Underage “Builders of Great Britain”: Child Migration in the British Empire

. The article is devoted to British child migration in the 19 th – first half of the 20 th century. The reasons, conditions for moving, the importance attached to the resettlement of young people on the periphery of the British world are investigated. It is shown that philanthropic, socio-economic factors as well as imperialist, national, and racial reasons influenced migration policy. The emphasis changed over time. Until the middle of the 19 th century the resettlement was caused by a desire to help poor children or to deport unnecessary and dangerous residents from the metropolis; in the second half of the 19 th century migrants began to be seen as an instrument of imperial policy. Migration was consistent with the doctrine of social imperialism. It made it possible to solve the social problems of the metropolis, relieved tension in society that were associated with mass unemployment, and opened up new opportunities for the economic growth of the entire Empire. The youth made up for the shortage of labor resources in the dominions, cultivated undeveloped lands, spread European values and technologies, consolidated disparate residents into single Great Britain with its global British identity. The resettlement of minors from dirty and cramped cities to rural areas was believed to offer an opportunity to preserve a healthy generation and the strength of the Anglo-Saxon nation. In the countries of the southern hemisphere, migrants from Albion were seen as defenders of the white race and European civilization. That is why in the late 19 th century, the requirements for resettlement were tightened, allowing only the “proper” type of migrant according to racial, social, physiological, and mental criteria. Many migrants achieved success in their new homeland, but some of them faced cruelty, exploitation, and social ostracism. It is concluded that the idea of Great Britain as a global community turned out to be untenable after the Second World War. Imperial goals increasingly contradicted national objectives, which led to the cessation of child migration. Deprived of their homeland and ties with their relatives, unable to adapt to new places, child migrants who turned into adults become an embarrassing reminder of the “dark page” of the imperial past.


Introduction
The apogee of might of the British Empire falls on the late 19 thearly 20 th century.It was the time of the main wave of child migration, which was assigned an important role in maintaining, expanding, and strengthening ties within the Commonwealth.Children and adolescents from 3 to 14 years old began to be sent outside the mother country in the 17 th century, but the long story of resettlement ended only in 1967.According to the official data, more than 150 thousand minors were resettled during that time, of them, 100 thousand to Canada and 50 thousand to Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand.1 Every tenth inhabitant of present-day Canada is a descendant of those children.While at its initial stage child migration was based on the deportation of the surplus population and juvenile delinquents or salvation from poverty, from the second half of the 19 th century, boys and girls settling throughout Greater Britain began to be treated as an important imperial asset, an instrument for implementation of the world imperialism. 2he topic of child migration was a "closed page" in English history despite its importance for the entire British world and the availability of a wide range of sources.The narratives of the migration organizers and the politicians who supported them as well as press reports mainly presented a "convenient" for everyone opinion about happy changes in the destinies of boys and girls in their new homeland. 3Only occasionally did information about the facts of violence against children, their lack of rights, and exploitation in a foreign country leaked out to the reports of government inspectors and newspapers. 4esearch О.V. Yablonskaya.Underage "Builders of Great Britain": Child Migration in the British Empire Historia Provinciae -the Journal of Regional History, 2023, vol.7, no. 3 ISSN 2587-8344 (online) 892 The first studies on this topic appeared in Canada.In 1979, P. Harrison"s book The Home Children.Their Personal Stories was published.Based on documents from archives and shelters, it tells the story of the tragic fate of young immigrants from the parent country. 5The monograph by J. Parr Labouring Children.British Immigrant Apprentices to Canada, 1869-1924 was published a year later. 6In 1987, Canadian TV presenter and journalist K. Bagnell published a book about English orphans. 7In the same year, scandalous investigations by М. Humphreys about children"s emigration to Australia were published in the UK.In 1989, the documentary Lost Children of the Empire and the book of the same title by P. Bean and J. Melville were released. 8In 1994, M. Humphreys published Empty Cradles, her work of many years. 9In 1998-99, British and Australian parliamentary committees published investigative reports confirming the sad story of migration and adding some detail to it. 10At the beginning of the 21 st century, E. Boucher"s monograph Empire's Children appeared.It analyzes the underage resettlement in the scope of the whole British world and its role in solving socio-economic and political problems of the empire. 11he scientific novelty of this article consists in an attempt to show how the factors of child migration changed over time, to compare conditions and reasons for resettlement in various dominions of the empire, and to consider how children"s needs, imperial goals, and the needs of its transoceanic outskirts coordinated.

Main body
There was no unambiguous assessment of the resettlement of minors without parents both during its implementation and now.Commenting on the caricature "Our "Gutter children"", drawn in response to the beginning of the mass transporting of orphans to Canada in 1869, G. Cruikshank indignantly asked: "Has "Glorious Old England come at last to such a state as this?!!! that she is to transport some of her innocent little girls, like transporting her criminals?. . . to be white slaves!"On the other hand, he was forced to admit that a huge number of "innocent creatures" grew up to pauperism and crime in Britain.12 "Our "Gutter children"", caricature by G. Cruikshank Source: The National Archives, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/childmigration/child-migration-source-1a/ The parent country could not cope with the ever-growing army of the poor, where every third person was a minor.The workhouses were overcrowded and living conditions there were not much better than those in the street.They were rightly called nurseries for Newgate Prison.The philanthropic desire to save poor and abandoned children from poverty, beggary, theft, and prostitution and send them to live in the colonies, where they would work in farm fields or would be house servants, seemed a good prospect.Making the choice in favor of migration and justifying it appeared to be easy.In most cases, the children who lived in the institutions run by charitable organizations were already separated from their families, which is why their resettlement to the periphery of the empire did not seem such a decisive step back then as it seems to us now.
For the first two centuries, overseas settlement served as an alternative to imprisonment.In the 1830s, E. Brenton"s Children"s Friend Society helped 1,300 minors (some of whom were criminals or "troubled adolescents") to leave for South Africa.But due to the dissatisfaction of the colonists, offenders were no longer sent into exile, and soon the society terminated its activities because of the revealed facts of child abuse in Africa and Brenton"s death. 13In the 1840s-50s, only separate groups of young people were transported to Australia and America.Child migration acquired mass and organized character in 1869, when M. Rye began to send girls from overcrowded English workhouses to Canada.By 1896, more than 4,000 children had been resettled by her efforts. 14Rye"s example was followed by A. Macpherson and her sister L. Birt, who sent more than 14,500 children to Canada, and J. Middlemore, who took 5,000 children to Canada.The Fairbridge Society, which appeared in 1911, resettled 3,000 children to farm schools in Australia. 15The largest was the organization founded by T. Barnardo, which ensured the emigration to Canada of more than 20 thousand boys and girls. 16At the end of the 19 th century, there were about 50 migration agencies in the UK.
E. Brenton, M. Rye, A. Macpherson, T. Barnardo, and K. Fairbridge sincerely believed that moving to new countries would benefit disadvantaged children and allow them to achieve success in life. 17For еру island Britons, the overseas rural empire represented more than a throwback to the bygone era.It represented an alternative modernity without class hierarchy and social problems rooted in the parent country, but with massive opportunities for education, where social and technological progress did not lead to the impoverishment of the poor.The common man"s success in the dominions was demonstrated in the 1908 brochure Dr. Barnardo's Homes, which presented readers with a parade of 20,000 migrant children.Without a penny in their pockets in the parent country, these boys and girls had massive opportunities to rise in the social scale in Canada.Doctors, lawyers and employees who had put a lot of effort into education and high qualifications led the procession of success in the brochure.They were followed by rigid and muscular railroad workers and men who After attending a meeting of the unemployed in the East End of London, he said: In order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods. . . 22e migration ideology also acquired a pronounced social imperialist aspect.It began to be viewed as a way to deal with a wide range of problems, from urban slums to class war. 23The opinion that by providing the poor with an opportunity to create a better life through labor in a new country, migration saves the empire from revolutionary upheavals was expressed by the Prince of Wales in 1930s, a difficult period for the world economy; the Prince specifically supported the idea of underage 22  resettlement. 24The Empire Settlement Acts of 1922 and 1933 allowed the British government to channel funds to charities in support of their resettlement work. 25hus, in the 20 th century, child migration became an officially sanctioned instrument of imperial politics, "the imperialism of the world."During the Victorian era, the concept of the natural wealth of the colonies, the boundless fertility of their lands, and little human settlement was formed.This, first of all, applied to Canada that was not too far away.Barnardo wrote that Canada, which was the size of Europe, had the population of London. 26The dominion "from sea to sea" suffered a serious shortage of labor resources, especially in rural areas.The problem was caused not only by low demographics but also by a high level of urbanization under the conditions of industrialization.The proportion of rural residents in Canada fell from 80% in 1871 to 50% in 1921. 27lling corn, 1912 Source: J. Parr, Labouring Children: British Immigrant Apprentices to Canada, 1869-1924, color insert Adult migration was not very suitable for meeting the demand for labor resources.In urbanized England, the older generation did not know rural labor and did not want to be engaged in farming; therefore, when moving to Canada, its representatives preferred to settle in cities and get scarce jobs in factories and plants rather than Research О.V. Yablonskaya.Underage "Builders of Great Britain": Child Migration in the British Empire Historia Provinciae -the Journal of Regional History, 2023, vol.7, no. 3 ISSN 2587-8344 (online) 898 develop rural wastelands.Working population advocates on both sides of the ocean were also against adult migration: the British declared that normal conditions should be created for workers in their native country,28 and the locals rightly accused the migrants of away work from the residents of the dominion and preventing trade unions from fighting for higher wages. 29In addition, farm work was seasonal, and due to mechanization of agriculture, the need for muscular strength of an adult worker was reduced.Under the conditions when adolescents degraded in dirt and crime in the slums of British metropolitan areas while the periphery of the empire suffered a lack of farmers to perform simple work, the solution to the problem suggested itself.It was to satisfy the "human hunger" of the sparsely populated territories of the colonies with the help of "surplus young British."Children are accommodating and plastic, they easily get used to a new place, to introduce them to rural work is easier than adults.With the right approach, they promised to bring new life to the farmlands of the empire.

Research
Historia Provinciae -the Journal of Regional History, 2023, vol.7, no. 3 ISSN 2587-8344 (online) 899 up, the boys would become farmers themselves, and the girls would become farmers" wives. 30y, aged 13, sawing wood, Marchmont, Ontario, 1894 Source: J. Parr, Labouring Children: British Immigrant Apprentices to Canada, 1869-1924, color insert As a result, the "miserable" boys and girls who were cultivating new acres of soil across the ocean with the "English plow," expanding the borders of the empire without the use of force, came to be considered important builders of Greater Britain.Urging members of parliament to support his project for the child resettlement to Australia, Fairbridge bluntly said that that was an imperial investment rather than charity. 31His words were echoed in 1934 by the Prince of Wales urging citizens to support farmer schools and spread them throughout the British world. 32conomic ties were not the only thing that the parliamentarians and public figures sought to strengthen.The status of Britain as an imperial nation set the task of uniting the scattered inhabitants into a single world headed by the sovereign.It was underage migrants who could help create Greater Britain with a global identity.For children, there are no interethnic boundaries, the ethnicity fluidity allowed them to be members of overlapping communities, being English, Australian, and Canadian at the same time.Moving to distant lands, they did not forget their country and remained faithful to the Crown.A party of boys sent to Canada by The Church of England Waifs and Strays Society were described as "more links" of empire unity "fresh from the forge". 33n the early 20 th century, migrant children were entrusted with the task of maintaining the strength and health of the British nation.The results of medical supervision revealed the weakening of physical and intellectual condition of the islands" inhabitants.The Boer War showed poor preparedness of recruits, which confirmed the idea of widespread deterioration in the health of the nation.Ch.Masterman, a member of the Liberal Party, characterized his contemporaries and countrymen as follows: The physical change is the result of the city up-bringing in twice-breathed air in the crowded quarters of the labouring classes . . .Characteristic physical type of town dweller: stunted, narrow-chested, easily wearied; yet voluble, excitable, with little ballast, stamina, or endurance seeking stimulus in drink, in betting, in any unaccustomed conflicts. . . 34 associated the reasons for those changes with the living conditions for workers who, like huge herds of human beings, were driven into small areas from which nature was excluded; there they lived, reproduced, and died, breathing the "twicebreathed" air of cities, working in stuffy rooms, and exhausting themselves with toil. 35he opinion of liberal Ch.Masterman was shared by conservative J. Gorst.He argued that every child should grow up to be a healthy man or woman in order to be strength rather than burden for the nation, but the living conditions of the working classes, which mainly ensured the replenishment of the country"s population, did not allow them to have healthy offspring.He called all children regardless of their social background a national treasure that should be taken care of not only by their parents and charitable organizations but also by the state.In his opinion, the fact that the government officials saw them starving discredited the entire system of government and harmed the national interest.The politician dedicated his work The Children of the Nation to the members of the House of Commons from the Labor Party as a sign of faith that they sincerely wanted to improve the situation of the common people and children in the first place. 36So, in matters of public health, representatives of the leading English parties were united.
With the growing overpopulation of cities, life there was becoming more and more unhealthy, and the countryside seemed to be the focus of civic and moral virtues.As 33 Constantine, "Child Migration." 34Masterman, Realities at Home, 8. 35 Masterman, Realities at Home, 23-24.early as in the first half of the 19 th century, observing the degradation of children in British megalopolises and seeing no opportunity to help most of them within the islands, E. Brenton convinced the public that the problem could be solved only by resettlement. 37By the beginning of the 20 th century, the situation had become worse, and emigration seemed the easiest and most reliable way out.Ch.Masterman wrote: A population of a millionlarger than the total white population of South Africais living in London at the present time illegally overcrowded. 38e British world was to consist of physically healthy and morally perfect citizens.However, those who were sent to build the "imperial paradise" were not always people of the "highest grade," and frequently, even the worst of them were sent to the colonies.In his 1875 report, inspector Doyle wrote that most of the children who had been brought to Canada belonged to the lowest class of semi-criminal residents of large cities and villages. 39he "children"s rescuers" argued that heredity was not fate, and a favorable environment neutralizes the consequences of a "corrupted origin" with a good upbringing, In order to put their wards on the path of transformation, E. Brenton, M. Rye, T. Barnando, and K. Fairbridge tried to protect them from urban hotbeds of moral infection.Therefore, as it was mentioned above, they preferred to settle them on farms because they were sure that a healthy country life and constant work would strengthen young bodies and endow the poor children with British character and discipline. 40In particular, such attitudes did not allow Barnardo to accede to A. Milner"s request to populate South Africa.Barnardo"s son Stuart, who went there for reconnaissance in 1902, came to the conclusion that unlike Canada, South Africa was not an agricultural country, there was enough cheap labor there, and only Kaffirs could do honest manual labor.Due to the color of their skin and British origin, children immediately found themselves at the top of the social pyramid upon arrival in the colony.Having no need to work and fight for their position, most migrant children would degrade morally. 41anada was considered the best place for an unfortunate British child.Writers and journalists were generous with colorful descriptions of the generous nature of the American dominion with its endless hilly plains, vast forests, picturesque mountain landscapes, endless wheat fields, deep lakes, and full-flowing rivers. 42 emigration assured that the air of the prairies and fields of that country had an antiseptic property.Barnardo argued that although Canada had all the bacteria of moral illness, the environment was unfavorable for them to spread.Letters from migrants and local residents thanking for the little hardworking helpers from the parent country confirmed the beneficial influence of the environment on children. 43airbridge found Australia"s environment exhausting but believed the country to be ideal for imperial pioneers.According to Fairbridge, it was by overcoming obstacles that children could form laboriousness, discipline, and perseverance. 44hus, the overseas rural empire became something more than a rescue from poverty and "redeeming space."It turned into a kind of incubator of physically strong, healthy, hardworking citizens devoted to the sovereign.In the minds of the parent country"s idealists, underage migrants, whose ethnic and spiritual core was Anglo-Saxonism, developed the best qualities and revealed the full potential of their nation when developing new territories.Having moved across the ocean from the unhealthy environment of metropolitan cities, poor children and orphans, who were physically weak, uneducated, and often delinquent, embarked on the path of an honest and conscientious life and achieved success, thereby refuting the arguments of social Darwinists and being a living proof of the enduring power of the British nation.
Of course, not all the troubled children of Great Britain were transformed in the new lands.For many young imitators of Fagin 45 the move was only a change of country and climate, as in their new homeland they did not give up their criminal inclinations.J. Moylan, Inspector of Canadian Prisons, noted that, with rare exceptions, those street Arabs from the English dens of vice quickly returned to their old habits upon arrival in Canada.Immigrant children were suspected of transmitting infections, and accusations of spreading syphilis sounded especially dangerous.Canadian psychiatrist C. Clarke argued that such adolescents often carried signs of physical and mental degeneration, which was dangerous for the future of the country: a juvenile delinquent there, a crazy person in the future. 46The local dissatisfaction with the "quality" of British youth resulted in the introduction of strict screening of the new arrivals for diseases and vicious propensities. 47In 1928, based on its own national objectives, Canada finally banned the resettlement of children under the age of 14 without parents.After that, the British migration agencies turned their attention to Rhodesia, Australia and New Zealand.The theories of social imperialism included ideas of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon nation and its culture.C. Rhodes openly stated that he saw the meaning of his life in expanding the influence of the British, the superior race. 48Racism was especially cultivated in the countries of the southern hemisphere where workers were required not as much as the defenders of "whiteness." Australia, a tiny "blank spot" in the populous Asian region, began to restrict the immigration of "non-whites" in the 1850s, and by the beginning of the 20 th century, it had become an exemplary racist country.In the 1930s, "the green continent" became the main destination for child resettlement, and it was the place where Fairbridge farms were established."Populate or perish" became the slogan of immigration policy.In order to increase the white population of the continent and to help the orphaned "children of the war," Immigration Minister A. Calwell proposed to bring 50 thousand orphans from Europe within three years in August 1945.Leading parliamentary parties supported that proposal. 49 Despite the great need for migrants, Australian officials, relying on new knowledge in the field of psychology as well as IQ testing methods, set higher entry requirements for children than their Canadian colleagues.Only those who were fit for the protection of the "white race" were expected in the country, which is why the entry of any child who had physical disabilities or a contagious disease Research О.V. Yablonskaya.Underage "Builders of Great Britain": Child Migration in the British Empire Historia Provinciae -the Journal of Regional History, 2023, vol.7, no. 3 ISSN 2587-8344 (online) 906 considered humiliating.Being white there meant prestige, character, and power.It was not an innate state of being but a culture that needed protection. 51In order to fulfill the imperial task and protect the racial hierarchy, migrant children had to meet very high ethnic, class, and intellectual requirements, which by no means were met by all "relatives and friends" among the kingdom"s residents.The poor were not expected there, since they were doomed to do "dirty work," and therefore, sink to the level of the natives, forgetting that they were representatives of the "superior race."The descendants of the poor were unwanted there too.In Rhodesia, boys or girls born into poverty were seen as "crippled by poverty," "white only on the outside" but with a "savage" mentality, and therefore their ability to become worthy members of the white society was questioned.Children had to pass a literacy test in one of the European languages.The conditions were so harsh that out of 2,000 candidates for resettlement in 1925, only 80 were successfully tested. 52Having gone through the complex system of selection, underage migrants found themselves in Rhodesia in better conditions than in other countries.They were educated, trained in colonial leadership, and destined to become office workers rather than farm workers. 53igrants rightfully became the elite of African society, distanced from the indigenous population and able to protect the best British traditions.
Growing anxiety over the fitness of migrant children on the outskirts of the empire weakened faith in the global unity of the British race and demonstrated the growing tension between the imperial goals and the national aspirations.The idea of Greater Britain as a global community united by blood, culture, traditions, and common interests managed to survive the Second World War, when the common disaster consolidated the British world.But the events of the second half of the 20 th century showed that the imperial ideal of pan-Britishness as well as the status of the world empire was lost.
The collapse of the empire had a tragic effect on the fate of many children, especially those who had moved to another country not very long before.They lost their homeland and ties with loved ones but did not have enough time to assimilate in new lands.According to the Children Act of 1948, the government was required to properly supervise charities that took care of migrant children. 54In practice, after they had left the shores of Albion, no effort was made to check the conditions of their existence. 55In 1948, a letter from the members of the British Federation of Social Workers was published in The Times.It recommended establishing an intergovernmental commission to study the system of guardianship and control of disadvantaged children living in the Commonwealth. 56That was caused by the complaints of еmigrants. 57But the British government did not react because the fate of British children in the territories of the former colonies began to be considered as the problem of another country.

Conclusion
The reasons for underage migration from Great Britain, which peaked in the late 19 thearly 20 th century, were associated with poverty and inability of the parent country to cope with the armies of homeless children that accumulated in the cities.Resettlement to other countries saved children from hunger, disease, and crime, gave them a chance to improve their social status in their new homeland, and freed England from unnecessary expenses for the maintenance of the poor and orphans.
The doctrine of social imperialism identified British national interests with imperial tasks and considered overseas possessions to be a means of solving pressing social problems by strengthening the economy on the periphery and strengthening integration.Under the conditions of unemployment, resettlement of the "surplus residents" of the British Isles removed social tension and offered an opportunity to avoid destructive revolutionary upheavals.
Sending young people abroad was presented as the program to build Greater Britain.In Canada and Australia, there was a strong demand for farm workers, and immigrants filled this shortage of labor resources.With proper education based on rural labor in clean environment, underage migrants promised not only to make the fertile wastelands of the empire prosper but also to preserve the strength and health of the British nation.They were the conductors of the Anglo-Saxon culture in the overseas possessions of the empire and maintained a lively connection between the outskirts of the British world and the parent country.
In the countries of the southern hemisphere, British children were seen as an instrument for maintaining racial balance and defenders of "whiteness" and the Anglo-Saxon civilization.To keep out the settlers whose poverty or personal qualities called into question their ability to defend the authority of the British community, only the right type of migrant was admitted there.
Having become an instrument of imperial policy, child migration was a matter not only of philanthropists but also of the governments of the parent country and dominions in the early 20 th century.But despite state participation, the fates of many 55 Humphreys, Empty Cradles, 353. 56"Emigration of Children," The Times, March 24, 1948, 5. 57 Humphreys, Empty Cradles, 354-55.

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48t neither the United Kingdom nor entire Europe could provide Australia with such a large number of immigrants.48TheLast Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes: With Elucidatory Notes to which are Added Some Chapters Describing the Political and Religious Ideas of the Testator, ed.W.T. Stead (London: "Review of Reviews" Office, 1902), 58-59.