Tag Archives: British colonies

Discovering my grandfather, Robert Roy Greenhorn, a “Home Child” (Part 1)

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Group of boys working in a field at the Philanthropic Society Farm School.By Beth Greenhorn

This article contains historical language and content that some may consider offensive, such as language used to refer to racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. Please see our historical language advisory for more information.

Robert Roy Greenhorn (1879–1962), my paternal grandfather, was among the thousands of children brought to Canada by William Quarrier’s Orphan Homes of Scotland. This made him a “Home Child,” a term I first encountered in 2003, when I began working at Library and Archives Canada (LAC). In fact, it was only in 2012 that I learned that my grandfather and two of his brothers, John and Norval, were Home Children. Eleven years have passed since I discovered this information. During the past summer, I decided that it was time to write about my grandfather’s story.

This is the first of a four-part series about Robert Roy Greenhorn and is a tribute to my grandfather. LAC is publishing this article on November 20 to mark National Child Day in Canada.

Photographic portrait printed on linen of a young man shown from the chest up, wearing a button-down shirt, tie, vest and suit jacket in an oval frame.

Robert Roy Greenhorn, unknown place, early 1900s. Courtesy of the author, Beth Greenhorn.

Like many Canadians, I had never heard the term Home Child and was not taught about Home Children in school. Nor was it ever mentioned by my father or older family members. I finally learned about child migration schemes while doing research for images to accompany an LAC podcast about Home Children in 2012. My curiosity about my grandfather and the circumstances as to why he emigrated to Canada was piqued. Thus began my journey to uncover his story.

From the 1860s to the mid-1900s, more than 100,000 orphaned, homeless and poverty-stricken children in Great Britain were relocated to Canada and other British colonies. They worked as indentured servants for families in rural Canada until they were 18 years of age, mostly as domestic help and farm labourers. The term for the children sent to Canada was Home Children because they went from emigration agency homes in Great Britain to receiving homes in Canada.

Industrialization in 19th-century Britain caused hardship and suffering for hundreds of thousands of people. This period saw a rise in pollution, poverty, slum housing and social inequalities (“The Home Children” by Patrick Stewart, p. 1). Children from poverty-stricken homes were particularly hard hit. A search through headlines of British newspapers during the Victorian era reveals the harsh labels given to children experiencing misfortune: “waifs and strays,” “paupers,” “delinquents” and “street urchins,” to name a few. There were no social welfare systems to care for the increasing numbers of impoverished, neglected and orphaned children. Describing the dire conditions of the working poor in industrial Great Britain, Patricia Roberts-Pichette writes in “About Home Children” (p. 7):

Most home children came from the poorest working-class families who lived in the worst slums of the great industrial cities. Their families were living in or had fallen into abject poverty because of job loss, illness and incapacity or death of the breadwinner. . . . Social activists, church and civic officials viewed them [children] as being in danger of adopting delinquent behaviours just to feed themselves and thus becoming criminals.

Philanthropic, benevolent and religious organizations were convinced that social and economic problems would be managed by removing the children, as Susan Elizabeth Brazeau explains in “They Were But Children: The Immigration of British Home Children to Canada” (p. 1):

The intention of the child migration schemes was to remove children from what were believed to be unhealthy and socially and morally unacceptable living conditions in England, and place them in Canadian homes, farms and families. Here, it was expected the children would learn skills and become productive members of the working class. . . . These children migrants came to be known as “Home Children.”

The British child migrant program thus served a few purposes: to lessen the burden created by destitute children in Great Britain, while increasing the population in the colonies, and providing a cheap source of farm labour.

Postage stamp with a framed sepia photograph of a boy in a long coat with a suitcase, overlaid on a sepia photograph of a boy ploughing a field with two horses. There is a black-and-white photograph of a ship across the bottom of the stamp.

Canadian postage stamp, issued on September 1, 2010, to commemorate Home Children (e011047381).

Quarrier’s Orphan Homes of Scotland was among the many child migration agencies created in the 19th century. Founded by shoemaker and philanthropist William Quarrier (1829–1903), this private organization was responsible for bringing my grandfather and his brothers to Canada. From 1870 to 1938, Quarrier, and later his daughters, relocated more than 7,000 children to Canada, most of whom ended up in Ontario.

Sadly, I never met my paternal grandfather, Robert Roy Greenhorn. He passed away before I was born. My knowledge of him is what I pieced together from some recollections shared by my father, and a few family photographs. My father, the youngest in his family, had a close relationship with his mother, Blanche (née Carr, 1898–1970). As the “baby” of the family, and given the rigidly prescribed gender roles of the era, my father likely spent more time helping his mother and sisters around the house and vegetable gardens than with his father. My grandfather was also 51 years old when my father was born. This difference in age probably added to the lack of connection between the two. Consequently, most of my father’s memories of his childhood were about his mother and siblings, particularly his brother Arnold, who was the closest in age, being just three years older.

Black-and-white photograph of three women crouched in front of five men and a woman standing behind them.

Front row, left to right: Aunt “Jo” (Josephine), Aunt Jean and Aunt Jennie. Back row, left to right: Uncle Roy, Uncle Arnold, my grandfather Robert, my grandmother Blanche, Uncle John, and my father, Ralph, Philipsville, Ontario, 1947. Courtesy of the author, Beth Greenhorn.

I have little information about my grandfather Robert’s childhood. I know that he had two brothers, John and Norval, and that they were all born near Glasgow in Scotland and emigrated to Canada when they were boys. I also know that they came without their parents. I have since learned that they were orphaned when very young. I had always assumed that my grandfather and his brothers travelled together. While researching my grandfather’s story, I learned that Robert and John departed for Canada in March 1889, and Norval arrived five years later, in April 1894.

In an unpublished memoir from 2015, my father shared one of his few memories of my grandfather:

My dad. [He was] a hard worker… that was his forte. Yes, he laughed, and he was a pretty good hockey player so I understand, but I think the easiest way to sum it up was that the environment had really left its scars, and he was living behind that curtain of scars… I wish I’d asked him more questions about his childhood. I would have understood him more.

Initially, Canadians supported juvenile emigration organizations and welcomed the immigrant children. But as Susan Elizabeth Brazeau describes in “They Were But Children” (pp. 5–6), enthusiasm waned after stories began circulating of children running away, attacking their hosts, stealing food, starving, and in one case, dying. Public opinion changed from acceptance to mistrust, and people questioned whether Great Britain was “ridding itself of the lowest of the low: guttersnipes, idiots, the ill, and children with criminal intent.”

I will never know my grandfather Robert’s perceptions or his experiences as an orphan. Given the derogatory labels used to describe children from impoverished backgrounds, I am sure that the stigma and shame attached to being a Home Child did indeed leave a “curtain of scars.” I wanted to learn about my grandfather’s life and what might be buried behind the “curtain.” What happened to the boys’ parents? What were the circumstances causing him and his two brothers to become wards of the Orphan Homes of Scotland?

In the second article in this series, I will continue with Robert Roy Greenhorn’s story. This will take us to his roots in Gartsherrie and Falkirk, Scotland.

Additional resources

Beth Greenhorn is an Online Content Manager in the Outreach and Engagement Branch at Library and Archives Canada.