Strays and Saviours: Child Immigration, Perceptions of Childhood, and Child Welfare Policies in Canada, 1869-1930

This dissertation examines Victorian juvenile immigration initiatives spanning the years 1869 to 1930, which involved the relocation of over 100,000 pauper children from urban London slums to rural Canadian homes as part of a social rehabilitation and labor-relief scheme. In response to an alarming surge in juvenile poverty and crime on London streets, prominent child-savers in Britain believed that sending at-risk children to the healing, pastoral countryside of Canada was the solution. Initially applauded by Canadians as an answer to the nation's urgent need for labor and a testament to the enduring imperial link between colony and motherland, concerns about the safety of British juvenile immigrants emerged over time. Debates ensued regarding how the nascent Canadian government ensured the safe placement of these immigrant children in Canadian homes and how the British government's expectations of childcare often differed from Canadian standards.

These debates on the well-being of incoming British children involved a myriad of British child-savers, Canadian lawmakers, and politicians, each possessing their own ideal vision of childhood. An analysis of records from British child-savers and Canadian childcare institutions, such as the Children’s Aid Society, revealed stark differences in child-rearing practices. While some British child-savers and the federal government of Canada focused on hard work as a form of moral uplift, Canadian reformers believed that school and a stable home life were more critical for the child’s upbringing. Thus, rather than viewing juvenile immigration solely as a philanthropic enterprise, this dissertation illustrates how the juvenile immigration experience represents a hotly contested form of childcare, demonstrating how children’s bodies became subject to diverse theoretical projections from institutional mandates and professional figures with disparate and often conflicting ideologies of childhood and visions for future citizenship.

Complicated by early twentieth century developments in psychology, medicine, and social work, fears, and anxieties about the efficacy of juvenile immigration increased. Once recognized as popular bastions of autonomous and effective childcare, juvenile immigration societies were accused of inadequate practices and rampant neglect by burgeoning child welfare organizations. Consequently, questions were raised, national in scope, about the quality of life for children residing on Canadian soil; indeed, had Canadians begun to reject the efforts of British immigration societies because of a waning imperial bond? Had Canadian attitudes surrounding childcare—influenced by a rising tide of professional critique—rendered the administrative techniques of these British juvenile societies coercive, antiquated and, ultimately, inadequate? Most importantly, how had tensions surrounding juvenile immigration contributed to the inception of Canadian child welfare policy and the origins of pan-Canadian childcare?