My Mother Said (A Liverpool Irish Memoir)

Hello,

Thank you for your informative website.

 

My mother was born and raised in Liverpool. She has just turned 80 and has just had her memoirs published in her book “My MotherSaid… (A Liverpool Irish Memoir)”.

I wonder if you would be interested in posting a link to her book, making it available to your readers?

It’s available here http://www.equilibriumbooks.com/mymothersaid.htm

I hope to hear from you soon!

Kind regards,

Catriona Hill. 

>Forced Emigration of Children

>In respect to the forced emigration of children, it is well known that many orphaned children from Liverpool were sent to Australia and Canada from the various childrens institutions throughout the city. The system began in the 1860s and continued beyond the 1930s and was on the face of it a charitable act to take orphans to the land of plenty where they would be looked after on farms and in agricultural areas. However, many of the farmers regarded the children as cheap labour and gave them little in return apart from board and lodging.
The authorities may have begun the scheme with orphans but they soon began to include petty thieves, the destitute or delinquents which was a fine way to keep the jails empty and get rid of “problem” children. Regarding the tallyman in all this — if they found persistent “offenders” in overcrowded houses who refused the order to “disperse to another address” then they could find themselves among the miscreants bound for the colonies.
Liverpool Seamens Orphanage in Newsham Park was a centre for these activities — a letter from an old employee at the Orphanage condemned the practice in a letter to the Liverpool Echo as late as summer 2009.

Orphaned Children who were sent to Canada

I have been searching for several years for trace of two of these orphaned children who were sent to Canada. My grandmother was orphaned in 1886 and a brother and sister were shipped to Canada in May 1900. I have a copy of the passenger list. Records of what happened after they went to the “distributing house” in Ottawa are lost, but I am curious to know from where in Liverpool they were taken. It seems that the Catholic children on that ship were from “Father Berry’s Homes” and there seems to be some connection with Brownlow Hill. I don’t know where they were from their mother’s death in 1886 to 1900. Would orphan children have been put in a workhouse, or would there have been Catholic orphanages? (I live in Canada and don’t know this) They were “distributed” (don’t you love the expression) according to their religion. Harder to trace the Catholic children, who were fewer I think.

>75 Renshaw Street

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Can any tell me about the history of the building of 75 Renshaw Street its a junk shop now