Forgotten Children

In 1959 David Hill's mother - a poor single parent living in Sussex - reluctantly decided to send her sons to Fairbridge Farm School in Australia where, she was led to believe, they would have a good education and a better life. David was lucky - his mother was able to follow him out to Australia - but for most children, the reality was shockingly different. From 1938 to 1974 thousands of parents were persuaded to sign over legal guardianship of their children to Fairbridge to solve the problem of child poverty in Britain while populating the colony. Now many of those children have decided to speak out. Physical and sexual abuse was not uncommon. Loneliness was rife. Food was often inedible. The standard of education was appalling. Here, for the first time, is the story of the lives of the Fairbridge children, from the bizarre luxury of the voyage out to Australia to the harsh reality of the first days there; from the crushing daily routine to stolen moments of freedom and the struggle that defined life after leaving the school. This remarkable book is both a tribute to the children who were betrayed by an ideal that went terribly awry and a fascinating account of an extraordinary episode in British history.

'The history of childhood is an area so full of errors, distortion and misinterpretation that I thought it vital, if progress were to be made, to supply a clear review of the information on childhood contained in such sources as diaries and autobiographies.' Dr Pollock's statement in her Preface will startle readers who have not questioned the validity of recent theories on the evolution of childhood and the treatment of children, theories which see a movement from a situation where the concept of childhood was almost absent, and children were cruelly treated, to our present western recognition that children are different and should be treated with love and affection. Linda examines this thesis particularly through the close and careful analysis of some hundreds of English and American primary sources. Through these sources, she has been able to reconstruct, probably for the first time, a genuine picture of childhood in the past, and it is a much more humane and optimistic picture than the current stereotype. Her book contains a mass of novel and original material on child-rearing practices and the relations of parents and children, and sets this in the wider framework of developmental psychology, socio-biology and social anthropology. Forgotten Children admirably fulfils the aim of its author. In the face of this scholarly and elegant account of the continuity of parental care, few will now be able to argue for dramatic transformations in the twentieth century.

The Home for Unwanted Girls meets Orphan Train in this unforgettable novel about a young girl caught in a scheme to rid England’s streets of destitute children, and the lengths she will go to find her way home—based on the true story of the British Home Children. 2018 At ninety-seven years old, Winnifred Ellis knows she doesn’t have much time left, and it is almost a relief to realize that once she is gone, the truth about her shameful past will die with her. But when her great-grandson Jamie, the spitting image of her dear late husband, asks about his family tree, Winnifred can’t lie any longer, even if it means breaking a promise she made so long ago... 1936 Fifteen-year-old Winny has never known a real home. After running away from an abusive stepfather, she falls in with Mary, Jack, and their ragtag group of friends roaming the streets of Liverpool. When the children are caught stealing food, Winny and Mary are left in Dr. Barnardo’s Barkingside Home for Girls, a local home for orphans and forgotten children found in the city’s slums. At Barkingside, Winny learns she will soon join other boys and girls in a faraway place called Canada, where families and better lives await them. But Winny’s hopes are dashed when she is separated from her friends and sent to live with a family that has no use for another daughter. Instead, they have paid for an indentured servant to work on their farm. Faced with this harsh new reality, Winny clings to the belief that she will someday find her friends again. Inspired by true events, The Forgotten Home Child is a moving and heartbreaking novel about place, belonging, and family—the one we make for ourselves and its enduring power to draw us home.

Can a principled man come to terms with the guilt of his sins and save civilization from disaster?

In 1739 Captain Thomas Coram was dismayed at the sight of children dying on the dung heaps of London. These children, mostly foundlings and orphans, were products of a poverty-stricken society where the attitude towards babies born outside of wedlock meant a life of rejection and inferiority. After seventeen years of campaigning, Coram managed to persuade sufficient 'persons of quality and distinction' to support his petition to the king to grant a Royal Charter for the building of the Foundling Hospital in Bloomsbury. Over the next few years, children were brought to the Foundling Hospital for shelter. There they were provided with excellent healthcare and an education fit for their station in life, before apprenticing the boys to learn a trade and the girls to domestic service. This fascinating history of the first children's charity charts the rise of this incredible institution, and examines the attitude towards foundlings as illegitimate children over the years. Reliving the experience through the voices of past members of the hospital, this book is a fascinating social history of one of London's worst cases of poverty.

Abuses by private security forces.

The forgotten children of London are going missing, apparently being sold by their own families. Can she save them before it's too late... Flora Maguire's life is perfect – a beautiful home in Belgravia teeming with servants, a loving husband, and new baby Arthur to enjoy. But when she is invited to tour St Philomena's Children's Hospital in deprived Southwark, she gets a harsh insight into the darker side of Edwardian London. Shocked by the conditions people are living in, she soon uncovers a scandal with a dark heart – children are going missing from the hospital, apparently sold by their own families, and their fate is too awful to imagine. With the police seemingly unable or unwilling to investigate, Flora teams up with the matron of the hospital, Alice Finch, to try to get to the bottom of it. Soon Flora is immersed in the seedy, dangerous underbelly of criminal London, and time is running out to save the children. Will they get to them in time, or was their fate decided the day they were born poor...