Discover Ontario's history as told through its plaques
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Home Children
Photos by contributor Lori Oschefski - Posted May, 2013
Plaque Location
The City of Ottawa
On the north side of Wellington Street
half a block east of Parkdale Avenue
Coordinates: N 45 24.088 W 75 43.657 |
Plaque Text
Beginning in 1869, British charitable societies removed children from slums and orphanages in congested industrial cities and brought them to Canada to serve as cheap farm and domestic labour. "Homes" were set up across the country to house the girls and boys until they were placed in service. Monitoring of the children after placement was superficial, leaving them susceptible to mistreatment. Child emigration was discontinued in the 1930s when the Great Depression created a labour surplus in Canada. By then, up to 100,000 children had been transported. This building, formerly known as St. George's Home, was one of many distribution centres in Ontario.
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Here are the visitors' comments for this page.
> Posted January 11, 2018
Good morning. Just reading the plaques in Ottawa and Stratford re: the Home Children. It's of interest that the Ottawa one says the program was stopped in the 1930's as the Depression created a labour surplus while the Ontario one says the program was stopped in 1939. By the beginning of the war in Canada the Depression was over - finally. If the program stopped as late as 1939 I wonder if the upcoming war - or started war - also had anything to do with it. Anyway just a comment. Thanks
PS my father's parents were Home Children (17 years old - 1901 with the Canadian Catholic Emigration Society.
Gary King Ottawa
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