I’ve always known my grandfather as ‘Papa’. Papa was born Rudolph Alexander Hamilton Wilson, England 1910 (son of Royal Navy Officer Alexander Hamilton Wilson). He was one of the approximate 100,000 children to be sent to Canada as part of the British child immigration scheme. These individuals today are known as British Home Children.
The early years of Papa’s life were spent happily around his mother and siblings in Kent, England, while his father was at sea. When he was only 12, his mother suddenly passed away, and his world changed very quickly. He and his brother and sister lived with their aunt for a time or at boarding school. He soon learned that his father had plans to have his eldest son follow his career in the Navy. So instead of playing with other children, any free time and holiday was spent following a strict regime of study designed by his father. At the age of 14 he was summoned by the Admiralty for interviews and the Naval entrance exams.
After failing the math test, Papa’s father would have no more to do with him. He never saw his father again, but somehow, probably through correspondence, arrangements were made to send him to the Salvation Army’s ‘Land and Farm colony’. Here he learned basic farming skills as part of the ‘Emigration Scheme for Boys’, which trained British children and sponsored their immigration to the Canada and Australia, where farm help was needed. He remembered his time on the colony fondly, and enjoyed the camaraderie of all the other boys who came from a variety of backgrounds.
Unfortunately for him this only lasted a few weeks and in August 1925, he was sent to Montreal Canada aboard the S.S. Ausonia, followed by a long train ride to western Canada. Papa writes in his memoirs: “The [train] was to be our home for the next eight nights. I don’t remember having any blankets to sleep in so I just slept in my cloths. Meals were cooked at one end of the car…. mostly pork and beans and not too much of a variety… . In spite of eating beans morning, noon and night, I still like beans.”
Eventually he and the other boys arrived in Vancouver where they were to stay in a Salvation Army home until interviewed and chosen by a farmer. Eventually Papa’s turn came to be chosen and he was sent by milk train to his new home. On this farm, he slept in the barn and laboured 16 hours a day, seven days a week. During this time he was not allowed off the farm, his hair grew long and he remembers constantly being hungry. He would often pull vegetables from the garden and eat them raw. Papa stayed with this farm until he was no longer needed, then continued to work on different farms for another three years until his contract released him from the Salvation Army.
Papa remained in Canada where he married, and after another forty years he finally returned to England to reunite with his younger brother.
You can read a condensed version of his story in his own words, and the memoirs of other home children in the book: ‘The Home Children’ by Phyllis Harrison.