Adventurers And Exiles_The Great Scottish Exodus

by Marjory Harper

  Barnardo’s rescue work was centred on the English city slums, particularly in London. Of a random sample of 5,655 emigrant boys taken from the Barnardo archives for the years 1882—94 and 1910—12, only forty were Scottish. On the other hand, he did operate a receiving home in Edinburgh; the Aberdeen Journal of 19 January 1905 claimed that ‘not a few’ of the 60,000 children helped by Barnardo in the past three decades had come from the north of Scotland, and Scots were kept well informed about his work through regular fund-raising tours. Nor did Barnardo’s limited involvement with destitute Scottish children mean that he did not know of the relief measures provided by others north of the border. As an integral part of the late Victorian network of evangelical philanthropy, he was well aware of the activities of contemporaries such as Lord and Lady Aberdeen, who opened their own orphanage on their Aberdeenshire estate in 1884. Barnardo and the Aberdeens alike were acquainted with William Quarrier, another Scottish evangelical and philanthropist whose name became synonymous with child rescue and emigration in a Scottish context, just as Barnardo’s name was synonymous with such policies in England. Barnardo was present at the opening of Quarrier’s Orphan Homes of Scotland at Bridge of Weir in 1878 and there were many similarities — as well as significant differences — in the emigration policies and practices of the two men.

  The Scottish scenario: Quarrier’s Orphan Homes

  Of the 20,219 children received through the doors of Quarrier’s Orphan Homes of Scotland between 1871 and 1933, 6,987 were sent overseas, almost all of them to Canada. By the 1860s William Quarrier had a prosperous boot and shoe business in Glasgow, but memories of his impoverished childhood, coupled with his lifelong Christian zeal, meant that he was already devoting much of his profit to the relief of needy children in that city. With moral encouragement from Annie Macpherson, and financial backing from Thomas Corbett, a wealthy Scottish businessman living in London, Quarrier established an orphanage in Renfrew Lane, Glasgow, at the end of 1871. By 1872 the premises were so crowded that two new sets of accommodation were added — in Govan Road and Renfield Street — and four years later Quarrier acquired the extensive rural property at Bridge of Weir, amid rolling hills and fields seventeen miles south of Glasgow, where in 1878 he opened his famous Orphan Homes of Scotland. Children qualified for admission if they were ‘Orphan boys and girls deprived of both parents, children of widows or others with no relative able or willing to keep them, from 1 to 14 years of age, from any part of the country’. 8 In contrast to Barnardo and Maria Rye, but following the example of Annie Macpherson, he did not advertise his financial needs publicly, but relied instead — and remarkably effectively — on freewill gifts to sustain both his domestic and his Canadian work. Most of the children were drawn from Glasgow and its hinterland. But there was by no means an exclusive concentration on the west-central belt. Children were referred to Quarrier’s from virtually every corner of Scotland, as well as from a few English locations.

  9. Quarrier’s Orphan Homes of Scotland and Mount Zion Church, Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire.

  The emigration of suitable children was an integral part of Quarrier’s rescue programme from the start. On 23 June 1872, he sent his first party of thirty-five Glasgow and Edinburgh children to Canada, having received sufficient donations to cover the transportation costs of £10 per child. In his first annual report he stated his faith in juvenile emigration, combined with domestic rescue work, on practical as well as moral grounds:

  By the emigration feature of the work we are enabled to place these children in Christian homes in Canada, where they will be kindly cared for and watched over by Miss Macpherson and her helpers. By this means we hope to be enabled yearly to rescue a fresh set of boys and girls, whilst, without this providential outlet, we should be stocked up with the same set of children for four or five years, and unable to rescue more.

  Countering criticism that he was damaging the national interest by depleting the labour supply, he continued, later in the same report:

  And to those who object to emigration as withdrawing labour from this country, we would say, ‘Come and see the children as we take them in, and you will perceive that not the labour market, but the crime market, is likely to be affected by our work of rescue.’ 9

  The success of his first experiment encouraged Quarrier to make emigration a regular feature of his work, and within seven years 400 of the 700 children received into his orphanages had been sent to Ontario. In May 1878 he paid the first of several visits to Canada, accompanying a shipload of seventy-eight children, sixty-six of whom were from his orphanages. During his visit he met many of those he had sent out in the previous seven years, and came home resolved to dispatch even more, convinced ‘that we can do nothing here for the class of children we help that will at all compare with what can be done in Canada’. 10 For fifteen years he used the facilities provided by Annie Macpher-son and Ellen Bilborough in supervising and placing the children, but in 1887, faced with rising numbers of recruits each year, he decided to build his own reception and distribution centre. At Fairknowe Home in Brockville, Ontario — a location he claimed to have chosen because of its tradition of Scottish settlement — he employed a resident superintendent, matron and staff to find situations for the children and to supervise their after-care until they were twenty-one. In the months before an emigrant party arrived these staff advertised in the local press and in church circles for farmers who would either adopt a child or employ an older one under indenture, at the same time as a rigorous selection procedure was under way at home to ensure that only suitable recruits were chosen. In 1906, after more than thirty years’ experience in sending children to Canada, Quarrier’s annual report noted on 31 March:

  Much of our time and thought have been taken up this month selecting and interviewing the ladswhom we purpose sending to Canada shortly. Many things have to be considered in coming to a decision regarding each individual case. In the first place the boy himself must wish to go; then his character in the Home, in the school or the workshop must be of the best; physically and mentally he must be sound and must pass a rigid medical examination. After that relatives may have to be consulted, and therein often lies our greatest difficulty. However the day has passedwhen Canada was considered a place of exile and possible slavery and the thousands of our fellow countrymen who are now ‘going west,’ know that therework,which will provide an honest living, can be found by allwho seek it. 11

  Why were the children taken into care in the first place, and what then determined whether they were shipped out to Canada? As might be expected, several were destitute orphans who had no one to look after them, and whose cases had been brought to Quarrier’s notice by relatives who could not cope, concerned friends or employers, inspectors of the poor, local ministers or visiting ‘Bible women’ (colporteurs). In some cases a parent had become ill or disabled and could no longer support the family. Other children — many of them illegitimate — had been abandoned or neglected by one or both parents, cases which sometimes involved the intervention of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Occasionally a child was left destitute when a parent was committed to prison, in other cases the child had become uncontrollable and occasionally parents handed over their children because they wanted to give them a better chance in life than they could offer. Before admission into the Orphan Homes detailed enquiries were always made into an applicant’s background and exhaustive efforts were made to find relatives who could take responsibility instead. Subsequent removal to Canada hinged on the child’s age, health, adaptability and enthusiasm. Siblings were frequently separated by the selection process, which also sometimes brought Quarrier’s into dispute with parents or guardians, who contested the decision to send their children overseas.

  The most straightforward cases were the orphans. They included five brothers and sisters from Lossiemouth, aged between two and thirteen, who were sent to Quarrier’s in 1888 at the behest of the local Baptist minister after their father and
mother had each died of tuberculosis in August and October respectively. Although there were ‘a good many relations’, including an uncle in Assiniboia, ‘none of them have taken any interest in or helped the family’. Not untypically, the children were sent abroad at different times, two girls and a boy in 1889, another girl — soon to die of TB — in 1890, and the final brother in 1896. 12 Even greater fragmentation occurred among an orphaned family of eight from Inverallochy after the death of their parents in 1892. Although the local parochial board had paid a aunt to keep them temporarily, no relatives were able to shoulder the responsibility permanently, so while three children remained in farm service and one was adopted locally, the rest went to Quar-rier’s, from where three of them were sent to Canada in 1894 and 1899 respectively. 13 Of a family of seven children from Botriphnie in Banffshire sent to Bridge of Weir in 1904, all but one girl (who died) later went to Canada in 1909, 1910, 1911 and 1920. After their father had died of TB in 1902 the parish had paid 10s a week to the family, but when the mother and another child succumbed to the same disease, her brother in Exeter requested that the family should be admitted to Quarrier’s. Enquiries established that the mother’s half-brother would have taken the eldest girl, but he agreed with the homes’ recommendation that the family should be kept together, accompanied the children to Bridge of Weir, signed the emigration papers and continued to visit them periodically until they were sent to Canada. A paternal aunt in Buckie had also given permission for the children to be taken in by Quarrier’s, even though she was a Roman Catholic and the homes were vehemently anti-Catholic. 14

  The death of the breadwinner — or the mother — in a family often caused such hardship that the children were admitted to Quarrier’s even if the remaining parent was still alive. In 1884 John (eleven) from Stranraer was sent to the homes by his ‘anxious’ mother after the death of his father had rendered him ‘unmanageable and very self willed’. He was eager to go to Canada, but although he got his wish four years later he was deported back to Scotland in 1891 after being convicted of theft. 15 Still in the south-west, two sisters from Wigtown were admitted in 1888 after their mother died of an ulcerated womb. Although the father was still alive, he was seventy years old and ‘nearly done ’, and the emigration papers were signed by his son, the girls’ half-brother. 16 Tuberculosis reared its ugly head again in the admission of three children from Udny in Aberdeenshire, brought to Quarrier’s by an aunt in 1889, eight years after the death of their father, and in response to the worsening health of their mother, ‘a very respectable person’, who had signed the emigration consent form from her bed. She died four years later, followed by one of the children in 1894, while the two survivors were sent to Canada in 1894 and 1895. 17 In the same area, but somewhat disturbing, was the case of a boy from Woodside, Aberdeen, who was sent to Quarrier’s in 1905 on the death of his father and with the consent of his pauper mother. When the mother requested his return four years later, her request was blocked by the local minister who had recommended the initial referral. He was supported by Quarrier’s, which hastily sent the boy to Canada after the mother had made a second plea for his return. 18

  Disablement of one or both parents could also raise the spectre of destitution. In 1885 two sets of children from Aberdeen were admitted after their fathers had become disabled. In one case the father had been frostbitten while working on a whaling boat off Greenland and had lost the use of his hands and feet; his wife, according to the case file, was ‘a very worthless low character’ and the parish authorities seem to have sent the two boys to Quarrier’s as much to remove them from the mother’s influence as for financial reasons. The other case, in which two girls from a family of five were sent to Bridge of Weir, involved a fisherman who had lost an arm, and in each instance the children were sent to Canada within a year of being admitted to Quarrier’s. 19 The following year saw the admission and subsequent emigration of two brothers from Cambuslang after the death of their mother left the poorhouse as the only alternative for their disabled and destitute father, as well as the children. And in 1892 Alexander, from Edinburgh, was sent to Quarrier’s and on to Canada when neither his mother nor his invalid father could support their seven surviving children from an original family of fourteen. 20

  Several illegitimate children were admitted when they were left destitute by the death or desertion of their mothers. Four such children from Macduff, aged from six to twelve, were sent to Quarrier’s on the recommendation of the local minister after their mother died in 1886. Since the father was unknown, the children were being maintained by the parochial board but were left in the charge of their maternal grandmother, who was ‘old and deaf and quite unable to look after them’. Two of the boys were sent to Canada in 1887, another boy in 1888 and their sister in 1893. 21 John (seven), from Aberdeen, lost his mother in 1891. His father was unknown but his stepfather, who had four children already and could not take him in, agreed to hand him over to Quarrier’s and he was sent to Canada a year later. 22 Jeannie (six) was sent from Elgin to Bridge of Weir in 1898 and on to Canada eight years later. In 1896 her mother, who had several other illegitimate children, had boarded her out with a woman in Elgin, promising to pay for her upkeep, but she had then disappeared and responsibility for maintaining the child had fallen on the parochial board. 23

  More controversially, children were removed from the jurisdiction of parents or guardians who were deemed unsuitable, neglectful, abusive or unable to control their charges. Like his fellow emigrationists, Quarrier was a firm believer in putting the Atlantic between his recruits and the corrupting backgrounds from which they had often been rescued. In December 1887 Miss Don-aldson, a Bible woman in Inverness, secured the removal of two nine-year-old illegitimate children to Quarrier’s. Bella was removed from the custody of a woman in the town who was allegedly keeping her for immoral purposes, while John was handed over after he had begged the Inverness police authorities to give him a chance in life by sending him away from home. Both children were sent to Canada in 1888, though John returned to Inverness in 1894. 24 In 1889 George (five), also illegitimate, was sent to Quarrier’s at the behest of the minister in Kinellar, Aberdeenshire. Since his mother’s marriage the child had been subjected to ‘constant and cruel maltreatment at the hand of the stepfather’, while the mother, who had just given birth to twins, could not cope with the elder child and willingly saw George sent to Canada in 1892. 25 Among children who had got beyond the control of their parents was Thomas (eleven), a pupil at Kelso Industrial School, who, having been ‘keeping bad company’, had been convicted of stealing a box of sweets and sentenced to a birching. He was admitted in 1885 at the behest of his mother, who was ‘quite decided that Canada is the right place for him’. 26 Three years later David (thirteen), from Stirling, also had his emigration papers signed by his widowed mother, because ‘he has been behaving very badly, neglecting school, leading his brother and other boys into mischief … chews and smokes and … needs to be where he will be forced to behave ’. 27 Robert (fourteen) was removed from the care of his widowed mother in Dysart, Fife, in 1908 because he had ‘got beyond control and would not attend school’, and in 1909 another Robert (eleven) was removed from the care of his mother in Glenprosen, Angus, on the grounds that he had caused her ‘a good deal of trouble recently, and she is totally unfit to manage him’. Both boys were sent to Canada, in 1911 and 1913 respectively. 28 And four children were removed from Aberdeen to Quarrier’s in 1909 at the behest of a city missionary on the grounds of the mother’s neglect, and the complaint of an aunt that ‘the children have literally been in starvation, sometimes picking things off the street and eating them. They look very much neglected.’ All four were subsequently sent to Canada between 1911 and 1916, and were forbidden to correspond with their mother because of her extremely bad influence. 29

  Parental alcoholism featured in a number of cases. ‘Andrew has been times without number in Police Offices and from there sent to Poor Houses’, read the report
on an illegitimate boy from Castle Douglas whom the SPCC referred to Quarrier’s in 1892. Two years later he was sent to Canada, in order to remove him from the influence of his mother, who ‘earned a living by singing all over the country’ and had become ‘a wreck through drink and debauchery’. 30 In a somewhat similar case in Dundee, Richard (thirteen) and Jane (six) were taken to Bridge of Weir in 1894 after the courts had given a custody order to Quarrier. Their father, a collier, had died five years earlier and their mother, an alcoholic, had recently been convicted at Dundee for allowing the children to beg and sing on the streets. She had no fixed residence but was accustomed to travelling the country with the children. Although she had remarried, she had left her husband and was now living ‘with some low character of a man in a common lodging-house and they are both living off proceeds of children’s earnings’. Richard died two years after entering the homes but his sister was sent to Canada in 1897. 31 In 1902 two brothers from Elgin were admitted after their father had died of alcoholism and their mother, who was similarly addicted, had been in the poorhouse. The elder boy was sent to Canada in 1907 and the younger in 1909. 32 And the SPCC was involved in the case of John (nine) from Pitsligo, who in 1913 was removed from an unmarried mother who was ‘much given to drink & immorality & lives in squalor & dirt’, being sent on to Canada six years later. 33