Ontario East British Home Child Family (OEBHCF), in partnership with the St. Lawrence Parks Commission, is pleased to announce that the Aultsville Train Station at 13480 Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry County Road 2, Morrisburg on British Home Child Lane near Upper Canada Village will house a British Home Child exhibit this season. Volunteers from the OEBHCF will be at the train station to answer questions and provide information about this little known part of Canada’s history and the role that British Home Children played in the development of this area, the province and Canada. Artifacts and documents about British Home Children will be on display on select weekends.

Between 1869 and 1948, over 100,000 children from the British Isles were sent to Canada to be contracted out or indentured in households and on farms of this country. These children, ranging in age from infancy to 18 years. They were sent to Canada by philanthropic organizations in hopes of securing a better future than would have been possible at that time in Great Britain.

After traveling across the Atlantic Ocean by ship, these children would have boarded trains to be transported to a receiving/distribution home somewhere in Canada. From the receiving home, the children would be distributed to the homes or farms that requested a child. Many children were sent on their own by train to various villages or communities. If they were lucky, they were picked up on-time by the people who requested them. Some children, the littlest of immigrants, found themselves waiting at a station such as Aultsville Station alone and probably scared for several hours.

Many of the volunteers with the Ontario East British Home Child Family group are descendants of British Home Children and will be on hand to share this story.

Visitors are invited to share their own family or neighbourhood stories about these children.