Rev. Lord Archibald Douglas
Reverend Lord Archibald Douglas
(1850–1938) was the son of
Archibald, 8th Marquess of
Queensberry and his wife, Caroline.
1874 Fr. (Lord) Archibald Douglas takes over St Vincent’s,
Hammersmith, and starts a printing press and bakery to provide work for the
boys.
A monthly magazine called Boys and Girls was published by The Southwark
Diocesan Council and Rescue Society to encourage interest and support for its
work. It was edited by the Rev. Lord Archibald Douglas, who made numerous
journeys to Canada.
Rev. Douglas brought Catholic children to Canada, many going to the Ottawa
area and into Quebec, 1882 - 1886.
He ran St. Vincent’s Home on Harrow Road in London for a time and
arrived in Canada on July 2nd, 1882 aboard the Peruvian. Accompanying him were
his first party of children, who were sent to Ottawa. While in Cnanda,
Douglas visited other parts of the country and, in 1891. established a home
called New Southwark in
Dauphin, Manitoba. The home was built on grant land.
In the 1897 immigration report, George Croxford, resident Agent at New
0rpinington Lodge, Hintonburg,
states:
We have had S5 boys sent
out here under the auspices of the Southwark Catholic Emigration Society. eight
of whom have gone to the Society's farm at Makinak in
the Lake Dauphin
district, Manitoba; six have been placed in the Province of Quebec; and
forty-one in Ontario, within 100 miles of Ottawa here. I expect Father
Gaisford, one of the priests of our Society, here to-morrow, who will, in
all probability visit some of the boys placed around here previous to his
departure for the
North-West. During the year I have had to replace about
ten boys, but includes boys that have been sent to this country since 1895. I
expect that all of our boys will
he visited very shortly. We take full
control of our lads until they are eighteen.
Douglas' name appears
for the last time on the immigration reports in 1898. Father St. John
accompanied children to Canada for many years, and Miss Proctor also
accompanied parties of children from England for this association.
Southwark and Different Policies for Girls and Boys
It
is unclear exactly when the Southwark Catholic Emigration Society (SCES) was
formed, partly because, initially, it sent children from its diocese to Canada
under
arrangements with the neighbouring Westminster scheme. However, the
first report of the arrival of Southwark children, in Canada is to be found in
1893 when 45
boys landed at Quebec. The following year there were 17 more.
Over the next three years a further 84 boys were sent, taken either by the Rev,
Edward St John or by the Rev. Lord Archibald Douglas, the joint secretaries
overseeing the emigration. A reception Home (New Orpingron Lodge) was rented in
Ottawa and later
purchased.
The involvement of Douglas is
interesting because, between 1874 and 1887, he had been the priest in charge of
the St Vincent's Home for boys in Paddingron,
London. While there he had
arranged for some of them to be emigrated and in 1882 had accompanied a party of
40 to Manitoba.
One noteworthy feature of the Sourhwark scheme was that,
until 1897, only boys under the age of 16 were emigrated. As in Westminster
there was a concern that the moral welfare of girls could be endangered were
they to be sent to Canada. St John explained this to the LGB as follows: 'the
wholesale emigration of small girls into farmhouses or to become little
white slaves at nine and ten in village shops, [is] not desirable. morally or as
a matter of common humanity'. Furthermore, he continued:
...
arrangements which are good for boys do not apply to girls, thus - a farming
district is good for boys ... while the placing of girls in farmhouses has led
... to the
most grievous results: and this may be easily understood. Not
even a child of nine ought to be left, in an isolated farm, at the mercy of and
subject to the chance of
rough shanty men and farm labourers.
The addition of girls to the Society's emigration parties may have accounted for
the sharp rise in the 1898 figure. Thereafter, however. it becomes difficult to
determine just how many boys and girls from Southwark went to Canada each
year because in 1899 it amalgamated its emigration activities with those of the
Westminster diocese, being content also co share its neighbour's name (the
Canadian Catholic Emigration Society). As well as the change of policy cowards
girls, the end of the century witnessed a new development with respect to
the boys. Like several other emigration agencies. rhe SCES saw new possibilities
in Manitoba as land began to be allocated and occupied. A site was acquired
at Makinac in 1895 in order to establish a farm school where boys of between l6
and 20 could he
trained, much along the lines of Barnardo's venture at
Russell. It was to be called the New Southwark Farm and, as well as admitting
the older boys from Britain, the intention was that those who had been
placed for some time in Quebec or Ontario would be given the opportunity to be
introduced to farming in the north west and then perhaps obtain a holding of
their own through the land grant system. Lord Archibald Douglas who, as we have
seen, had already taken boys to Manitoba in the 1880s, spent six months
conducting the negotiations and overseeing the development, the first party
arriving in 1897.
The plan was that henceforth all boys of 16 or more
who were emigrated by the Society should go to the New Southwark Farm and this
appears to have been the
case, although it is unclear how long the scheme
lasted.
There are several aspects of the history of Sourhwark's child
emigration venture that should be emphasised. As in Liverpool and in Westminster
it appears to have
been approached with a good deal of caution. In
particular. there was concern about the vulnerability of girls and at first none
were sent. Only from 1897 were some of those aged 14 or more included.
Linked to this was a dear assumption that different arrangements should be made
for boys and girls. Boys were destined for the farms and the older ones for
the north west. In any case, they were to be steered away from towns and cities.
Girls, on the other hand, were considered to be safer in the towns employed
in domestic service. Furthermore, in the urban areas there was a pool of
potential female visitors on which to draw.
See also:
•
St Vincent's Home for Destitute Boys (Photograph)(External link)
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gratefully accepted
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