Home Children in Canada, 1869 - 1948

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I have been remiss on the Island Register in not telling the story of the Home Children and providing links and information to those researching Home Children.

The story of Home Children who were emigrated to Canada from the British Isles between 1869 and 1948, began with the separation from parents, family, friends, neighbours, and everything that was familiar. Their lives after arrival and placement on Canadian farms remained one of separation and isolation. This was a policy designed by the organizations responsible for their emigration in order to force the children to assimilate into the families and society of their new homes and country.

Many of these children were taken into farms when they arrived in Canada, fed and clothed, but otherwise treated as farm hands. Some of the luckier ones fell into loving homes, where they were treated as a child of the family. Regardless of their situation, all suffered from the isolation from their true family, friends, and home.

It is now 130 years since the child migration schemes were started. Sadly, many thousands of these families remain apart. Studies and inquiries show their greatest need and wishes are to find their roots, family histories, and be reunited with their families when possible.

I do not profess to be an expert in Home Children, and I am not, but I want to make those researching Home Children aware of the organizations which can now assist you in your search, especially the "Canadian Centre for Home Children". It has opened recently in its new home in Cavendish, P.E.I. with the assistance of the Federal Heritage Department who provided the property, HRDC ,Wayne Easter, MP for Malpeque, and the Cavendish Area Tourist Association.

Spearheading the formation of the Centre was Mr. John Willoughby, who was the founder of the "Ellen Foundation", an outgrowth of which has become the Centre. It is an exciting time for Home Children, as many records long closed to the public are being opened up for the first time ever. It is a great improvement over the days where people searching for information on Home Child ancestors had the doors slammed in their faces in the U.K. New legislation has been passed to make those records accessable to the public, and the cause of the Home Children has been helped along by people like John Willoughby, Professor Brian Taylor, Mr. Dave Lorente and Mrs. Kay Hollinger-Lorente who have lobbied both British and Canadian governments for years now for funding and access to records.

By way of an introduction to John Willoughby, on Wednesday, May 20, 1998, Mr. Willoughby spoke before the British Select Committee on Health, one of many times he has been before government comittees in support of the cause. The text of this 1998 testimony is as follows:

"Mr Willoughby : Yes. My name is John Willoughby and I come from Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island. I am the founder and Chairman of the Ellen Foundation. My background with Home Children is I have been helping Home Children for approximately 15 or 16 years to facilitate, similar to Mr and Mrs Lorente. My own background with Home Children is my grandmother was a Home Child when she came out to Prince Edward Island in 1894. We knew very little of the actual background until some years later. The situation of being sent out to Canada was one of there were four children in the family, two boys and two young girls. My grandmother was four when she came to Prince Edward Island. Her mother had been very ill, was not expected to live, in hospital in Birmingham. Consequently her husband, William, who owned a factory in Birmingham, a small factory but a factory and they were quite well off, prosperous in relation to the times, unfortunately William dropped dead while his wife was in the hospital and a relative, a brother of William, decided it would be a good idea to send three children, of which my grandmother was one, out to Canada. Ironically it took 20 something years to probate the estate of which the brother was the executor. I do not know whether that had anything to do with the children being sent to Canada but there are those in our family who are suspicious that that may have been the case. The good news is some years later their mother got better and was able to come out to Canada. By that time she had been adopted by a very nice family and they tried to get her to go back to England but she would not go, she remained in Canada where she married and had children and so on. That is my background as far as my personal involvement is concerned. The Ellen Foundation came into being when I was doing some work for a friend and it turned out that Ellen was a little girl sent out to Canada's PEI at the age of three and lo and behold it turned out that she was the inspiration for the Anne of Green Gables novel. She was adopted by the family that are directly related to the author, Lucy Maude Montgomery and in her memoirs, which were released in 1992, 50 years after her death, she acknowledged that was where she got the idea. Ellen came and they wanted a boy and they got a little girl, and anybody who is familiar with Anne knows the background to the story. She was very fortunate. She was adopted by a very nice family that took very good care of her. Her family tried to find her, as with many Home Children, and I spent at least four trips to England trying to locate her in various ways � I will not bother with the details, they are similar to everyone else�and the same in Canada, but unfortunately at age three she had no memory of where she came from, who the sending society was. We tried some of the societies that we suspect were dealing in our area, checked passenger lists, all the usual procedures, and we have not been able to identify Ellen to this very day. Although the character of Anne is probably the most known fictional character in children's history Ellen is not even known to her own children, her identity".

Visit the Canadian Centre for Home Children Web Site!

Additional Home Children Links!

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Last Updated: 06/15/2002 12:21:32 PM
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