Just imagine you are Herbert Wren, probably orphaned, perhaps rescued from destitution on the Bristol streets, and have been placed in care, the indignity of it, at the Canadian Home for Girls in Clifton. Despite the school's name, there are five other boys there, but apart from Harry Mitchener, who like you, is eight years old, they are all younger. There are fourteen girls too, aged between fifteen and three. The mistresses might not spare the rod, but you do get fed and clothed, and you have the companionship of other children. Just when you are getting used to it, well intentioned philanthropists decide to try to give you a better life. They tell you that you are being "trained preparatory to emigration" by the Bristol Emigration Society. You are excited, of course, if apprehensive. You have no idea what emigration is, but have learned it's best not to ask too many questions.

When the great day arrives, 28th May 1891, Herbert and sixteen of his fellow pupils, including little Florrie Henbury, aged four, Albert Bashford, 5, and his sister Charlotte, 10, accompanied by a teacher, Miss Quelch, leave England in the ss "Vancouver", Canada bound!

Another seventeen Bristol waifs, not all of them orphans, follow on 18th June, and leave Liverpool bound for Quebec in charge of Miss Foster. Their ship, the ss "Lusitania", (which is not to be confused with the famous liner of the same name torpedoed in World War One), likewise meets disaster, wrecked off Cape Race, Newfoundland on 26th June. Three hundred and fifty people are rescued, with no loss of life, a tremendous feat, and the children continue their journey to Nova Scotia in another craft.

Herbert and his friends arrive eventually at Belleville, about 120 miles from Toronto, a centre run by a Scottish born evangelist, Annie McPherson. The youngsters are to be trained at farm schools and then placed with Canadian farmers, the boys as labourers, the girls as mothers' helps. The "Home Children", thus provide cheap labour, and though not all are harshly treated, they are taught to accept they have been abandoned by their families and are extremely lucky to have been taken in. Siblings like the Bashfords are routinely separated. For the majority it means a life of unremitting drudgery and abuse. Most cruel of all, in line with the received thought of the time, their "new start" means they are deprived of all knowledge of their background and history.

The British emigration movement began in 1869 and only finally ceased in 1967. Hundreds, even thousands, of children were involved and despite everything, many survived. The descendants of Canada's "Home Children" now make up 11% of the country's current population.

I have not been able to discover what became of Herbert Wren and the others. If you descend from one of the "Home Children" especially one with Bristol origins, please get in touch.