The Richardson Sisters, Their Stories
For Annie, Lilian, Edith, Theodora and Gertrude.
Written by Jean Robinson
I began my Family History research in 1999 as a result of training on my new job in the local library, never expecting it to be a hobby that would take years and never actually be completed. I discovered we were just ordinary folk mostly, sometimes getting caught up in the huge changes that were going on in the country. They were soldiers, sailors, shoemakers and labourers, with the women of the family being laundresses, labourers and dressmakers. My great great grandmother followed her military husband to India with her children, another learnt the trade of boot binding in order to help her husband.
After 10 years of research I thought I had completed most of the straightforward research, finding several ‘skeletons’ along the way, then one of my regular researchers asked about child immigration. I hadn’t really heard very much about it at the time but a quick search on the internet soon showed his grandfather was sent to Canada with one of the groups from the Catholic Church in Liverpool. Canada has transcribed many of its records and fortunately the ‘British Home Children’, as they are known, was a priority. A further search soon showed the legacy of these children, sent to Canada between 1869 and 1930 by more than 50 different organisations.
One quiet afternoon at work I was looking for further information on the enquiry I had received earlier, for no real reason I can remember I started to input the names of my grandmother’s sisters. Richardson is a common name and nothing was showing up until I put in the name of my grandmother’s youngest sister, a Theodora Richardson appeared on the list of a passenger ship bound for Canada, one of a number of children travelling to Canada with the charity Dr Barnardo’s. At first I thought she couldn’t possibly be ‘our’ Theodora, none of our family were sent to Canada as far as I knew, but a little research was to prove that it was indeed her, and that not only she, but 4 other siblings were sent out as well as a result of the family breaking down.
My great grandparents, Ernest Richardson and Edith Berry, were married in Portsmouth in 1893, they were a young couple, Ernest being 21 and Edith just 17, and almost exactly 9 months later my grandmother, May, was born. She was followed in quick succession by Cephas (Victor) in 1894, Annie in 1895, Lilian in 1897, Edith in 1899 and Theodora in 1900. It is worth noting that Edith was still only 24, with 6 children. It was at this time that everything started to go wrong.
The 1901 census shows the family living in two places, Ernest is in lodgings with Cephas, Annie and Lilian, while Edith is in lodgings with Theodora. May is not on the census at all while little Edith is in the hospital. I returned to the website with the shipping lists and found Edith being sent to Canada at the same time as Theodora, both were sent with the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society, now known as the Children’s Society. I e-mailed them and received a quick reply stating that they had a file on all three of the girls, Annie, Edith and Lilian, and that once I had proved my relationship to them I would receive a case summary. Once I sent the information it was to be 9 months before the summary arrived.
The Children’s Society were very thorough in their research and I was contacted in advance by my research worker in order to prepare me for the results. Even though it was 100 years ago the surprise and shock still sat heavily and I was grateful for her concern, finding myself surprisingly angry on occasion. What follows is an explanation of what happened after their relationship collapsed and the surprising events that I discovered with more research.
Ernest Richardson left the family home in June of 1900, according to Edith he had been seeing another woman and they had argued, he continued to send Edith money for a couple of months until he was sent to prison in October of that year for theft, after his release he took the children for three weeks and then returned them, paying her just 5 shillings a week until Christmas of that year. The 1901 census shows him lodging with the ‘other woman’ a Catherine Roberts whose husband Auguste was a Petty Office in the RN, while Edith is lodging with another family, also listed is a man by the name of Harry Baker.
In May of 1902 Ernest made his final payment of 8 shillings and is not seen or heard from again. Part of this is probably due to the fact that in June of 1902 Edith gave birth to her 7th child, Harry Augustus. On his birth certificate his father was initially given as Harry Baker, she also lists herself as ’Mrs Baker’ but several months later the certificate was officially altered. The family now begin to suffer. Having always been supported by Edith’s parents, Henry and Harriet Berry, they can no longer manage. The family were forced into the workhouse on the 1st October 1902. The two younger children are not on the admission list, either they were just not listed or they were with the Berry’s. May, Cephas and Annie were transferred to the workhouse school while their mother Edith, Lilian and young Edith were discharged on November 1st. It is also worth remembering that sometimes medical treatment was only available to the poor through the workhouse.
In August of 1903 Edith gives birth to her 8th child, Gertrude, no father was given on her birth certificate, strangely there is no mention of Gertrude in any of the Children’s Society documents. They seem to have managed then until March of 1904 when tragedy struck, young Harry was ‘accidentally smothered’ while sharing his mother’s bed. This was a disaster for the struggling family; Edith was tried for neglect and sent to prison for some months. During the time she was in prison it would seem that her parents couldn’t cope with the children and they were gradually placed back in the workhouse, Cephas and Lilian on July 1st, Cephas to the hospital, Edith on July 14th, Theodora on the July 25th to the hospital, and finally Edith (senior) and Annie on August 20th, the day Edith was released from prison.
Shortly after this a Children’s Society worker by the name of Kate Edmonds wrote a letter to the founder of the Society, Mr Edward Rudolf, about the family. She described Edith as ‘looks a mere child --- exceedingly ill’. Poor Edith was just 28, with 7 children to care for and 1 to mourn. However the grandparents came to their rescue once more and took them in on September 3rd. It was obvious that they couldn’t continue to keep them, Cephas remained in hospital and the family suffered from various illnesses. By December a Reverend Hunt had referred the case to the Society.
According to Reverend Hunt’s report, Cephas remained in hospital, May was to remain with her grandparents, as was Theodora, there was no mention of Gertrude who was probably also living with her grandparents. The three remaining girls were placed in the Children’s Convalescent Home in Southsea. Other members of the extended family were asked for help in supporting the children but to no avail. While the Berry’s were willing to give a little, their other grandfather George Richardson, refused, saying he had disowned the family some years previously. Reverend Hunt described Edith as being ‘ a most incapable worthless person ---- unable to look after her children’.
Fortunately Miss Edmonds from the Society saw the situation differently when she met Edith and her mother at St Mary’s Vicarage on Dec 14th. In her letter to Mr Rudolf she states that Edith ‘was very unwilling to say that she would never see her children again. But I impressed upon her that the amount of information she would receive about her children in the future must depend upon her own good behaviour.’
Edward Rudolf wrote in reply:
‘I hope to be able to arrange for the admission of the three girls to our Emigration Receiving Home at Peckham at an early date, but unfortunately at the moment the home is full. You may rest assured, however, that there will be no unnecessary delay when the children are likely to be emigrated but there will be no difficulty in letting you know where they are eventually placed, and reports as to their progress can also be obtained.’
All three girls were accepted into the care of the Society ‘with a view to emigration only’ and admitted to Avenue House in Peckham on 17th Jan 1905. All three children were examined as they all required a Certificate of Health prior to emigration, the reports reveal a little of their personalities at this time.
Annie is stated to read, write and figure fairly well, and that she was ‘quiet and rather dull. Steady, but quick-tempered, very fond of little children. Will make a good nurse maid.’Lilian was said to be 4 feet tall, and had some heart palpitation. She could read, write and figure well, and was considered ‘very gentle and affectionate’. It was considered that she was not strong enough for domestic service.
Edith was said to be 3feet 10inches tall. She could read, write and figure fairly well for her age and was described as ‘very bright, rather selfish but otherwise a very nice child’. Like her sister she was not considered suitable for domestic service.
Their mother had signed the forms giving her consent to their emigration on Dec 10th 1904, the wording reads as follows:
‘ I Edith Fanny Flora Richardson residing at 3 Moorland Rd do hereby declare that I am the mother of Edith Richardson and that I am not able to provide for the said Edith Richardson.I hereby of my own free will give it up to the Committee of the above Society to be sent to one of their Canadian Distribution Homes and thereafter to be provided with a suitable home in such manner as the said Committee shall see fit.’
I can only imagine how Edith felt as she signed away her children, with no prospect of ever seeing them again. The threat was left unsaid but if she disagreed with the emigration then it was unlikely she would be able to have contact with them, this was normal practice among the Societies who saw this as the mother being difficult, by agreeing to it they would make sure she maintained contact and received further information about them.
In November of 1905, Harry Baker died at the age of 47, whether he was still involved with the family is unknown.
Annie sailed on the ‘Tunisian’ from Liverpool May 3rd 1906, arriving in Quebec on May 12th.Lilian and Edith sailed together, again on the ‘Tunisian’ from Liverpool May 2nd 1907, arriving on May 11th.
All of them were heading for ‘Our Western Home’ in Niagara on the Lake. For a while it would be nice to think the girls were all reunited at Niagara, a letter was sent to the Society concerning Lilian and Edith dated Feb 15th 1908, written by the Home Superintendent E Bayley. She wrote:
‘These little girls are quite well and getting on nicely. I do not think either of them are very strong. Edith was very ill at Christmas time and under the doctor’s care. He said she had a very weak heart. She is now well and about again, but the weather is too severe and stormy for her to go out. Edith had a Christmas tree all to herself and many little presents and she was quite happy with her dolls in her bed.’
Their health was obviously a concern to those caring for them. This became serious enough for Annie to be admitted to The Children’s Hospital in Toronto where she died on Sept 9th 1908. She had received surgery due to complications of Tuberculosis and had died from post-operative shock. Edward Rudolf now wrote to Rev. Hunt informing him of her death and asking that he inform any relatives he was in touch with. She was just 13.
Their mother made the effort to keep in touch with the girls, there is a letter dated Nov 10th 1909 from her to Miss Bayley:
‘I was more than pleased to get a letter from you and the dear children. I have also received photo of Annie. She does look so nice one would hardly credit she has gone to the better house. I am very glad to think she was with the kind Lady when she died for I feel sure she never wanted for anything. My Husband thinks she must have been a v (sic) pretty girl and he would have been so proud of her. He says she was like myself. But Edith is the living image of me. Annie is like my sister Lilian is like me. She has got her mother’s smile and dimples and the baby on my lap will be like her in time for she has the same smile and dimples and her brother Victor smiles the same. We tease him about the dimples in his cheeks. May is more like her father than any of them but she don’t resemble him much. We have had some happy days together the children and I and some very hard ones but I always tried to keep them in right way. They were such good loving children and it was so hard to part with them because I thought I should be only standing in their way and I wasn’t very strong and we never thought that I should make very old bones. But I have a good husband and now I am regaining my health although the year that Annie died I went under an operation the same month as she did. When she died did she call Mother, if she did I heard her three times it was the early part of the morning about 2 or 3 o’clock. I thought I was dreaming. The little ones are not strong and the eldest has been very ill and had to go under an operation hoping to hear from you soon..’
A lot has happened in Edith’s life since she signed away her first three daughters, between 1904 and 1906 she also signed over Theodora and Gertrude to Dr Barnardo’s. I have no real details of them leaving home as Barnardo’s only release information to direct descendants, this is partially due to the fact that they sent so many children to Canada that they do not have the resources to deal with so many enquiries.
Edith had also remarried! She married Frank Anning at Alverstoke Registry Office in June 1908. They had one daughter before they married, Frances in 1907, followed by Dorothy in 1908, Florrie in 1910 and Pansie in 1919. It would appear that they had to wait for the seven year gap, Ernest had not been seen or heard from in 7 years and was therefore presumed dead, Edith could now remarry, whether he was still alive is unknown.
Events now begin to change in Edith’s favour, in Edith and Lilian’s file is a note to Mr Rowle dated June 12th 1910 saying ‘Richardson girls to be return’d to England’. There is a further note dated June 14th and marked Edward R. saying ‘Ask Miss Edmonds to let us know if the mother has remarried and if so what are her circumstances.’ He subsequently wrote on June 24th asking for enquiries to be made, he states:
‘It has recently been reported that it would be advisable for them to be returned to England as apparently they are not physically strong enough for the vigorous climate. I thought that if the mother has now married again and is respectable, that the girls might be returned to her care, so that I shall be glad to have her address, etc. as soon as it is forthcoming.’
Miss Edmonds wasted no time and visited Edith in her new home in Alverstoke near to Frank Anning’s workplace at the Haslar Hospital. She wrote:
‘It is a small house but clean and comfortable. She welcomed me cordially, said that she is now well and happily married and that both she and her husband would welcome the children home with pleasure. She said that her husband had often said that she ought to have them but that she did not know she would be allowed to have them. She showed me a little bedroom which she could prepare for them. Her husband was a sergeant in the ? and has a pension of £7. 10 shillings. He is also second cook at ? Hospital. She had the girls photos and some letters and seems to have kept in touch with them.
She has two little girls by this second husband and he has two boys one of whom is in the army and another in an asylum.’
What Edith must have felt after this visit! She obviously never thought to have seen her children again. Things were to move very quickly now.
On July 25th a telegraph was sent to Canada simply stating ‘ Ascertained Richardsons’ mother satisfactory’ Rowle.
Miss Bayley, Superintendent of ‘Our Western Home’ wrote to Mr Rudolf on Aug 12th saying she hoped to send the girls home from Montreal on the ‘Corsican’ in Aug 26th and that she had written to Mrs Anning asking her to meet them at Liverpool.
The girls were returned to the UK and Mr Rudolf now wrote to their mother asking if she could meet them or he could arrange for them to be met if she was unable. At the same time he contacted a Mr Collier with specific instructions of how they should be met, looked after and sent on to London. He also wrote ‘I may perhaps add that the girls bear good characters – Edith and Lilian Richardson are being returned because the Canadian climate is too strong for them’. Their behaviour and that of their mother must have been of the greatest importance when it came to deciding the children’s future. It was very unusual for children to be returned to their parents. By Sept 5th 1910 the girls were back home in Gosport.
The 1911 census shows the girls back home with Edith and Frank. The same census also shows Gertrude in lodgings in Kent while Theodora (now Dora) is in lodgings in Durham. It seems incomprehensible to me that two children were returned to their mother all the way from Canada while another two are in the same country and out of reach, however it was not Barnardo’s policy to return children to ‘fallen women’ and Edith would certainly have come into that category.
Theodora and Gertrude sailed to Canada on March 14th 1914, arriving in St John on Mar 29th, en route to the receiving home in Peterborough, Ontario. Theodora married Arthur Lewis in Stouffville, Ontario in 1921, she gave her parents names and listed her religion as Mennonite, a sect similar to the Amish, probably an indication of the family who adopted her. She died there in 1964 and is buried with her husband in Stouffville Cemetery, they had no children but people there still remember Dora.
Gertrude married George Rand in St Thomas, Ontario in 1925, they had two children, Edith May and Theodora. She divorced in 1956 and married George Hunt, she died in 1968 and is buried in Elmdale Cemetary in St Thomas. Her daughters both married and had children so we do have relatives in Canada, one day we hope to make contact with them.
Of the family left behind, it took me some time to discover what happened to Cephas (Victor), but luckily his WWI record survived. While his sisters were dealt with through the Societies, Victor was placed in Portsea Industrial School. Industrial schools were boarding schools which provided training for boys they felt could be ‘salvaged’. At the age of 14 he enlisted as a boy in the West Yorkshire Regiment where he was considered a talented drummer. His records detail his character with several misconducts for smoking against orders and once for laughing in the ranks, but after he turned 18 he settled down and his behaviour is listed as exemplary. He served in France throughout the war, wounded in the thigh in 1918, and finally discharged in 1920 with a full set of medals. He died in 1930.
My grandmother May seems to have missed most of the upheaval, she was bought up by her grandparents and married in 1913 but never mentioned her lost sisters to her family, or the fact that so many were separated. What she must have felt as a 10 year old watching her siblings taken away I can only imagine but it goes a long way in explaining her later behaviour. During WWII she was asked to evacuate her children, her husband replied for her ‘if one of us goes, we all go’. Their family thought it was a selfish reaction on his part but I think it reflects on May’s past as well.
I have since made contact with some of my cousins, descendants of Lilian, and I have heard their side of things, they weren’t told of the story either but like me were grateful to find out what had happened. None of us are sure what happened to young Edith so we still have some research to do. Their mother Edith died in 1955, we still don’t know what happened to their father, Ernest, one day I hope to find out, perhaps there are further descendants yet to be discovered.
Staggeringly, approximately 100,000 children were sent to Canada as Home Children, placed into homes as farm labourers or domestic servants. Some were well cared for, many weren’t. Today over 1,000,000 Canadians can trace their ancestry back to a Home Child and the history is a priority for them. In the UK it is still a relatively unheard of chapter in our history although the Australians are now making sure that their part in child immigration in known to a wider audience, apologies have been made by the governments of Britain and Australia and a new film based on the book ’Empty cradles’ by Margaret Humphreys is due out.
Canada is still waiting.
Revised March 2011Jean Robinson
After 10 years of research I thought I had completed most of the straightforward research, finding several ‘skeletons’ along the way, then one of my regular researchers asked about child immigration. I hadn’t really heard very much about it at the time but a quick search on the internet soon showed his grandfather was sent to Canada with one of the groups from the Catholic Church in Liverpool. Canada has transcribed many of its records and fortunately the ‘British Home Children’, as they are known, was a priority. A further search soon showed the legacy of these children, sent to Canada between 1869 and 1930 by more than 50 different organisations.
One quiet afternoon at work I was looking for further information on the enquiry I had received earlier, for no real reason I can remember I started to input the names of my grandmother’s sisters. Richardson is a common name and nothing was showing up until I put in the name of my grandmother’s youngest sister, a Theodora Richardson appeared on the list of a passenger ship bound for Canada, one of a number of children travelling to Canada with the charity Dr Barnardo’s. At first I thought she couldn’t possibly be ‘our’ Theodora, none of our family were sent to Canada as far as I knew, but a little research was to prove that it was indeed her, and that not only she, but 4 other siblings were sent out as well as a result of the family breaking down.
My great grandparents, Ernest Richardson and Edith Berry, were married in Portsmouth in 1893, they were a young couple, Ernest being 21 and Edith just 17, and almost exactly 9 months later my grandmother, May, was born. She was followed in quick succession by Cephas (Victor) in 1894, Annie in 1895, Lilian in 1897, Edith in 1899 and Theodora in 1900. It is worth noting that Edith was still only 24, with 6 children. It was at this time that everything started to go wrong.
The 1901 census shows the family living in two places, Ernest is in lodgings with Cephas, Annie and Lilian, while Edith is in lodgings with Theodora. May is not on the census at all while little Edith is in the hospital. I returned to the website with the shipping lists and found Edith being sent to Canada at the same time as Theodora, both were sent with the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society, now known as the Children’s Society. I e-mailed them and received a quick reply stating that they had a file on all three of the girls, Annie, Edith and Lilian, and that once I had proved my relationship to them I would receive a case summary. Once I sent the information it was to be 9 months before the summary arrived.
The Children’s Society were very thorough in their research and I was contacted in advance by my research worker in order to prepare me for the results. Even though it was 100 years ago the surprise and shock still sat heavily and I was grateful for her concern, finding myself surprisingly angry on occasion. What follows is an explanation of what happened after their relationship collapsed and the surprising events that I discovered with more research.
Ernest Richardson left the family home in June of 1900, according to Edith he had been seeing another woman and they had argued, he continued to send Edith money for a couple of months until he was sent to prison in October of that year for theft, after his release he took the children for three weeks and then returned them, paying her just 5 shillings a week until Christmas of that year. The 1901 census shows him lodging with the ‘other woman’ a Catherine Roberts whose husband Auguste was a Petty Office in the RN, while Edith is lodging with another family, also listed is a man by the name of Harry Baker.
In May of 1902 Ernest made his final payment of 8 shillings and is not seen or heard from again. Part of this is probably due to the fact that in June of 1902 Edith gave birth to her 7th child, Harry Augustus. On his birth certificate his father was initially given as Harry Baker, she also lists herself as ’Mrs Baker’ but several months later the certificate was officially altered. The family now begin to suffer. Having always been supported by Edith’s parents, Henry and Harriet Berry, they can no longer manage. The family were forced into the workhouse on the 1st October 1902. The two younger children are not on the admission list, either they were just not listed or they were with the Berry’s. May, Cephas and Annie were transferred to the workhouse school while their mother Edith, Lilian and young Edith were discharged on November 1st. It is also worth remembering that sometimes medical treatment was only available to the poor through the workhouse.
In August of 1903 Edith gives birth to her 8th child, Gertrude, no father was given on her birth certificate, strangely there is no mention of Gertrude in any of the Children’s Society documents. They seem to have managed then until March of 1904 when tragedy struck, young Harry was ‘accidentally smothered’ while sharing his mother’s bed. This was a disaster for the struggling family; Edith was tried for neglect and sent to prison for some months. During the time she was in prison it would seem that her parents couldn’t cope with the children and they were gradually placed back in the workhouse, Cephas and Lilian on July 1st, Cephas to the hospital, Edith on July 14th, Theodora on the July 25th to the hospital, and finally Edith (senior) and Annie on August 20th, the day Edith was released from prison.
Shortly after this a Children’s Society worker by the name of Kate Edmonds wrote a letter to the founder of the Society, Mr Edward Rudolf, about the family. She described Edith as ‘looks a mere child --- exceedingly ill’. Poor Edith was just 28, with 7 children to care for and 1 to mourn. However the grandparents came to their rescue once more and took them in on September 3rd. It was obvious that they couldn’t continue to keep them, Cephas remained in hospital and the family suffered from various illnesses. By December a Reverend Hunt had referred the case to the Society.
According to Reverend Hunt’s report, Cephas remained in hospital, May was to remain with her grandparents, as was Theodora, there was no mention of Gertrude who was probably also living with her grandparents. The three remaining girls were placed in the Children’s Convalescent Home in Southsea. Other members of the extended family were asked for help in supporting the children but to no avail. While the Berry’s were willing to give a little, their other grandfather George Richardson, refused, saying he had disowned the family some years previously. Reverend Hunt described Edith as being ‘ a most incapable worthless person ---- unable to look after her children’.
Fortunately Miss Edmonds from the Society saw the situation differently when she met Edith and her mother at St Mary’s Vicarage on Dec 14th. In her letter to Mr Rudolf she states that Edith ‘was very unwilling to say that she would never see her children again. But I impressed upon her that the amount of information she would receive about her children in the future must depend upon her own good behaviour.’
Edward Rudolf wrote in reply:
‘I hope to be able to arrange for the admission of the three girls to our Emigration Receiving Home at Peckham at an early date, but unfortunately at the moment the home is full. You may rest assured, however, that there will be no unnecessary delay when the children are likely to be emigrated but there will be no difficulty in letting you know where they are eventually placed, and reports as to their progress can also be obtained.’
All three girls were accepted into the care of the Society ‘with a view to emigration only’ and admitted to Avenue House in Peckham on 17th Jan 1905. All three children were examined as they all required a Certificate of Health prior to emigration, the reports reveal a little of their personalities at this time.
Annie is stated to read, write and figure fairly well, and that she was ‘quiet and rather dull. Steady, but quick-tempered, very fond of little children. Will make a good nurse maid.’Lilian was said to be 4 feet tall, and had some heart palpitation. She could read, write and figure well, and was considered ‘very gentle and affectionate’. It was considered that she was not strong enough for domestic service.
Edith was said to be 3feet 10inches tall. She could read, write and figure fairly well for her age and was described as ‘very bright, rather selfish but otherwise a very nice child’. Like her sister she was not considered suitable for domestic service.
Their mother had signed the forms giving her consent to their emigration on Dec 10th 1904, the wording reads as follows:
‘ I Edith Fanny Flora Richardson residing at 3 Moorland Rd do hereby declare that I am the mother of Edith Richardson and that I am not able to provide for the said Edith Richardson.I hereby of my own free will give it up to the Committee of the above Society to be sent to one of their Canadian Distribution Homes and thereafter to be provided with a suitable home in such manner as the said Committee shall see fit.’
I can only imagine how Edith felt as she signed away her children, with no prospect of ever seeing them again. The threat was left unsaid but if she disagreed with the emigration then it was unlikely she would be able to have contact with them, this was normal practice among the Societies who saw this as the mother being difficult, by agreeing to it they would make sure she maintained contact and received further information about them.
In November of 1905, Harry Baker died at the age of 47, whether he was still involved with the family is unknown.
Annie sailed on the ‘Tunisian’ from Liverpool May 3rd 1906, arriving in Quebec on May 12th.Lilian and Edith sailed together, again on the ‘Tunisian’ from Liverpool May 2nd 1907, arriving on May 11th.
All of them were heading for ‘Our Western Home’ in Niagara on the Lake. For a while it would be nice to think the girls were all reunited at Niagara, a letter was sent to the Society concerning Lilian and Edith dated Feb 15th 1908, written by the Home Superintendent E Bayley. She wrote:
‘These little girls are quite well and getting on nicely. I do not think either of them are very strong. Edith was very ill at Christmas time and under the doctor’s care. He said she had a very weak heart. She is now well and about again, but the weather is too severe and stormy for her to go out. Edith had a Christmas tree all to herself and many little presents and she was quite happy with her dolls in her bed.’
Their health was obviously a concern to those caring for them. This became serious enough for Annie to be admitted to The Children’s Hospital in Toronto where she died on Sept 9th 1908. She had received surgery due to complications of Tuberculosis and had died from post-operative shock. Edward Rudolf now wrote to Rev. Hunt informing him of her death and asking that he inform any relatives he was in touch with. She was just 13.
Their mother made the effort to keep in touch with the girls, there is a letter dated Nov 10th 1909 from her to Miss Bayley:
‘I was more than pleased to get a letter from you and the dear children. I have also received photo of Annie. She does look so nice one would hardly credit she has gone to the better house. I am very glad to think she was with the kind Lady when she died for I feel sure she never wanted for anything. My Husband thinks she must have been a v (sic) pretty girl and he would have been so proud of her. He says she was like myself. But Edith is the living image of me. Annie is like my sister Lilian is like me. She has got her mother’s smile and dimples and the baby on my lap will be like her in time for she has the same smile and dimples and her brother Victor smiles the same. We tease him about the dimples in his cheeks. May is more like her father than any of them but she don’t resemble him much. We have had some happy days together the children and I and some very hard ones but I always tried to keep them in right way. They were such good loving children and it was so hard to part with them because I thought I should be only standing in their way and I wasn’t very strong and we never thought that I should make very old bones. But I have a good husband and now I am regaining my health although the year that Annie died I went under an operation the same month as she did. When she died did she call Mother, if she did I heard her three times it was the early part of the morning about 2 or 3 o’clock. I thought I was dreaming. The little ones are not strong and the eldest has been very ill and had to go under an operation hoping to hear from you soon..’
A lot has happened in Edith’s life since she signed away her first three daughters, between 1904 and 1906 she also signed over Theodora and Gertrude to Dr Barnardo’s. I have no real details of them leaving home as Barnardo’s only release information to direct descendants, this is partially due to the fact that they sent so many children to Canada that they do not have the resources to deal with so many enquiries.
Edith had also remarried! She married Frank Anning at Alverstoke Registry Office in June 1908. They had one daughter before they married, Frances in 1907, followed by Dorothy in 1908, Florrie in 1910 and Pansie in 1919. It would appear that they had to wait for the seven year gap, Ernest had not been seen or heard from in 7 years and was therefore presumed dead, Edith could now remarry, whether he was still alive is unknown.
Events now begin to change in Edith’s favour, in Edith and Lilian’s file is a note to Mr Rowle dated June 12th 1910 saying ‘Richardson girls to be return’d to England’. There is a further note dated June 14th and marked Edward R. saying ‘Ask Miss Edmonds to let us know if the mother has remarried and if so what are her circumstances.’ He subsequently wrote on June 24th asking for enquiries to be made, he states:
‘It has recently been reported that it would be advisable for them to be returned to England as apparently they are not physically strong enough for the vigorous climate. I thought that if the mother has now married again and is respectable, that the girls might be returned to her care, so that I shall be glad to have her address, etc. as soon as it is forthcoming.’
Miss Edmonds wasted no time and visited Edith in her new home in Alverstoke near to Frank Anning’s workplace at the Haslar Hospital. She wrote:
‘It is a small house but clean and comfortable. She welcomed me cordially, said that she is now well and happily married and that both she and her husband would welcome the children home with pleasure. She said that her husband had often said that she ought to have them but that she did not know she would be allowed to have them. She showed me a little bedroom which she could prepare for them. Her husband was a sergeant in the ? and has a pension of £7. 10 shillings. He is also second cook at ? Hospital. She had the girls photos and some letters and seems to have kept in touch with them.
She has two little girls by this second husband and he has two boys one of whom is in the army and another in an asylum.’
What Edith must have felt after this visit! She obviously never thought to have seen her children again. Things were to move very quickly now.
On July 25th a telegraph was sent to Canada simply stating ‘ Ascertained Richardsons’ mother satisfactory’ Rowle.
Miss Bayley, Superintendent of ‘Our Western Home’ wrote to Mr Rudolf on Aug 12th saying she hoped to send the girls home from Montreal on the ‘Corsican’ in Aug 26th and that she had written to Mrs Anning asking her to meet them at Liverpool.
The girls were returned to the UK and Mr Rudolf now wrote to their mother asking if she could meet them or he could arrange for them to be met if she was unable. At the same time he contacted a Mr Collier with specific instructions of how they should be met, looked after and sent on to London. He also wrote ‘I may perhaps add that the girls bear good characters – Edith and Lilian Richardson are being returned because the Canadian climate is too strong for them’. Their behaviour and that of their mother must have been of the greatest importance when it came to deciding the children’s future. It was very unusual for children to be returned to their parents. By Sept 5th 1910 the girls were back home in Gosport.
The 1911 census shows the girls back home with Edith and Frank. The same census also shows Gertrude in lodgings in Kent while Theodora (now Dora) is in lodgings in Durham. It seems incomprehensible to me that two children were returned to their mother all the way from Canada while another two are in the same country and out of reach, however it was not Barnardo’s policy to return children to ‘fallen women’ and Edith would certainly have come into that category.
Theodora and Gertrude sailed to Canada on March 14th 1914, arriving in St John on Mar 29th, en route to the receiving home in Peterborough, Ontario. Theodora married Arthur Lewis in Stouffville, Ontario in 1921, she gave her parents names and listed her religion as Mennonite, a sect similar to the Amish, probably an indication of the family who adopted her. She died there in 1964 and is buried with her husband in Stouffville Cemetery, they had no children but people there still remember Dora.
Gertrude married George Rand in St Thomas, Ontario in 1925, they had two children, Edith May and Theodora. She divorced in 1956 and married George Hunt, she died in 1968 and is buried in Elmdale Cemetary in St Thomas. Her daughters both married and had children so we do have relatives in Canada, one day we hope to make contact with them.
Of the family left behind, it took me some time to discover what happened to Cephas (Victor), but luckily his WWI record survived. While his sisters were dealt with through the Societies, Victor was placed in Portsea Industrial School. Industrial schools were boarding schools which provided training for boys they felt could be ‘salvaged’. At the age of 14 he enlisted as a boy in the West Yorkshire Regiment where he was considered a talented drummer. His records detail his character with several misconducts for smoking against orders and once for laughing in the ranks, but after he turned 18 he settled down and his behaviour is listed as exemplary. He served in France throughout the war, wounded in the thigh in 1918, and finally discharged in 1920 with a full set of medals. He died in 1930.
My grandmother May seems to have missed most of the upheaval, she was bought up by her grandparents and married in 1913 but never mentioned her lost sisters to her family, or the fact that so many were separated. What she must have felt as a 10 year old watching her siblings taken away I can only imagine but it goes a long way in explaining her later behaviour. During WWII she was asked to evacuate her children, her husband replied for her ‘if one of us goes, we all go’. Their family thought it was a selfish reaction on his part but I think it reflects on May’s past as well.
I have since made contact with some of my cousins, descendants of Lilian, and I have heard their side of things, they weren’t told of the story either but like me were grateful to find out what had happened. None of us are sure what happened to young Edith so we still have some research to do. Their mother Edith died in 1955, we still don’t know what happened to their father, Ernest, one day I hope to find out, perhaps there are further descendants yet to be discovered.
Staggeringly, approximately 100,000 children were sent to Canada as Home Children, placed into homes as farm labourers or domestic servants. Some were well cared for, many weren’t. Today over 1,000,000 Canadians can trace their ancestry back to a Home Child and the history is a priority for them. In the UK it is still a relatively unheard of chapter in our history although the Australians are now making sure that their part in child immigration in known to a wider audience, apologies have been made by the governments of Britain and Australia and a new film based on the book ’Empty cradles’ by Margaret Humphreys is due out.
Canada is still waiting.
Revised March 2011Jean Robinson
