THE BRITISH HOME CHILDREN

THE BRITISH CHILD EMIGRATION SCHEME TO CANADA (1870-1957)

100,000 British Home Children (alleged orphans) were sent to Canada by over 50 British Child Care organizations.  These 4-15 year old children worked as indentured farm labourers and domestic servants until they were 18 years old.  The organizations professed a dominant motive of providing these children with a better life than they would have had in Britain, but they had other ignoble and pecuniary motives.

The organizations rid themselves of an unwanted segment of their society and profited when they sold these children to Canadian farmers.  Siblings in care in Britain were separated from their families and each other.  Siblings were separated from each other when they were sent to Canada.  Most never saw each other again.  Many spent their lives trying to identify their parents and find their siblings and most were unsuccessful.  The 5 million British Home Children descendants have 20 million British relatives.  How could this many people not know they are related to one another?  Their mutual searches have been hampered by the unwillingness of the childcare organizations to readily release vital personal information.

For the past 13 years, I've been collecting every bit of information I can about as many British Home Children as I can and storing this information in the British Home Children Registry.   It is a comprehensive database of 57,000 British Home Children records – 5,000 who have been claimed by their descendants.  It is the only multi-sending-organization database of its kind known to exist.  It was designed to create an ongoing legacy to preserve BHC identities in perpetuity, and to help descendants restore their family ties so cruelly severed by the child care organizations.

I have identified nearly 5,000 boys who enlisted/died in WW1; thousands of BHC marriages; 400 children sent from the Isle of Man, 200 children who died while ‘in care’; 800 children who were informally ‘adopted’ by their ‘masters’; and about 100 BHC to BHC marriages.  This website contains only a partial listing of each child’s record in the BHC Registry.

SAMPLE LISTING OF A COMPLETE BHC RECORD

SAMPLE BHC REGISTRY FORM

IF YOU WANT TO

·         CLAIM YOUR BHC ANCESTOR FROM THE UNCLAIMED LIST

·         CREATE A NEW RECORD FOR YOUR ANCESTOR IN THE BHC REGISTRY

·         UPDATE YOUR ANCESTOR’S EXISTING RECORD IN THE BHC REGISTRY

REQUEST A BHC REGISTRY FORM TO COMPLETE

THEN I WILL CONDUCT A

COMPLIMENTARY SEARCH

OF THE BHC REGISTRY

AND PROVIDE YOU WITH RECORDS

·         OF ALL THOSE CLAIMED BHC WHO WERE ON THE SAME SHIP AS YOUR ANCESTOR

·         CONTACT INFORMATION REGARDING THEIR DESCENDANTS WHO CONTRIBUTED THE INFORMATION.

Many BHC were separated from their siblings when placed in orphanages in the UK, when shipped to Canada, when placed on indentures as farm labourers or domestic servants.  For a great many of these children, their BHC peers were their only friends and became substitutes for their siblings who were lost to them once ‘in care.’  Many kept in touch with each other over their adult years in Canada. I hope that by providing descendants with this information they will be able to contact each other and share whatever information they have with each other.

As time permits, each time someone claims a BHC I will create a new record and search for information the descendant may not have.  Over the next year I will be conducting a similar search for and emailing results to the 5,000 BHC descendants who have contributed information about their ancestors to the BHC Registry.

  Visitors since March 30, 2000   

Page Last Modified on April 19, 2013

Perry Snow BA (Hons) MA

Clinical Psychologist (Retired)

The Harbours of Newport Retirement Residence

#115 - 20 Country Village Cove NE

Calgary Alberta T3K 5T9

Phone 403 226 9515

Email: persnow@shaw.ca