Our Western Home, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada
'Our Western Home' was the reception and distributing home opened on December 1st, 1869, at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, by Miss Maria Rye, a promoter of the emigration of impoverished and orphan children to Canada.
![Maria Rye.](/PeckhamMissRye/PeckhamMissRye1.jpg)
Maria Rye. © Peter Higginbotham
Emigration was a route much favoured by workhouse authorities and charitable organisations as a means to provide children with a new and hopefully better life, and also creating space in their residential homes for new arrivals. Girls from workhouses were a particularly attractive proposition for Miss Rye as their passage and other costs were paid by the Board of Guardians who put them forward for emigration.
![Our Western Home, Niagara, 1870s.](NiagaraRye1.jpg)
Our Western Home, Niagara, 1870s. © Peter Higginbotham
Miss Rye escorted the children (mostly girls) to Canada herself, usually in a parties of around sixty at a time. On arrival at Niagara, they were transferred to Our Western Home which was a conversion of a former gaol and court house. from there, the older girls were placed in service with local families, and the younger ones put up for for 'adoption' (not a legal process until the 1920s).
When Miss Rye retired in 1895, she donated the property to the Waifs and Strays Society, together with her reception home at Peckham.
![Our Western Home, Niagara, c.1906.](NiagaraRye2.jpg)
Our Western Home, Niagara, c.1906. © Peter Higginbotham
![Our Western Home, Niagara, c.1911.](NiagaraRye3.jpg)
Our Western Home, Niagara, c.1911. © Peter Higginbotham
The home was closed in 1913 and demolished in the 1920s.
Records
Note: many repositories impose a closure period of up to 100 years for records identifying individuals. Before travelling a long distance, always check that the records you want to consult will be available.
Bibliography
- Emigration and Empire: The Life of Maria S. Rye (1999, Routledge)
- Bagnell, Kenneth The Little Immigrants: The Orphans Who Came to Canada (2001, Dundurn)
- Birt, Lilian M The Children's Home-Finder: the story of Annie Macpherson and Louisa Birt (1913, J. Nisbet)
- Corbett, Gail H Nation Builders: Barnardo Children in Canada (2002, Dundurn)
- Higginbotham, Peter Children's Homes: A History of Institutional Care for Britain's Young (2017, Pen & Sword)
- Kershaw, Roger and Sacks, Janet New Lives for Old: The Story of Britain's child migrants: The Story of Britain's Home Children (2008, The National Archives)
- Kohli, Marjorie The Golden Bridge: Young Immigrants to Canada 1833-1939 (2003, Natural Heritage Books)
- McEvoy, Frederick J 'These Treasures of the Church of God': Catholic Child Immigration to Canada (in CCHA, Historical Studies, 65 (1999), 50-70)
- Parker, Roy Uprooted: The Shipment of Poor Children to Canada, 1867-1917 (2010, Policy Press)
Links
- Maria Susan Rye entry in Dictionary of Canadian Biography
- British Home Children in Canada.
- Home Children Canada — British Home Children Registry.
- British Home Child Group International — has database of over 23,000 Canadian British Home Children
- National Library and Archives Canada especial the Home Children section.
- British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (BIFHSGO) — has several indexes of the names of children brought to Canada by various organizations in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
- FindMyPast — Home Children Canada Immigration Records Index, 1869-1930.
- Young Immigrants to Canada. [Archived]
- National Archives of Australia — Immigration Records.
- Good British Stock — Australian National Archives research guide.
- Personal History Index for former Child Migrants to Catholic homes in Australia.
Except where indicated, this page () © Peter Higginbotham. Contents may not be reproduced without permission.