DFHG Barnardos Children

Recently I have been looking at an ancestor who was a Dr. Barnardo’s Child and came across the name of one who was living in Diss at the time the 1911 Census was taken - and then five more appeared. The six were:

(Click on any of the names above to see a Family Historian record generated text about them.)

Thomas John Barnardo was born in Dublin in 1845. As a young man he moved to London to train as a doctor. At that time disease and poverty was rife and 20% of children died before they reached 5 years old. A cholera epidemic was also responsible for leaving many children orphaned. Thomas was appalled at this and the first way he tried to help children was by setting up a ‘ragged school’ where children could get a free basic education. This opened his eyes to the extreme hardships these children were under and so gave up medicine to concentrate on helping children in poverty.

The first ‘home’ was opened 1870 but had a quite small capacity and was only for boys. But when an 11-year-old boy was found dead of exposure two days after being turned away from a ‘full’ home, Barnardo vowed never to turn another child away.

His marriage to Syrie Elmslie really started the development of the charity. As a wedding gift the couple were given the lease on a site at Barkingside in Ilford, Essex where they set up a home for girls. (Barkingside is still the headquarters of the charity.) As well as protecting them from poverty and exposure, it was to prevent them from experiencing sexual exploitation.

They also believed that keeping children in small groups, ‘cottage homes’, was a good way forward and many cottages were set up in the grounds at Barkingside.

Best known probably for the Barnardo’s Homes, at that time it was thought that children benefitted most from being in a structured family setting. In around 1887, children were first boarded out to families, akin to what we now know as fostering. By 1905 more than 4,000 children were boarded out.

The charity was one of those where they sent children abroad, mainly to Australia and Canada. At the time this was supported by the Government, but in hindsight was thought to be misguided. In 2010 the Government apologised for the sending of more than 130,000 children to former colonies.

Looking into the way the Dr. Barnardo system worked in its earlier years led to some very interesting lines of research. The main one I focussed on was the sending of children to Canada to start a ‘new life’. This, unlike many other possible life paths the children could have taken, was a permanent placement.

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The Barnardo’s children living in Diss in 1911 were:

• Jessie Colley was born in 1899. The 1901 Census shows her living with her birth mother, Lucy, in Castle Cary, 5 miles from Wincanton, Somerset.

By 1911, she was no longer with her mother but staying with the Reeve family in Frenze Lane, Diss. Living in the same household was a Mary Trevithick, also a Dr. Barnardo’s Home child (see below).

Soon after the Census was taken, on 29 June 1911, she was on her way to Canada on board the S.S. Sicilian bound for Quebec. Very little has been found out about Jessie’s time in Canada but it may be that she at some point was staying at Hazelbrae, a large house donated to Dr. Barnardo by George A. Cox.

• Dorothy Haxby was born in Normanton, Yorkshire, in 1898 and baptised there on 6 July 1898.

According to the Census of 1901 she had moved to Diss and was living with a widow Louise Barkacz on Mount Street. Living in the same household was 4 years old Lilian Haxby. There was no mention of either of them being a Barnardo’s child. Dorothy and Lilian were almost certainly sisters.

Lilian, the older child, had moved on by the time of the 1911 Census. Dorothy was now living in the household of Harry Rice, the foreman at the Mineral Water factory. It is here that she was actually shown to be a Dr. Barnardo’s Home child. There was a Gladys Nicholson (see below) living there, also a Dr. Barnardo’s Home child.

Dorothy left England on 25 August 1913, bound for Canada, on board the S.S. Corinthian. Whilst there, in about 1925 she met and married Ralph Bartlett, himself a Barnardo’s Boy who had emigrated in 1909.

Very little is known about their life except for when on the 3 July 1934 Ralph registered the death of their stillborn child, a son, then unnamed. At the time they were living at 50 West Lodge Avenue, Toronto. The baby was buried in Park Lawn Cemetery.

• Gladys Nicholson was born in Clapham, London in 1898. She is recorded in the 1911 Census for Diss where she lived in Walcot Green in the same household as Dorothy Haxby. This girl is an enigma – nothing more, however tenuous, has been found about her.

• Mary Trevithick, born in Plymouth, Devon in 1903, is showing in the 1911 Census for Diss; 7 years old, a scholar and a Dr. Barnardo’s Home child, boarding in the household of Edward Reeve on Frenze Road. Also living there was Jessie COLLEY, also a Dr. Barnardo’s Home child (see above).

Like Jessie Colley, very little has been found out about Mary’s time in Canada but it may be that she at some point was also staying at Hazelbrae.

• George Wells was living in Frenze Lane in the household of Robert Leathers and his family according to the 1911 Census, along with his brother Ernest (see below).

George was born in Willesden, London in 1900. He left England on 25 September 1913, bound for Canada, on board the S.S. Corinthian. Little more is known about him other than there is a possible marriage to a Mary Ellen Maney.

• Ernest Charles Wells was born in Willesden, London on 26 February 1902.

According to the 1911 Census, he was living in Frenze Lane in the household of Robert Leathers and his family, along with his brother George (see above).

He joined the Royal Navy as a 15-year-old boy sailor on 27 June 1917, service number J.73973, and became fully engaged on 26 February 1920.

The 1921 Census shows him in Diss. He was a visitor in the household of Mabel Alice Freethy, a boarding-house keeper, with an occupation of A.B. (Able Seaman).

On 26 December 1936 he attempted suicide and was sent to the R.N. Hospital at Chatham. He was invalided out on 27 May 1937.

The 1939 National Registration showed him living at 1 Rowton House King’s Cross Road, Mount Pleasant, Islington, single, a general labourer (heavy work), and a naval pensioner. (Rowton House was a hostel for down-and-out or low-paid working men in London.)

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So, six young people, all became Barnardo’s Children but went on to lead separate and somewhat varied lives, but all had childhood associations with Diss. I have only scratched the surface of their lives but wonder what else they experienced.

And so Barnardo’s continues with its work to this day. They had their 150th year anniversary in 2016. “We’ve always been driven by supporting children, young people and families who need us because we know that when you change a childhood, you change a life. And that’s still true today.” (from the Barnardo’s website)

Diss Family History Group