The Mintram Family
    • Stories N to Z >
      • Herbert Owens
      • Fred W. Palmer
      • Lizzie Poole
      • Liela Eliza Preston
      • Nellie Page
      • Francis James Preston
      • Edmond Roberts
      • Dr. John R. Seeley
      • Frederick Robert Shaw
      • Ellen, Martha & Rachel Birch
      • Walter Tompkins
      • Gipsy Simon Smith
      • Robert Rankin and George Nelson
      • Kate, Sarah & Jamie Stewart
      • The Stacey Family
      • The Richardson Sisters
      • Albert Stone
      • The Lois Stanford Collection
      • The Taylor's and Usher's
      • Charlie & Matthew Tyler
      • John Vallance
      • Arnold Walsh
      • The Ward and Seymour Family
      • Joe & Bob Waterer
      • Richard Weston
      • Hilda Williams
      • Walter Wilson
      • Children's Placement Lists
  • Documented Immigration Process
  • Making the Canadian Flag
  • Apologies to BHC & Families
    • Australian Apology
    • British Apology
    • Canadian Apology
  • Political Bigotry
    • Apology Petitions - Canada, Britain and Australia
    • Frederick Nicholls
    • Dr. C. K. Clarke
    • House of Commons Reports >
      • Paying Agents in England
      • Traveling Immigration Agent Reports
      • Immigration Stats
      • Bonus's Paid for Children
      • Propaganda in the press
      • MISS EFFIE BENTHAM
      • Diseased Savages Quote
      • Child Saving Conference 1894
    • John D. S. Campbell
    • Canadian recognition >
      • The Canadian Goverment
    • Britain's will never be slaves
  • Migration Legislation
    • Pauper Children Emigration Bill
    • British Legislation
    • Canadian Legislation
  • The Doyle Report 1875
  • Home Child Interviews
  • Collection/Penny Boxes
  • LAC and Heritage Canada
    • Deported Children >
      • Report of inspection of Home children
      • Inspection reports of Workhouse Children >
        • costs of Inspection Reports
  • Order your official BHC Pin
  • Lori Oschefski
  • Contact us
  • HCC War Service Index Submission Form
  • Brighton (Sussex) Emigration Society
  • New Page
  • Contact for Children's files
The top site in the world for researching the immigration of Home Children to Canada

SEARCH OUR SITE
​There is a wealth of information and mentions of thousands of children available on this website.

That virtually all of the Home Children sent to Canada, alone and separated from others, as they were, have reacted to their fate the same way, withdrawing into themselves, and remaining silent about their past, "building a wall around themselves", as one Home Girl put it, is bitter and conclusive proof of the severity of their trauma. It is also sad evidence that the Child Migration Scheme, however well-intentioned, was seriously flawed."  
​
​

Dave Lorente of Home Children Canada,  2000



Who are the British Home Children?

Picture
​From the late 1860s right up to 1948, over 100,000 children of all ages were emigrated right across Canada, from the United Kingdom,  to be used as indentured farm workers and domestics. Believed by Canadians to be orphans, only approximately 12 percent truly were. These children were sent to Canada by over 50 organizations including the well-known and still working charities: Barnardo’s,  The Salvation Army and Quarrier’s, to name a few.

CEO and founder of the British Home Child Advocacy and Research Association (BHCARA)  Lori Oschefski says, “Barnardo’s sent over thirty thousand children here and was by far the largest organization sending children to Canada. Many BHC became known as "Barnardo Home Boys" despite the fact many came from other organizations. 

For the most part, these children were not picked up from the streets but came from intact families, who, through sickness or even death of one of their parents, had fallen on hard times. Because there was no social system in place to help them get through these difficult circumstances, the family had no other way than to surrender their offspring to the organizations.

Sometimes this 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 that their children had been emigrated a week before.

Once in Canada, the children were sent to receiving homes right across the country until farmers picked them up or they were sent on to their destinations with a cardboard sign around their necks. There were at least seven applicants for every child shipped to this country.

“These children are not to be confused with ‘Guest Children’ who were temporarily sent from evacuation zones in the U.K. to Canada during the Second World War to be kept safe from areas under attack. The British Home Children were sent away to work, some never to see their families again.

The child migration scheme was born during the Industrial Revolution. Traditional 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. Abandoned British children lived and died in the streets and workhouses were overcrowded. 

Emigration was seen as a brilliant solution. The children would be sent to Canadian farms under contract. The terms would require that children 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. The clean, fresh air of a Canadian farm was seen as a definite better alternative to living in the slums of a large city.

Canada was marketed to the parents and the children as a haven within the storms of their lives where money grew on trees and the adventure of travelling to a land where cowboys and lumberjacks were, sounded appealing. The parents were relieved that a way had been found where their children would be safe and healthy. 

However, the harsh truth was that the monitoring of children’s placements was often neglected, and many children found themselves essentially abandoned to new lives which were worse than the old. Siblings were separated. Girls assisted farm wives not only with housework and children but on the fields, as well. Boys became farm workers who were grossly overworked.

While some of the children were indeed accepted into the families they worked for and were practically adopted, many of these children suffered.  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 from neglect and abuse, and some committed suicide.

In the very least, the belief in eugenics that was running rampant throughout the U.K. 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. This shame caused many Home Children to remain silent about their backgrounds their entire lives.

Some influential political voices were raised against bringing the children to Canada in this way, but it was more about the dangerous and filthy ‘Street Arabs infecting’ Canadian society than it was about the welfare of the children. 

During the First World War, many Home Boys enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces, just to get back to see any family that they might still have in the ‘old’ country. Some ran away from their placements and lied about their age to achieve this or to get away from a bad or abusive placement. During the war no children were sent here.

The scheme began again in earnest in the early twenties. Many households were in dire straits after the loss of so many young men in the war and then the deaths of both men and women during the Spanish Flu epidemic.

It wasn’t until 1924 that children under the age of 14 were discouraged from being sent. Even so, some young ones slipped through the cracks. In any case, the 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. 

Over ten percent of the current Canadian population are descendants of the Home Children, although many are still unaware of their heritage. This is one of the many reasons why the Home Children and their determination and perseverance deserve to have their huge contribution to the founding of our nation recognized and their stories heard.    
Britain not only sent children to Canada, they also sent them, up to the early 1970's to Rhodesia, South Africa Australia, and New Zealand.   In 2009 the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologized to the Child migrants who were sent their and in 2010 British Prime Minister Gordon Brown offer their country's apology. To date, Canada has offered no aplology. Canada claimes there is not enough interest in the British Home Children and it wasn't even on the political radar. 

"Canadians don't expect their government to apologize for every sad event in our history," sic (Jason) Kenney told reporters. "We have laid out some criteria for that, and the reality is we haven't seen a demand or an expectation for that." "This is not something that has really been on the radar screen. I haven't in my 12 years as an MP heard anyone ask for that."


 Click here to: subscribe to the British Home Child Newsletter!


Picture
Home Children Canada's READERS PICK
Home Children Canada is pleased to endorse this new book release!
Picture
Orphans of the Living is availabe in Canada, United States, England and Scotland
We are pleased to annouce the publication of the most current and comprhensive work on the subject of the British Home Children
Published for our National BHC Day 2024

Orphans of the Living - Canada's British Home Children offers a groundbreaking exploration of the controversial child migration schemes that brought over 100,000 so-called "orphaned" children to Canada from 1869 to 1948. As the most current and comprehensive work on the subject, this book is packed with new insights and meticulously sourced from historical records, including the central registry files held by Library and Archives Canada. Readers will uncover the troubling role of the Canadian Government in these schemes, and the often overlooked stories of the children involved. Featuring a special section by Patricia Skidmore, Fairbridge Canada President, on the Fairbridge Farms, this eye-opening account sheds light on a dark chapter in Canada's past.

By Lori Oschefski
with a special section by Patricia Skidmore






".... in Canada we are deliberately adding to our population hundreds of children bearing all the stigmata of physical and mental degeneracy....The next generation must be considered, but the harvest has already commenced - a juvenile criminal here, an insane person there."

 Dr. C. K. Clarke
 "the Father of Canadian Psychiatry""
b1857-d1924
renowned physiologist for whom the Clarke Institute in Toronto was named
 on the British Home Children 
Lecture given at the Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada
​From: The little immigrants - the orphans who came to Canada
Kenneth Bagnell
Kenneth Bagnell

Picture
The  British Home Child Stamp released September 1 2010 by Canada Post

This site is meant to catalog the information and Home Child stories. It is not a complete listing of anything,  information is added on an ongoing basis. Where possible links are provided to where more detailed information may be found and/or credit. Credit for any source of information is provided and if there are any omissions we welcome being notified so credit is given where credit is due.


Other web sites by Lori Oschefski

The Gillinghlam Park Fete Tragedy
On July 11 1929 a demonstration put on by the Gillingham, Kent, England fire brigade went horribly wrong. This well rehearsed display was intended to show case the skills of the fire brigade by staging a mock rescue of young boys from a structure built in the corner of the park. Fifteen people lost their lives, nine of them children. One of these children was the nephew of Willliam Cheesman, a British Home Child sent to Canada in 1894. William would never see his family again and would never know of the tragedy which befell them back in England.

The Gillingham & Battle B-26 Crashes of 1944
On June 6th 1944 two B-26 Marauders on route to France suffered a mid air collision and crash in Gillingham, Kent, England. The crew of both planes perished as well as four civilians on the ground. Less the half an hour later two more B-26 Marauders from the same squadron suffered the same type of accident over Battle, Sussex. Only the pilot of one plane was to survive.  


Web Site Hit Counter
Web Site Hit Counter
Site published December 2011
Click here to return to the top of the page

 ​© 2025 Home children canada
CONTACT US ​

[email protected]
Home Children Canada Research Group
Subsribe to the BHC Newsletter
Picture