Quoted from British Home Children
Edward Norris - ""I worked hard - I was slapped" he recalls. "Sometimes I thought of my mother, in despair, and started to cry""
Harold Haig, "Anyone would've thought there's a fella who's got everything, but it was like I had a block of ice inside me. I felt empty. I knew I was missing something. I couldn't work out what it was. And there was this feeling – I didn't know who I was. I didn't know where I'd come from. I didn't belong to anybody. I was in this void." - Harold Haig - died August 3, 2012
Tom Isherwood, To rob me of my childhood and family forever is a crime, and the world should know about this sick British and Canadian tragedy that has been hidden these many years gone by.
Alice Rutty Griffin - My nerves were so bad since Childhood that bed wetting was an embarrassing problem. In England we were punished for bed wetting and at the home in Peterborough I had to stand in the hallway while all the other children filed past. When I was older the Doctor attending me traced my problem back to the childhood punishments and some nervous condition which had developed. My condition was so run down that I remember one farm woman rubbing my cheeks to get them rosy before the visiting lady from the home arrived.
Alice Rutty Griffin - on one of her placements - At the doctor's I was treated like a maid for the first time in my life. I lived in the back quarters and used back stairs and was never permitted to be with them. For weeks I would return to my room and cry and write to Mrs. ---. But I could not go back.
Edith Hutchinson - My first assignment was at a ministers house. I did not like his wife. She told me all Barnardo Children came from the slums and I replied that I had as good a home as she. She did not send me back to Hazel Brae but sent me to a farmer down the road where I was happy.
Hugh Ceasar - At one farm I accidently let the pigs out on Sunday. I got a terrible beating with a buggy whip. So I wrote the home and they sent me a ticket to go back to the Toronto home.
Hugh Ceasar - On Sundays the Barnardo boys would see each other at Church. This one Sunday John went to talk to Billy. The farmer grabbed him and told him that he was not to talk to him. John said, "I'm a Home Boy and so is Billy and if we can't talk then there's going to be trouble." That week Billy hanged himself and Johnnie was found on the stable floor, his stomach full of strychnine. And then there was Fred. He came to church and later they found him still in his Sunday clothes drowned in the river.
Mary Warriner - I was not happy in my placements. The first place the son on the farm tried to take advantage of me and I fought him off and slapped him. The next place I just got tired of being their slave. So back to the home.
Name withheld - I have often said that if I had been left in the position that my mother had been left in I would never have sent two little girls across the sea to a strange land. If I had four children and no way to support them I would have slit their throats and mine before I'd let them suffer the heartbreak and the loneliness that I've known.
Helen Gough - I wrote and told my mother I was going to Canada (our letters were censored) and I was told to write another letter and not to mention going to Canada. The night before we got on board the ship we were told we could write a loving letter home. I guess it didn't matter what we said as we would be on the sea when the word was received by mother.
Daisy Peacock - My first Christmas in Canada I was eight years old. No one told me to hang up a stocking as dear Aunt Ellen had said but I did anyway. In the morning it was empty. But the dear foster male parent slipped out to someplace and brought me back a lovely doll in white slippers. But the wife, she was mean and ruled us with an iron hand. Even when the visiting lady would visit me every six months I never complained about this woman. I wouldn't dare complain for this foster woman would drill into me that I would be severely punished.
Annie Hall (Richmond) - They made me go to church and the lady said that I had to learn the Rosary before she would give me anything to eat. That night I ran away and came back to Hazel Brae. Then I was placed on a farm in Orangeville and for five years I was treated badly. Every time Barnardo's visiting lady would come I was sent to my room. The hired man finally wrote the home and the visiting lady took me to the hospital. I gave her letters to mail my mother and she never did. I would love to have been with my mother.
Doris Frayne - Canadians just wanted to used me as a scullery-maid.
Len Russell- One morning I didn't get them (cows) down on time and the farmer hid behind the barn and grabbed me. He had a huge strap. I got the buckle end of that strap for a good 5 minutes. It's an agony that I'll never forget. This same man also rubbed my face in cow manure. One day he had bothered me so terribly that I couldn't stop crying. He threatened to knock me with a shovel unless I stopped. (Len was beaten with his next placement as well)
Margaret Wilson - I slept in the attic and often woke with frost on my pillow.
Harold Green - My next place was a disaster. Both the woman and man pounded me. She whipped me on my bare arms and legs continually with a willow gad. And the farmer used a horse trace with a chain on the end on my back. For years I carried the marks.
Amy Hodgkins, five, was sent to a farm near Baddeck in 1925. "They (the neighbours) all knew about her beating me but they wouldn’t open their mouths . . . And when the inspectors came, I wouldn’t tell them. I was too scared, I thought she’d really pound me after they’d left . . . All I can remember is all the poundings I got for nothing . . . I had the yard work, the field work . . . scrub floors, everything." -taken from an interview with Heather Laskey, January 3 2010 thechronicleherald.ca
Amy came with the Middlemore Homes on the Franconia 1924-05-26
James Golding - His father had died in the Boer War and he arrived aged five. "They were poor people, fishermen. They were good to me, treated me as their own child . . . Seventy-five years ago I stepped through that door and I’m here yet. I’ve had a good life, but there is a melancholy when you think your own country didn’t want you." Mr. Golding’s older brother was more typical. Placed in a family with six other children, he was "put out after four years." Then, with a farmer in Stewiacke, "he was treated terrible. He beat him with whips and said he was only a charity boy." -taken from an interview with Heather Laskey, January 3 2010 thechronicleherald.ca
Elsie Hathaway - "There's a lot of things that they should have done that they didn't do, They sent us over here thinking we were going to be used good when we weren't."
Joseph Betts of Belleville, Ontario“You did not get out to play with other boys and girls. It was all work,” “Not only that but when I came over here I left three sisters behind in England. I have never heard from them and cannot seem to get track of them.”
William Price - “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.”
Harold Haig, "Anyone would've thought there's a fella who's got everything, but it was like I had a block of ice inside me. I felt empty. I knew I was missing something. I couldn't work out what it was. And there was this feeling – I didn't know who I was. I didn't know where I'd come from. I didn't belong to anybody. I was in this void." - Harold Haig - died August 3, 2012
Tom Isherwood, To rob me of my childhood and family forever is a crime, and the world should know about this sick British and Canadian tragedy that has been hidden these many years gone by.
Alice Rutty Griffin - My nerves were so bad since Childhood that bed wetting was an embarrassing problem. In England we were punished for bed wetting and at the home in Peterborough I had to stand in the hallway while all the other children filed past. When I was older the Doctor attending me traced my problem back to the childhood punishments and some nervous condition which had developed. My condition was so run down that I remember one farm woman rubbing my cheeks to get them rosy before the visiting lady from the home arrived.
Alice Rutty Griffin - on one of her placements - At the doctor's I was treated like a maid for the first time in my life. I lived in the back quarters and used back stairs and was never permitted to be with them. For weeks I would return to my room and cry and write to Mrs. ---. But I could not go back.
Edith Hutchinson - My first assignment was at a ministers house. I did not like his wife. She told me all Barnardo Children came from the slums and I replied that I had as good a home as she. She did not send me back to Hazel Brae but sent me to a farmer down the road where I was happy.
Hugh Ceasar - At one farm I accidently let the pigs out on Sunday. I got a terrible beating with a buggy whip. So I wrote the home and they sent me a ticket to go back to the Toronto home.
Hugh Ceasar - On Sundays the Barnardo boys would see each other at Church. This one Sunday John went to talk to Billy. The farmer grabbed him and told him that he was not to talk to him. John said, "I'm a Home Boy and so is Billy and if we can't talk then there's going to be trouble." That week Billy hanged himself and Johnnie was found on the stable floor, his stomach full of strychnine. And then there was Fred. He came to church and later they found him still in his Sunday clothes drowned in the river.
Mary Warriner - I was not happy in my placements. The first place the son on the farm tried to take advantage of me and I fought him off and slapped him. The next place I just got tired of being their slave. So back to the home.
Name withheld - I have often said that if I had been left in the position that my mother had been left in I would never have sent two little girls across the sea to a strange land. If I had four children and no way to support them I would have slit their throats and mine before I'd let them suffer the heartbreak and the loneliness that I've known.
Helen Gough - I wrote and told my mother I was going to Canada (our letters were censored) and I was told to write another letter and not to mention going to Canada. The night before we got on board the ship we were told we could write a loving letter home. I guess it didn't matter what we said as we would be on the sea when the word was received by mother.
Daisy Peacock - My first Christmas in Canada I was eight years old. No one told me to hang up a stocking as dear Aunt Ellen had said but I did anyway. In the morning it was empty. But the dear foster male parent slipped out to someplace and brought me back a lovely doll in white slippers. But the wife, she was mean and ruled us with an iron hand. Even when the visiting lady would visit me every six months I never complained about this woman. I wouldn't dare complain for this foster woman would drill into me that I would be severely punished.
Annie Hall (Richmond) - They made me go to church and the lady said that I had to learn the Rosary before she would give me anything to eat. That night I ran away and came back to Hazel Brae. Then I was placed on a farm in Orangeville and for five years I was treated badly. Every time Barnardo's visiting lady would come I was sent to my room. The hired man finally wrote the home and the visiting lady took me to the hospital. I gave her letters to mail my mother and she never did. I would love to have been with my mother.
Doris Frayne - Canadians just wanted to used me as a scullery-maid.
Len Russell- One morning I didn't get them (cows) down on time and the farmer hid behind the barn and grabbed me. He had a huge strap. I got the buckle end of that strap for a good 5 minutes. It's an agony that I'll never forget. This same man also rubbed my face in cow manure. One day he had bothered me so terribly that I couldn't stop crying. He threatened to knock me with a shovel unless I stopped. (Len was beaten with his next placement as well)
Margaret Wilson - I slept in the attic and often woke with frost on my pillow.
Harold Green - My next place was a disaster. Both the woman and man pounded me. She whipped me on my bare arms and legs continually with a willow gad. And the farmer used a horse trace with a chain on the end on my back. For years I carried the marks.
Amy Hodgkins, five, was sent to a farm near Baddeck in 1925. "They (the neighbours) all knew about her beating me but they wouldn’t open their mouths . . . And when the inspectors came, I wouldn’t tell them. I was too scared, I thought she’d really pound me after they’d left . . . All I can remember is all the poundings I got for nothing . . . I had the yard work, the field work . . . scrub floors, everything." -taken from an interview with Heather Laskey, January 3 2010 thechronicleherald.ca
Amy came with the Middlemore Homes on the Franconia 1924-05-26
James Golding - His father had died in the Boer War and he arrived aged five. "They were poor people, fishermen. They were good to me, treated me as their own child . . . Seventy-five years ago I stepped through that door and I’m here yet. I’ve had a good life, but there is a melancholy when you think your own country didn’t want you." Mr. Golding’s older brother was more typical. Placed in a family with six other children, he was "put out after four years." Then, with a farmer in Stewiacke, "he was treated terrible. He beat him with whips and said he was only a charity boy." -taken from an interview with Heather Laskey, January 3 2010 thechronicleherald.ca
Elsie Hathaway - "There's a lot of things that they should have done that they didn't do, They sent us over here thinking we were going to be used good when we weren't."
Joseph Betts of Belleville, Ontario“You did not get out to play with other boys and girls. It was all work,” “Not only that but when I came over here I left three sisters behind in England. I have never heard from them and cannot seem to get track of them.”
William Price - “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.”
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From Ups and Downs, July 1899, p 80.
AT Ilford Home by Jennie KIBBLE Age 16, Bowmanville. Where was it that, in days of yore, We played where we shall play no more, And childish troubles ne'er were o'er? -- At Ilford Home. If, then, at table, we saw meet To use our tongues (so rare a treat) Dry bread and water we should greet, At Ilford Home. And if at school we happened late, Without excuse (saints bless our pate!) In that dread moment we did hate Our Ilford Home. To fractions if we then were dumb, Our tempers rise, our tears should come, Acquaintance with the birch we'd shun, At Ilford Home. At bedtime troubles are not done, As up the stairs we quickly run. To take our share amidst the fun, At Ilford Home. The pillows into play are called, And each and every one is mauled, For lacking covers beds are bald, At Ilford Home. But silence reigns, for tongues are quiet, Yet birdie whispers "There's a riot," And up the stairs comes "Mother's" fiat, At Ilford Home. Too late to rue the mischief done, The fight is o'er, the victory won, For "Mother's" hand is no light one, At Ilford Home. And then to bed we sobbing go, To lose in sleep our load of woe, And in our waking better grow, At Ilford Home. And when we think of present bliss, In Canada, a land like this, Whence did it spring? -- we answer this, From Ilford Home. Jane Elizabeth Kibble Given Name(s):Elizabeth Surname:KIBBLE Age:11 Gender:F Ship:LAURENTIAN Port of Departure:Liverpool Date of Departure:1894-11-15 Port of Arrival:Halifax Date of Arrival:1894-11-26 Year of Arrival:1894 Party:Barnardo Homes Destination:Peterborough, Ontario Comments:Girls to Peterborough Type of Records:Passenger Lists Microfilm Reel Number:C-4516 Children travelling together:H94AQ Source:Library and Archives Canada Reference:RG 76 C1b Item Number:40011 letters held at the National
Archives in Ottawa. 20 April 1926 Box 89 Ward St. Port Hope, Ont. Dear Sir, I am writing you this letter concerning a matter in connection with Dr. Barnardo's Homes. I was 18 years old this last January and I now consider myself out of the Home's care. I would be very thankful if you would be so kind if you would give me some information in regards to this affair and do you know if it is the Canadian law for a girl to remain in the Homes until she is 21. My sister expects me to go home to England soon and do you think if I got my birth certifacate to prove my right age that I could get out of the Homes. Now I would be very much obliged if you would kindly answer my letter and give me some information as soon as possible. I remain, yours truly, Ena Nesbitt. From W. Stuart Edwards, Deputy Minister of Justice. Madam, I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 20th instant, and in reply may say that it is not one of the functions of this department to advise private individuals in matters of law, and I can only suggest that you might, if you so desire, consult a reliable solicitor in whom you have confidence and be guided by their advice. Toronto Daily Star
of June 8 1933. SEARCH FAILS FOR SISTER LAST SEEN @# YEARS AGO. London Woman Seeking Kin adopted 23 years ago -- records not open. IN BARNARDO HOME. Special to the Star. London June 8. Disheartened by 23 years continuous searching for her sister, Mrs Walter Green met failure in the renewal of her quest in Toronto yesterday. Returning to London Mrs Green laid fresh plans for a hunt based on meagre information obtained through Barnardo homes, now holding records taken over from Annie Macpherson home, formerly operated in Stratford. Back in 1910 when Hettie D. Mills was 8 years old, she was adopted from the Macpherson home by a Mrs Stephen Wiles of Toronto. Her sister, now Mrs Green, and a brother David, had been separately adopted at about the same time and no contact had been maintained among the children. In 1928, after a long and persistent search, Mrs Green traced David. Ceaselessly since the brother, who is now in London employed as a factory foreman, and Mrs Green have conducted their hunt. Yesterday in search of old city directories in Toronto Mrs Green found that from 1910 till 1913 a Stephen Wiles lived at 105 and later 153 Harbord St. From 1914 to 1918 the same name was was listed at 42 Ascot St. From then forward the name is out of the Toronto directory. A resident in the district told Mrs Green that Wiles had been a salesman for the T. Eaton Co. He believed Wiles died in 1919. Thus the hunt for Hattie Mills, now in her thirty-first year, continues. "I have been asked by officials of the home and by lawyers what I want my sister for," Mrs Green told the Star. "What would anyone want to see her sister for? We have been separated all these years. For the last five years I never ceased searching. I have employed detectives who told me the Barnardo home is not at liberty to give any information." |
Frank Gardner -
Noted in the Barnardo magazine, The Guild, summer of 1997 edition "I am reminded of a letter I spotted in the February 1914 of the Barnardo Boys' "Mag" - later merged with the Guild Messenger, Frank Gardner wrote from Canada: "If this letter is on a variety of subjects don't blame me. I have a friend...who writes on everything from...love duets to Supreme Court judgments and tuberculosis. I'll try not to be as bad as that".
John Vallance- " I remembered how I had arrived in Canada all alone, with no one to say "Here, John. Here's a nickle. Buy yourself an icecream." It was a sad life in that way. ""I love my children, but even they don't completely fill that gap. I feel as if I was robbed. ... Even today I am very insecure, deep down. I feel a nobody." -- Home Child Henry Gammon, Barnardo Lad, 1894 - "It seems to me that there is a set of people in Manitoba giving to everlasting grumbling. Not only have they the Barnardo boy an advantage to themselves as regards cheapness, but often times treat him with as little indifference as their canine friends." "I dont know what I expected. We were conditioned to think great things were in store for us - that Canada was one big apple tree, and our worries were over for life." -- Home Child Ada Allan, a British Home Child -"All those years, I didn't know what it was to be loved. In those times when they hired you, it was to work. I didnt sit at the table with them...I ate by myself. I was a servant. This grew on me. I felt very inferior even though I knew I was an honest person." Susan Tickner (nee MacMenemey), former Child Migrant "...I was one of those migrants, Sent out - at the age of nine! On a ship with hundreds of others, All frightened for our lives." John Hennessey - BHC - ''The brothers and sisters were all together,'' he says. ''And then they started grabbing the girls away from their brothers. I can still hear the screams of these kids being separated. Some of them never saw their sisters again. I still have nightmares.'' "Whats it like to have a muvver?" -- Former Fairbridge Home Child Everything was mud and the first thing I had to buy out my wages was knee-high rubber boots. Learning how to harness horses was confusing. However I learned very quickly and in May I was working the horses in the field, preparing the spring planting." -- Home Child "We built that bloody place. We built it with our bare hands ... We were slave labourers ... We had no shoes. We worked in our bare feet every day. Winter and summer. We built that bloody place for them ..." -- Former Bindoon Home Child "We built that bloody place. We built it with our bare hands ... We were slave labourers ... We had no shoes. We worked in our bare feet every day. Winter and summer. We built that bloody place for them ..." -- Former Bindoon Home Child "You would have thought that he was purchasing a horse the way he sized up my forehead, body and legs." -- Home Child Ellen Buck, Home Child - I was glad when my sister Jessie moved closer. It was five miles away. I would visit her on Sunday and run back the five miles to help milk the cows. Jim Fairley, Former Child Migrant - "It was nothing but slavery and hard workmanship, the only thing that was missing is the whip." I. Cook, a Home Childs Daughter - "May I take this opportunity to tell you how desperately ashamed my father was at being one of these "Home Boys". We were forbidden to tell anyone of how my dad came to Canada and he himself lied once when a local newspaper interviewed him. He stated he was born in Toronto." "I asked my mother, 'Did you ever sign for me to go?' And she said, 'Michael John, I never ever signed any papers. You were stolen out of your cradle when you were two months old.'" -- "The abuses suffered in Australia by the children were similar in Canada. The rapes, beatings and torture were all prevalent here in Canada." -- Canadian Centre for Home Children Norman Johnston, Home Child, Australia - "I deem myself to be one of those successful people but I would forego the total success I have had for another ten minutes with my mother." "My next assignment was to a place called Pontypool, Ontario, 13 miles north of Newcastle. It was a dairy farm rented by a husband and wife. ... We were allowed to go to school for about six months and then this man took us out of school to work full time on the farm. The wife was kind and gentle, but the husband was unscrupulous, vicious, dirty, and lazy. We were beaten every day or so for the smallest things. To this day I frequently have nightmares about this part of my life." -- Excerpt from "THE HOME CHILDREN, PERSONAL STORIES", Phyllis Harrison, Editor "Those 7 years were hell. I was beat up with pieces of harness, pitchforks, anything that came in handy to hit me with I got it." -- Home Child "I love my children, but even they don't completely fill that gap. I feel as if I was robbed. ... Even today I am very insecure, deep down. I feel a nobody." -- Home Child |
Quotes about BHC by Candians
James S. Woodsworth - respected Member of Parliament and later first leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, stated in the House of Commons: "We are bringing children into Canada in the guise of philanthropy, and turning them into cheap labourers."
Charlotte Whitton - 1924 - said that the schemes were inhumane.
Dr. C. K. Clarke - ".... 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."
Charlotte Whitton - 1924 - said that the schemes were inhumane.
Dr. C. K. Clarke - ".... 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."
