*2010* ~ Year of the British Home Child in Canada

All of my life until 1999, I believed that I had just two brothers, these are David and Ron. It was through a chance meeting with someone in 1999, and a slip of that persons tongue, that alerted me to the possibility that we may have other siblings. In the beginning I could not believe that it could be true. How could it be possible that in 53 years no one in our family had told us of the existence of other children. In spite of my doubts, and with the encouragement of my wife and daughter we decided to try and find the truth. I had no idea at that time that our search would take us to the other side of the world, and that we would discover a sister who had died in Adelaide, South Australia.

Valerie's unmarked grave in South Australia, marked by the pink bunch of flowers. The 2 women are Pat and Jessie, friends of Valerie from her days in the Orphanage. 

 

GREEN, GEORGE EVERITT, agricultural labourer; b. 8 Feb. 1880 in Tottenham (London), England, eldest son of Charles Green, tailor, and Amelia Green, laundress; d. 9 Nov. 1895 in Keppel Township, Ont.

Following the death of George Everitt Green in 1895, more Canadians knew about him than about any other of the children brought by British charitable agencies to work in the dominion as agricultural labourers and domestic servants. Between 1868 and 1924 more than 80,000 youngsters came to Canada as child apprentices. Boys and girls, perhaps a third of whom were orphans, were transferred from English and Scottish refuges and poor-law schools and placed with householders who had responded to newspaper advertisements offering home and farm help. Green’s circumstances showed the immigration program at its worst, and his case, widely covered in the national press and in Britain, became the most compelling set piece in polemics created by Ontario child savers and the Canadian labour movement in their advocacy of reform of the system.

The tiny community of Kennington Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, was alive and vibrant at the turn of the last century. It supported its own church and school, and became “industrialized” with the establishment of a lobster canning factory in the 1920's. The Scottish Gaelic speaking community was first settled ca.1841 by John MacAulay. He was quickly followed by several other Scottish Presbyterian settlers, mainly from North Uist, and by 1900, the MacDonalds, Munroes, MacInnises, McLeans, MacAulays and Wilsons all had homes along the Atlantic shores of Kennington Cove.

They were mainly farmers and fishermen and they carved a living from the rocky land by growing root crops and raising a few sheep and dairy cattle. They were self-sufficient, fishing the coastline for lobster in spring and cutting timber in winter. They spoke the Gaelic of their homeland.

Now picture, in 1909 and 1910, five small children  learning to speak Scottish Gaelic with  decidedly English accents.  Appearing among the familiar Scottish names were some very non-Scottish surnames such as Casey, Wilbraham and White. These new settlers with the English accents and the English surnames were British emigrants, known simply as Home Children. They would place their mark upon the flourishing community.

There were at least five Home Children raised in Kennington Cove: Teddy and George Casey and Louisa White came in 1909,  while Louisa and David Wilbraham arrived in 1910.