A special year for home children's descendants
Published Saturday January 17th, 2009
History Province the first in Canada to recognize contribution of the British boys and girls brought to Canada a century ago
BELLEISLE CREEK - The contributions of the British children who had their childhoods lost have been recognized by the New Brunswick government.
It was a long-awaited dream come true for Marion Crawford of Belleisle Creek and hundreds of other descendants of the boys and girls who came to Canada a century ago when the province made the unprecedented move to declare this the Year of the British Home Child.
It was an acceptance of the truth that has been ignored for too long, says Crawford, past president and volunteer researcher for the Middlemore Atlantic Society.
Starting 140 years ago, the youngsters were sent from their underprivileged situation in Great Britain and shipped to Canada, the promised land of milk and honey.
"The Great Britain of the late 19th century was marred by poverty, pollution and social imbalance," Justice Minister T.J. Burke told the Legislative Assembly after tabling his motion of the declaration on Dec. 16, for which he received unanimous support of the house.
As a result of the devastation in Great Britain, a number of charitable organizations emerged to create the British Child Immigration Movement. Both the Canadian and British governments supported the program, which reduced the cost to British taxpayers and provided Canada with workers and young children for adoption.
But once here, the children who came along with their unusual accents, faced the pain of separation from their families, ridicule from communities and even their new families, abuse and often horrendous working conditions as labourers and domestic helpers on farms across the province.
Some of these children grew up to serve in the Canadian Forces in two world wars, Burke said, and made other sacrifices that should not be forgotten.
"They received little or no money for their work. Many suffered from poor nutrition and did not receive a proper education," the minister said. "There are stories of parents who saw the presence of a home child in their home as an opportunity for their child to attend school without losing help around their house or their farm.
"Many lived with the stigma of being an unwanted child, and considered themselves urchins, waifs, or strays, because society branded them as such. They would often take this pain to their graves.
"It is such a tragic portion of our province's and country's history."
Descendants of the British Home Children have been lobbying for recognition of what is often considered one of Canada's dirty little secrets for a while now, and have been most successful in New Brunswick.
The legislative motion recognized that between 1869 and 1948, about 100,000 British children were brought to Canada. They came as young as babies to the maximum age 18. An estimated 12 per cent, or four million, of the Canadian population is descended from the British Home Children.
"It was a great feeling of accomplishment that we did attempt this and in New Brunswick we succeeded," Crawford said.
New Brunswick is the only province to recognize the contributions of these children, however Crawford said progress is being made in other provinces and some discussion is happening among MPs at the federal level.
And across the sea in Great Britain, a councillor for the city of Birmingham, Reginald Corns, is rallying his government to pay the same respect to the children they lost as citizens.
While there were hundreds of home children, most came here as part of the Middlemore or Bernardo Homes.
"We have never been after retribution, we only want recognition of this part of Canadian history and acknowledgement that these people survived and helped develop Canada," Crawford said.
"I think if the federal government were to acknowledge this happened, it would make Canada look a lot better in the world's eyes for humanitarian reasons."
She said because so many Canadians are still unaware that these children were here and continue to leave their legacy, descendants simply want the reality to be known.
"This recognition is a little thing that can be done to educate Canada that this happened and this is a way to show the respect these children deserve. So many of them had to live out their years without being appreciated or having that sense of belonging anywhere," Crawford said.
For Burke, leading the motion was more of a personal mission. In both 2006 and again in 2008, he attended and spoke at the reunions organized by the Middlemore Atlantic Society.
"These are not proud parts of our history, but they are parts of our history that New Brunswickers and Canadians must learn about," the minister said.
When the legislature made the declaration last month, Crawford and 24 other descendants, as well as two of the province's only living home children, Sidney Coles of Fredericton and Elsie Hathaway of Plaster Rock, were there, sitting quietly in the gallery.
"We still have people out there working so hard for this recognition in other places," Crawford said.
The significance of 2009 is that it marks the 140th anniversary of the time when the British Home Children started arriving in Canada.
Documents show the Canadian government paid $2 a person for these young people, who were dispersed throughout the country.
It is estimated about 6,000 of them came to the Maritimes (of them about 100 like Crawford's grandfather went to Kings County farms) and while most of the British natives are dead, their descendants are still picking up the pieces. Many of them feel voids in their family tree because of the separation of the move to Canada caused among families, Crawford said. Every year there are reunions held, and in the past decade Crawford has researched and drawn lines between thousands of home children and their descendants in recent years.
In Canada, an estimated 10,000 home children are still living.
Hampton-Kings MLA Bev Harrison, who seconded Burke's motion, hopes eventually school history books will give the story of the British Home Children the space it deserves.
"Although we are a leader in human rights, there are still stains on our history," he said. "This is one of those stories which is not endearing in all cases, but needs to be told. We may have the best reputation for human rights initiatives, but we have yet to deal with some of our treatment of people living in Canada under our protection."
People looking for information on British Home Children can contact Crawford by email at mcrawfd@nbnet.nb.ca.
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