Thomas John Barnardo (1845-1905) was not the only person, not even the first, to establish homes for destitute or orphaned children across England, but his self-promotion and maleness ensured he got more publicity than women doing the same. The “Barnardo” name became generic when describing the 35,000 youngsters evacuated to new lives in Canada. That era coincided with Muskoka’s pioneer development of farms.
Family historian Yearly’s investigation disclosed at least nine girls and boys at Springfield Farm in the late 1800s. The first five were girls. Nine year-old Mary Elizabeth McCormack arrived in November 1894. Eight year-old Martha Harwood showed up the following year, as did ten year-old Maria Elizabeth Abram. In 1898, two more girls appeared at the farm, Lizzy Southworth, eight, and Franny Harper, six. The next year, nine year-old Mary Southworth arrived to join her sister Lizzy, whom she joyously greeted as “Izzy.”
The next three arrivals were boys, starting in 1900 with Albert Hugh Cullen and Eduard Baker, both seven, who’d crossed the Atlantic together aboard the Tunisian. Six years later, eight year-old George Cullen, unrelated to Albert, began his labours at the Brunel Township farm of the Holinsheads.
These nine did not all overlap at Springfield Farm. Census records, and copies of an upbeat Barnardo newsletter mailed to homes with the Agency’s children, disclosed that most worked at the farm for several years. Mary Southward remained one year; the two Cullen youths, more than a decade. A Huntsville school teacher familiar with today’s youngsters, Shelly Yearly “found the young age of the children to be unimaginable.” They’d endured several primitive weeks aboard ship, she adds, “with many accounts of illness and some of death, then boarded trains and steamers to points across Canada. Their final travel would have been on foot or in buggies across rough roads to house with strangers...for unpaid or underpaid labour.”
Letters by different children excerpted in the Barnardo circular had identical phrases, as well as pleasant details. “The lake will soon be frozen, and then we can slide, and the trees look very pretty. I am writing this at school,” wrote Martha Harwood in January 1899. “There are eight girls and eleven boys here today. I am in the second class.” Getting schooling was part of the arrangement, but rare. The girls worked indoors and out. “We have a very big farm and we picked a lot of berries this summer,” said Maria Abram in her letter. “I enjoy Christmas in Canada.” They never ate with the family.
