Empire's Children
Child Emigration, Welfare, and the Decline of the British World, 1869–1967

A definitive history of child emigration across the British Empire from the 1860s to its decline in the 1960s.

Ellen Boucher (Author)

9781107041387, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 March 2014

302 pages, 10 b/w illus. 1 table
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.1 cm, 0.55 kg

'This is a well-researched and often moving book. It helps us to grasp the historically specific circumstances that made child emigration a political reality. And perhaps we are not so distant from these ways of thinking ourselves. As Boucher reminds us, current debates about the intercountry adoption underscore how the circulation of children (and controversies about the ethics therof) remains part of our present world.' Jordanna Bailkin, Victorian Studies

Between 1869 and 1967, government-funded British charities sent nearly 100,000 British children to start new lives in the settler empire. This pioneering study tells the story of the rise and fall of child emigration to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Southern Rhodesia. In the mid-Victorian period, the book reveals, the concept of a global British race had a profound impact on the practice of charity work, the evolution of child welfare, and the experiences of poor children. During the twentieth century, however, rising nationalism in the dominions, alongside the emergence of new, psychological theories of child welfare, eroded faith in the 'British world' and brought child emigration into question. Combining archival sources with original oral histories, Empire's Children not only explores the powerful influence of empire on child-centered social policy, it also uncovers how the lives of ordinary children and families were forever transformed by imperial forces and settler nationalism.

Introduction
1. Poverty and possibility in the era of Greater Britain
2. Developing empire, building children
3. Upholding the banner of white Australia
4. 'Defective' boys and 'problem' girls: selection standards in 1930s Australia and Southern Rhodesia
5. From Imperial child welfare to national childhoods
6. Growing up in the twilight of empire
7. Conclusion: the problem of postimperial belonging
Appendix
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], British & Irish history [HBJD1]