Annie Macpherson, a Scottish evangelical Quaker, was educated in Glasgow and London. Appalled by the poverty in London’s East End, she set up several missions to provide meals and classes for children, and eventually opened the Home of Industry in Spitalfields, where she offered food, shelter, religious education and skills training to orphans and street waifs.
With the support of the British and Canadian governments, she organized a child emigraton scheme. In 1869, she sent the first group of children to Canada to work as farm labourers or domestic help. Macpherson established Distributing Homes in Belleville, Galt (now Cambridge) and Stratford, Ontario, and Knowlton, Quebec. For decades–even after her death in 1904–her organization continued to send children to Canada in hopes of a better life.
What is Annie Macpherson’s connection to Sarah Phillips, a servant orphaned by cholera in London in 1869? Discover their stories in Finding Home, the recently published novel by Gordon and Allen.
