ERIN – The book begins, “I’ve never lived in Erin Township, but I do feel completely at home there. I love to meander the side roads, finding a kind of spiritual asana that eases the urban angst from my mind and body, filling me up with lingering peaceful vibrations.”
Carol Maire Newall’s historic novel, Outside the Gate: The True Story of a British Home Child in Canada, documents the life of Newall’s grandmother, Winnifred Jane (Cooper) Gordon, best known as “Winnie.”
In 1911, at age 15, Winnie was forced to migrate without her family from England to a farm near Hillsburgh in former Erin Township.
One hundred years later, in 2011, Newall found out she would be inheriting a box of Winnie’s letters, photos, documents and other memorabilia.
Receiving the box came with a sense of duty for Newall – she had been given a story that she needed to tell.
“I felt responsible because she had bequeathed this box to me,” said Newall.
The contents offered clues and sparked questions about Winnie’s life, inspiring Newall on a ten-year journey to find answers.
“There wasn’t really anything in it to tell me the story, but there were places to start,” she said.
Winnie was one of thousands of children Britain sent abroad between 1869 and 1939, to address its overpopulation problem.
Prior to relocation they lived in children’s homes in Britain.
Newall said some children in these homes had been removed from their families because they were homeless or in workhouses. Others were temporarily surrendered by families who needed a break due to sickness.
“They were often lied to when they were sent away,” Newall said.
“They were told that their parents were dead – that they had no family – when this wasn’t necessarily the case.
“But my grandmother Winnie, she was at an age that she knew her mother was still living, and she couldn’t be fooled that way.”
Newall said about ten per cent of Canadians are descended from British home children, but “many of these families don’t know that they have a home child in their family because there was such an embarrassment and a shame associated with being a home child, never mind being one that was basically deported.
“They didn’t want to remember. They were treated so badly when they came to Canada. They were treated as a commodity,” said Newall.
She noted many of the children were neglected and abused, with a significant number of the girls becoming pregnant.
“They were obviously victimized by the farmers, the farmers’ sons, the farmers’ neighbours,” she said.
But many other children, including Newall’s grandmother, were treated well.
Newall said Winnie “didn’t have that kind of really horrible experience in Canada from everything that I could find; she was well treated. And I wanted to tell that story.
“A story that was more of a happy story as opposed to some of the ones that were really quite tragic.”
Newall portrays her grandmother as she remembers her.
“She was cheerful, she was funny, and she was very hardworking, and she was affectionate. But, she had some faults,” said Newall, “she made mistakes.
“Being raised the way she was – to be a dutiful servant – these children were never encouraged to set goals or figure out what they were going to do once they were 18, they were just sort of tossed out there.”
Newall encourages others to document the stories in their own families.
“I think it’s just wonderful for people to be able to share their history,” she said.“Everybody. Every family has got a story.”
For more information on the book and British child migration visit https://carolnewall.com.
