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19th January 16, 08:06 AM
#1
Ballads for child migrants
Adults who were forced to emigrate often left loved ones who remembered them. But children, mainly orphans, had no-one. "They didn't tell us we were not coming back". These new ballads are an attempt to provide a memorial. They will be featured in the upcoming Celtic Connections.*
http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2015/10/t...hild-migrants/
Alan
*http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/whats-o...-child-7146967
Last edited by neloon; 19th January 16 at 11:34 AM.
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19th January 16, 10:56 AM
#2
The Australian Government paid for people to come back to the UK to visit family.
Purely by chance I happened to find out that three people would be visiting England, and when I asked where they would be staying it was about ten minutes walk from here, and that includes crossing a busy road.
I was invited to call on them, and met the two sisters and their brother.
I had the impression that they had done fairly well - they had married and found homes, but their sorrow was heartbreaking.
Their father remarried after the death of their mother and without telling any of the family he sent them to an orphanage and then agreed to them being sent to Australia. There was a lot they did not tell me about their reception there.
Anne the Pleater :ootd:
I presume to dictate to no man what he shall eat or drink or wherewithal he shall be clothed."
-- The Hon. Stuart Ruaidri Erskine, The Kilt & How to Wear It, 1901.
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20th January 16, 12:02 AM
#3
Great grandmother (x 5) was a seven year old indentured servant coming alone to the Americas. I cannot even imagine.
JMB
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20th January 16, 05:51 AM
#4
sad...intriguing...
"We are all connected...to each other, biologically; to the earth, chemically; to the universe, atomically...and that makes me smile." - Neil deGrasse Tyson
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21st January 16, 09:43 AM
#5
I remember reading a report sent by some far flung servant of the British Empire, something on the lines -
Although there are shortages and prices are increasing the famine has not yet taken hold in this province to any great extent, the poorer families are not yet selling their children.
It was explained that by selling their children they hoped to keep them alive, as they could not keep them at home and feed them. By finding someone who was rich enough to buy a child the parents hoped that they would have the means to feed them, and the incentive of the price paid to actually do so.
Your ancestral indentured servant could have been in the same situation, sent away in the hope of a better future than the one she could have had at home.
Anne the Pleater :ootd:
I presume to dictate to no man what he shall eat or drink or wherewithal he shall be clothed."
-- The Hon. Stuart Ruaidri Erskine, The Kilt & How to Wear It, 1901.
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22nd January 16, 05:51 PM
#6
Thanks for posting this. Have listened to several; good article. My Irish great grandmother was transported with her mother and younger brother after the death of her father. As often happened on coffin ships, her mother died en route, leaving the children to
fend for themselves. Compared to some, at 14 she had a better shot. She was put on an orphan train with her 10 year old brother and sent west. She was shoved off with nothing in western Pennsylvania, not even her little brother, who we hope found something somewhere. Who knows? No records.
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