Home Children - The Culbert Connection

It’s a tale straight out of a Charles Dickens novel. Thousands of destitute British children of all ages were sent to Canada between 1869 and 1939 to be used as farm labourers and indentured servants. Despite good intentions, the Home Child Movement was a hugely flawed child migration scheme.

British immigrant children from Dr. Barnardo's Homes at landing stage, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.

Credit: Isaac Erb / Library and Archives Canada / PA-041785

About two per cent of these children were orphans but the majority were from families who had fallen on hard times. Some of the parents were told it was a temporary arrangement. Sadly, their children never returned home. Parents were told that their children were leaving the bleakness of their impoverished lives in England for a better life in Canada. However, when they arrived, it was clear they were here to work. The children were considered as nothing more than a cheap source of labour.

 

Some of the luckier children were placed in good homes but many were mistreated. Countless children were abused both physically and sexually; they were given little food, forced to eat apart from their host families, and they slept in barns.

Did you know that a descendant of John Culbert and Mary Ward married a man who’d been a Home Child? I discovered this while I was researching the descendants of Eliza (Culbert) Dagg, the daughter of John Culbert and Mary Ward.

Eliza Culbert (1829-1914) and her husband, Richard Dagg.

Eliza Culbert and Richard Dagg had a daughter, Maria Matilda Dagg (c1863-1930).

Maria Matilda (Dagg) Smith

Maria Matilda Dagg (granddaughter of John Culbert & Mary Ward) married Johnston Smith. Matilda and Johnston had a daughter named Laura Smith. Laura (the great-granddaughter of John Culbert & Mary Ward) was born 1896 in Kincardine, Ontario and later moved with her family to Manitoba.

On 7 August 1919, Laura Smith married Ernest Zachariah Howlett Norman in Winnipeg. Ernest Norman came to Canada from England as a Home Child. 

This photograph was taken on 12 July 1899 by the Bernardo organization, prior to sending Ernest Norman overseas to Canada.

Ernest Norman was born 22 November 1888 in the Swainsthorpe Union House (a workhouse) in Norfolk, England. Workhouses were the last refuge of the poor. 

Boys in a workhouse

In exchange for a flea-bitten mattress on which to sleep and a bit of food, destitute men, women and children were expected to work their fingers to the bone. Men were assigned such physically-demanding tasks as chopping wood and stone-breaking. Stone-breaking required the men to break rocks into small pieces which were later used in the process of road-making. Women were tasked with working in the laundry, and cooking and cleaning. Both sexes were required to pick oakum; a chore that involved using their bare hands to pick apart ship ropes. The fibres were then used to caulk holes in ships. The ropes were coated in tar which caused their fingers to bleed.

Women picking oakum in a workhouse

Poor quality bread and cheese was served to the workhouse inmates, along with skilly, a watery oatmeal soup or gruel that more often than not contained rat droppings.

"Please, sir, I want some more."

Workhouses were little more than prisons where the inmates were free to come and go. Many women took refuge in workhouses to give birth to their illegitimate babies, and perhaps this was the case for Ernest’s mother, a servant girl named Rachel Ann Norman. Rachel is described as “an experienced country girl, unaccustomed to the dangers of a town.”
 

Rachel Norman had two illegitimate children, Herbert and Ernest, by two different men. Ernest Norman, her second child is said to have been fathered by one Albert Mortimer. Both men decamped and nothing was ever heard of them again. 

Ernest Norman and his half-brother, Herbert went to live with Rachel’s mother (their grandmother) but she died. Ernest and Herbert were then left with Rachel’s father (their grandfather). Rachel was struggling to make a living as a servant, and she was suffering from an internal ailment for which she had undergone an operation. Rachel had been sending money to her father for Herbert and Ernest’s upkeep but her father was a drunkard who neglected his grandchildren. Young Ernest was afraid to go home at night so he often slept in the fields. 

Someone in Norfolk stepped in on behalf of Ernest, and wrote to the Home Child programme. So at the age of 11, Ernest was admitted to Barnardo’s, a charity that cared for vulnerable children. 

Ernest’s admission form to Barnardo’s says he was 4 feet tall and weighed 57 pounds.

Ernest was one of thousands of children (boys and girls) sent to Canada. Many of the boys became known as the Barnardo Boys.

A magazine advertisement for Dr. Barnardo's Home, 1899.

A party of Barnardo Boys set sail from Liverpool aboard the Tunisian on 19 July 1900, arriving in Quebec on July 28^th; destination: Toronto, Ontario. From there, Ernest was put on a train to Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Ernest arrived at the Bernardos receiving home in Winnipeg. Before being placed with host families, many boys were sent to Dr. Barnardo’s Russell Manitoba Training Farm, 222 miles northwest of Winnipeg. Here, the boys were trained to plough fields, bale hay, milk cows, make butter, care for livestock, and more.

A boy pushes a plough in a field at Dr. Barnardo's Industrial Farm in Russell, Manitoba around 1900. (Library and Archives Canada/PA-117285)

Ernest Norman married his first wife, Alice Maud Oldrey in 1917 and they had a son in 1918. Alice died 31 March 1919. Left with an infant son, Ernest married Laura Smith (a Culbert descendant) a few months after his first wife died. 

Ernest Norman and his second wife Laura Smith had a daughter, Eileen in 1920. We’ll read more about Eileen soon.

Ernest Norman died 1 July 1922 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. His death is noted with the Canada War Graves Registers. The cause of death was listed as Diabetes, Mellitus & Coma. He had heart trouble which was first noticed when he was overseas in 1916 during the First World War. It’s noted that his death was due to [military] service. Ernest is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Saskatoon.

Ernest’s second wife, Laura (Smith) Norman (a Culbert descendant) remarried to Charles Claud Atkinson. 

Laura died age 48 at Vancouver General Hospital on 7 March 1945. She’s buried in Cloverdale, British Columbia at Surrey Centre Cemetery, Block 204-5.  Her second husband, Charles Atkinson died 1 May 1948 in Vancouver.

Laura (Smith) Norman Atkinson's death notice. Source: Vancouver Sun, 10 March 1945.

About four million Canadians are descendants of British Home Children. One of these four million Canadians is a descendant of John Culbert and Mary Ward. Her name? Eileen McEachern (born Eileen Norman in 1920.)

Eileen (Norman) Atkinson McEachern (the great-great-granddaughter of John Culbert & Mary Ward.) Eileen was the daughter of a Home Child, Ernest Norman and his Culbert descendant wife, Laura Smith.

As mentioned earlier, Ernest Norman and his second wife, Laura Smith (a Culbert descendant) had a daughter, Eileen. Eileen’s father Ernest Norman (a Home Child) died when Eileen was only about two years old. Eileen was raised by her mother, Laura and her step-father, Charles Atkinson.

Eileen married Elmer McEachern and they lived in Langley, British Columbia. 

Eileen McEachern died in 2000 and is buried in St. Oswald’s Anglican Church Cemetery in Port Kells, Surrey, British Columbia. 

Whether or not Eileen McEachern had children, we don’t know. If you know anything about Eileen or any descendants she may have, please contact me at this email address...

Note: Thanks very much to Linda Norman of Victoria, British Columbia on whose Ancestry account I found documents, and a photo of Ernest Norman and his daughter, Eileen (Norman) Atkinson McEachern.

Eileen (Norman) Atkinson McEachern's Family Tree:
Ancestors:
John Culbert & Mary Ward (great-great-grandparents)
Eliza Culbert & Richard Dagg (great-grandparents)
Maria Matilda Dagg & Johnston Smith (grandparents)
Laura Smith & Ernest Zachariah Howlett Norman (a Home Child)