Courtesy of Dianne Cosway
In 2018 the Canadian government recognized the contributions of the over 100,000 Home Children to Canadian society by proclaiming September 28th British Home Child Day, These waifs, orphans and children from impoverished families were sent to Canada as indentured farm workers or domestic help between 1869 and 1939.
Marg Graham and Dianne Cosway with their British Home Child display
On September 24, 2024 Marg Graham (left) and Dianne Cosway (right) mounted an informative display at the public library in Brighton, Ontario about the Home Children. Each has a Home Child ancestor.
Courtesy of Marg Graham
Dianne’s father-in-law, left as an infant on a street corner, was taken into care and given the name of the two streets where he was found: Stafford Cosway. At the age of twelve, in July 1921, he came to Canada as a Home Child aboard the S.S. Minnedosa. His second placement was at a farm near Madoc, Ontario. He made a life in Canada, married and had three sons. However, he died in 1999, never knowing his parents or siblings. Dianne is trying to piece together the rest of his story through the use of DNA.
At the age of two, nobody claimed Marg’s grandmother, Mary Mortimer, after her mother died. She was taken in by a local dressmaker until there was room at Barnardo’s Barkingside cottages where she was given the number 2818. Mary sailed from Liverpool to Quebec City with other Home Children and travelled by train to Barnardo’s Hazelbrae Home in Peterborough. She was placed in 11 different homes until she married and started a family of her own. The youngest of her 12 children was born when she was 48. Marg has her grandmother’s trunk and is keeping her memory alive by doing presentations about the British Home Children .
Congratulations to Dianne and Marg on a great evening.