Laying the Children`s Ghosts to Rest: Canada`s Home Children in the West

The Barnardo Boys

"Though it affects what is an estimated one in every eight Canadians, the dark tale of Canada's "home children" is little known. Author and journalist Sean Arthur Joyce hopes to change that with his latest book, Laying the Children's Ghosts to Rest: Canada's Home Children in the West."

"From 1869 to 1949, more than 100,000 British children were taken and sent to Canada to work in homes and on farms as child labourers. For some children, who were living in grinding poverty, the situation worked out rather well; however for others — as might be expected — it ended in tragedy."

"Perhaps one of the most compelling of the stories Joyce uncovered in his research is that of William and Walter Roberts, two brothers abandoned at the ages of four and six. They remained in the care of the British charity Barnardo's — and then sent to Canada to work seven years later."

"Walter ended up with kind of a vicious, sadistic individual who today, we would call a psychopth or something. He would stab him with a pitchfork, make him walk through a snowstorm with no shoes on, sleep with the dog — to the point where he became so ill he was ready to die, basically," said Joyce. The boy was eventually rescued when two men delivering grain saw his condition and contacted the police. However the experience for his brother had been entirely different."

"They were both working on farms in the Manitoba area and he did just fine, nobody ever mistreated him, he was happy with his work, happy with the families he was with. So it gives you this dichotomy of the experience — the one who did well, the one who obviously was going to be marked for life."

"The initial idea of solving the problem by sending the children abroad to work in exchange for room and board initially began with a Scottish Christian named Annie McPherson, who worked with Barnardo's founder Dr. Thomas Barnardo."

http://www.nanaimodailynews.com/entertainment/home-children-legacy-explored-1.1080014#sthash.OBIltea6.gbpl

"Between 1855 and 1970 Barnardo's had been home to 350.000 children who had spent all or part of their lives living in their homes in the UK, Canada or Australia. Many of these children grew up unaware of their family circumstances or why they were taken into care."

"In 1995 Barnardo had about 1,500 requests per year for access to such records. In this year the BBC released a series of documentaries called "Barnardo's Children". In the few weeks following the airing of the first segment, over 4,000 requests flooded in. Because of the media coverage and increased awareness and knowledge that these records are available, the number of requests have increased and remain steady."

http://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com/barnardo-home-records.html

Barnardo`s basic idea was that if parents were in a condition of poverty it was a moral failure on their part. "So he performed what he called `philanthropic abductions`... and used the power of the law to get them into his custody and at that point he considered them his to do with as he pleased."

So nothing has really changed, has it?

Nowadays it is called `early intervention` and the agents who use the law are called social workers.