Gail H. Corbett - Nation Builders: Barnardo Children in Canada

NATION
BUILDERS

Copyright Gail H. Corbett, 1997, 2002

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Design: Suzanne Wood

Illustration: W. H. Chapman

Printer: Transcontinental

Corbett, Gail H. (Gail Helena), 1941-

Nation builders : Barnardo children in Canada / Gail H. Corbett.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-55002-394-2

1. Barnardo, Thomas John, 1845-1905. 2. Home children (Canadian immigrants) 3. Home children (Canadian immigrants) Biography. 4. Canada Emigration and immigration History. 5. Great Britain Emigration and immigration History.

I. Title. II. Title: Barnardo children in Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.

Printed and bound in Canada.

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The Barnardo Children and their Descendants

Barnardos of London
Mr. Clough
Miss Joynson

Centennial Museum, Peterborough, Ont.
Peterborough Public Library

City of Toronto, Archives
Ontario Archives

Manitoba Archives
National Archives of Canada

Special thanks to all those who contributed in various ways to this book.

Dr. Roger Cardinal, Mr. William Astell, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Green, Mrs. Gordon Struthers, Mrs. Alice Griffin and Mrs. Daisy Peacock.

In particular to Bill, Reg and Andy who urged me on with their queries about the Barnardo Children in Canada.

Dr. Barnardo, Stepney Causeway

Girls Village, Barkingside

Stepney Causeway and Babies Castle

Parisian of the Allan Line

Barnardo Boys at Immigration Shed

Barnardo Trunk and Landing Card

Barnardo Special, Grand Trunk Line

George Albertus Cox, A. de Brissac Owen

Miss Bessie Code and Hazelbrae

Marchmont Home, Belleville

Canadian Headquarters, Jarvis Street, Toronto

Mrs. Rose Hobday and older Barnardo Girls

Manitoba Cairn

Brown Roots

Edmund A. Struthers, Industrial Farm, Manitoba

Barnardo Homesteaders for Canadas West

Dr. Barnardos Winnipeg Home

Road-making in Canadas Northwest, 1889

Miss Kennedy and new arrivals to Canada

Barnardo Girls at Hazelbrae, Peterborough

Dr. Barnardos first Canadian Home

Garden Hill Station and Barnardo Children

Royal Albert Hall, London

Barnardo Boys at Work

Barnardo Girls as Mothers Helper

Dr. Barnardos Home, Isle of Jersey

Barnardo Bugler and Gracie Fields

Watts Naval School

Map Canada

Dear Reader,

The Barnardo Children In Canada is a portrait of children as pilgrims. It is a portrayal of the human spirit struggling against tragedy towards a new hope. It is the reflection of visionaries who believed in the potential of the individual and that rank was but the guineas stamp. It is children building a better world for themselves and their descendants. It is the materialization of the hope that Canada promised to those who would journey.

Yesterday the children journeyed alone, seeking the promise of the New World. Today their numbers are legion and they are counted among our most courageous and successful nation builders.

Gail H. Corbett

DEDICATED
to

The Barnardo children in Canada
and
Their descendents,
to the
Men, Women and Children
who welcomed them,
to the
Spirit of the Visionaries
who believed in them
and to
Mable Bettes Ellis
who
sensitized my childs heart
to
Nobodys Child

Genesis I

Out from under the dark waters of the Middle Ages a new industrialized England struggled to emerge. Feudal ties snapped, the masses fled the land, flocking to the great cities. The Industrial Revolution plummetted the nation into greatness and despair. London, the financial capital of the world, was rampant with unemployment. Masses of humanity sought to bury their despair in the cities gin parlours, brothels and rat infested alleys. Families disintegrated. A fraternity of underworld children evolved: illiterate, furtive and desperate. Homeless children, scavenging for sustenance, sleuthed by day and shivered by night. Like Fagans boys they formed their own underground. Thousands of no-bodies children trembled in the black, back alleys of the worlds wealthiest nation. A philosophy of greed, propagated by an insensitive government and nurtured by the Church shackled the common people. Poverty and illiteracy raged. Charity schools received less revenue than the annual stipends of aristocrats sons. Psychological, emotional and physical exploitation of children and adults perpetuated the poverty cycle which continued to turn the tread mill of mans inhumanity to man.