Outside the Gate: The True Story of a British Home Child in Canada

By Carol Newall

Between 1869 and 1948, Britain sent more than 100,000 "home children " to Canada to work as indentured farmers and domestics. They were promised a bright future in the land of opportunity, and some managed to make a good life, but many were abused, neglected, and reviled by those who took them in. Although most still had families back home, reunification was discouraged. One of those children was Winnie Cooper. Born in Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1908, she was sent at age twelve to Barnardo's Village Home for Girls near London. Three years later, Winnie was shipped off to a farm in rural Ontario. Nothing back in England had prepared her for working the rough land in Canada, but despite the long days, isolation, and bitterly cold winters, Winnie's natural wit and cheery disposition helped her find love and friendship. Yet she always dreamed of returning to her mother in Yorkshire. The story, told by her granddaughter, author Carol Marie Newall, is a family saga of love and loss, pain and joy as Winnie struggled to find her place in a young inhospitable country. It's also a revealing portrayal of a troubling chapter in Canadian and British history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barlow Publishing
• Release date: Sep 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781988025919

Book preview

Prologue

Several years ago I inherited Granny’s box: a shabby cardboard container stuffed with the last bits and pieces of her memories. All the tangible remains of Granny Winnie’s life fit into a space the size of a toaster oven. It held nothing of any value, but to me the contents were priceless. I knew little about her background, only that she’d been sent to Canada at age fifteen to work as an indentured domestic servant, one of a hundred thousand British child immigrants who were dumped on our Welcome mat between 1869 and 1948. They were called gutter children, street arabs, troublesome orphans, but most still had families back home. Granny never spoke of it. None of them did, for they were ashamed to admit their part in Canada’s dirty little secret. Home Children were considered the untouchables.

I removed the items from the box one by one, carefully spreading them across the kitchen table. The old sepia photographs I found in Granny’s album captured moments in time: the day’s activities interrupted by a visitor holding a camera. They weren’t those stuffy studio portraits we so often see from the early part of the twentieth century, where people in dark clothing look stiff and uncomfortable. There’d have been no money for such extravagance. These were varied snaps of scrawny kids squinting into the sun; scruffy men and boys dressed in faded denim; a bewildered, head-shorn home girl; a similarly frightened boy; neighbours and friends; weddings; dilapidated buildings; old cars and tractors; dogs and horses; babies and lovers. As I studied the faces more closely, I wondered what was happening. What were they thinking? What were they feeling? What were they saying to each other? What weren’t they saying?

I found a fragile letter neatly written in red pencil crayon and safely tucked into the pages of Granny’s Bible. As well, there was correspondence from Barnardo’s Children’s Charity, which offered no useful information about her background, and an official letter from the British Government stating that her birth records did not exist. Her British passport, a deed for Coningsby Cemetery and other miscellaneous documents and receipts were there too.

The most puzzling item was a damaged white china doorknob. It was scratched, discoloured and cracked right through. Someone had repaired it with transparent carpenter’s glue, but clearly it had suffered a devastating blow. What on earth was I to make of that? I turned it over in my hand. It was old and cold and shaped like a mushroom cap. If I could find the door it opened, would I learn anything more about Granny? I assumed she’d lived a relatively ordinary life, but I didn’t know what she’d held within her heart. What memories had warmed the room on the other side of that door? Was it her kitchen—her nurturing place? Was it the front room—her welcoming place where family and friends gathered? Was it her bedroom—the nest where her babies were conceived and born?

Granny’s box contained various scraps of disconnected information that singly meant very little. I put it away in the linen closet, but it niggled at me for months. I knew I had to find out more about her past: where she was born, why she’d gone into care, how she was treated and when it all happened. She had a family, it was my family too, but who were they? The clues led me to interviews, archival searches and travel, but some of the story was already in my head. Once I lit the spark, the fuzzy details began to emerge. In the end I found no gold nuggets, no lost wealth, no famous artist, no great humanitarian or important politician. Instead, there was evidence of abuse, neglect, poverty and desperation, but there was also love, courage and laughter. While learning about Granny’s life, I came to know myself.

1

Coningsby

2018

Erin Township, Ontario

I’ve never lived in Erin Township, but I do feel completely at home there. I love to meander the side roads, finding a kind of spiritual asana that eases the urban angst from my mind and body, filling me up with lingering peaceful vibrations. There’ve been very few unsettling changes in the area—no urban Monopoly subdivisions, no traffic circles, no Walmart, Superstore or Canadian Tire. If you need something, you drive into town and mosey down Main Street, pausing to chat along the way. You get food from the only grocery store, books from the library, building supplies from the hardware store, butter tarts from the bakery: the way it always has been.

I’m a product of this fertile place, where years ago my grandparents scratched out a meagre living on a rich piece of land. They didn’t own the land, nor were they renters or squatters. They were merely the help: reluctant immigrant workers who poured heart and soul into a week’s labour in return for a pittance. They met there, fell in love and stayed on because they had nowhere else to go.

When I was a girl, my mother told me stories about her childhood on Uncle Tom’s farm in Erin. She said it was a hard life, but to me it sounded wonderfully simple and happy. Some of her stories were funny and whimsical, some were heavy with sadness and deprivation, a few were rather racy for my young ears.

Following a hearty Mother’s Day brunch at our favourite country inn, enriched by six children trying their best to use indoor voices and to control their disobedient limbs, we drove up the steep, muddy road to the top of Coningsby hill and parked outside the gate. Collars pulled up, umbrellas in hand, hair blown into knots: about twenty of us spilled out of the cars into the mist and trampled across the wet grass to gather around the family plot. We planned to leave a wreath, say a few prayers, read aloud some poetry and remember my granny, my mother and her estranged sister.

Coningsby Cemetery still appears much as it did the first time I saw it back in 1954; more trees and flowers but otherwise it’s the same. Unlike so many country cemeteries, neglected to the point of decay, the lush carpet of verdant grass at Coningsby is cut frequently, and broad perennial gardens are in bloom throughout the summer. After the local congregation joined the United Church of Canada in 1938, the little red brick chapel closed until the 1950s, when it became a temporary winter mortuary. The characters buried at Coningsby are willing to share their stories. I just need to listen. Old graveyards like this one reflect the who’s who of rural communities. The bodies have been laid to rest, the spirits have been freed, but many tales have yet to be told.

The souls at Coningsby have always been neighbours, both in life and in death. Everyone helped with the harvest, lending machinery and muscle. Faith that the Almighty would provide sun and rain sustained them; but when prayers went unanswered, and food was scarce as hen’s teeth, they traded and bartered. Secrets whispered from ear to ear stopped at the Township Line. Tears flowed, love bloomed, anger fizzled. Farmers differ from the rest of us, just as honeybees differ from wasps; they are similar species, but the bees are more productive and they rarely sting.

Normally, from this vantage point high atop the Niagara Escarpment, one should see for miles, but on that day the hills and valleys hid behind a foggy curtain. Ominous clouds hovered low, threatening to drench us with their burden, and the usual fragrant breeze had become a frigid gale. In the past I’ve wandered among the tombstones reading inscriptions, finding familiar names, connecting the dots. But we’d arrived with a purpose; and given the abysmal weather we wouldn’t linger. It was indeed a sombre day for a tragic funeral, but the three women we’d come to honour had died peacefully years earlier.

I was surprised by the presence of three small white stone angels, each striking a different pensive pose while seated on the concrete base of the black granite monument. I’d no idea how they came to be there, and I looked around for more angels on other graves but there were none. Angelic doesn’t describe accurately the three women who slept beneath our sodden feet. My aunt certainly had the countenance, for she attended church regularly and often sought divine guidance, but her halo needed occasional buffing. My mother’s halo sat at a jaunty angle and was prone to rust. And picturing Granny with fluffy white wings was, honestly, quite laughable.

The only relief from the gloomy day was an occasional lone daffodil transplanted into the nearby grass by some forgetful squirrel. Is it even possible to be mournful in the presence of these brave yellow bonnets? Undeterred by the weather, they appeared full of glee for having one entire month a year to strut their stuff.

Bring on the rain, they seemed to say. Or even snow. Nothing can spoil our fun!

My gaze shifted toward a worn paving brick carved with a single name, which had been sunk into the grass many years ago. Seeing it again reminded me of how I’d grown up in the shadow of grief so profound that to those left behind, it seemed like an amputation: a throbbing phantom limb that refused to accept its demise.

That year my husband and I celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary, and I felt more nostalgic with every family gathering. Many were wonderful years, a few were bloody awful, but most were more joyful than painful. I’d even say we’d been blessed with good fortune, not luck, because I believe good karma is the result of good decisions and second chances are indeed a rarity.

As my little granddaughter shivered inside my coat with her slight body pressed against my warmth, the familiar voices around me drifted off into the distance. I thought of friends and family who had moved on or passed away. Memories floated into my consciousness, like wispy spirits—the way the children made us laugh; the scary times when their fevers or strange rashes kept me up all night; the big events that never quite lived up to the anticipation of them and the decisions I’d made that brought me to this time and place. Had I considered all my options in the beginning? I thought so at the time, but maybe I’d been impetuous and romantic. Even worse, perhaps I’d been way too practical, too sensible—so careful that I’d missed out on some wild adventure.

These three women buried at Coningsby had inspired me, as had other women in the family. Mostly, though, I learned from their mistakes. They’d all made some poor choices—who hasn’t? As a once headstrong young girl I’d been sure I could do better, especially when it came to men, since at times they’d made quite a mess of things.

I felt a deep connection with these women, although my own relationship with each of them individually was very different from the way they’d behaved toward each other. Grudges and squabbles, accusations and favouritism had torn apart the family seams until silence became the only recourse. I hated tiptoeing around their feelings and I resented the forced deception.

Had their sisterly skirmishes soured my childhood innocence, making me feel suspicious or insecure? Often I’d felt tossed about by contradictory forces, but after many failed attempts to fight the invisible riptide, I learned to give in, ride it out and hope to God it would dissipate quickly. Even so, unpleasant surprises lurked where I least expected to encounter them. For years there’d been no logical explanation for all this acrimony: just lame excuses as transparent and flimsy as soaked tissue.

It’s even possible that our family destiny was shaped by events occurring a century ago in England. Maybe the ill effects of Granny’s early experience as a home girl and an indentured child immigrant had festered and been passed down the line to all of us through trans-generational trauma. It happens, so I’m told. Perhaps I rightfully belonged back there in an English slum or on a rundown farm in Erin Township. In order to find my path and my purpose, I needed to understand my roots. Were they healthy shoots nurtured by rich black soil, were they stunted by heavy clay or were they starved by shifting sand?

Every family has conflict: differing values, goals, opinions, personalities. There is no such thing as normal. Every family has dirt: a niece who earned a master’s degree while working as a lap dancer, a great-uncle with six illegitimate children, a sister who’s really a daughter, an ancestor who shot his wife’s lover in a hunting accident and got away with it. I want to open all the doors, light the lights, take a stiff broom to the dusty corners. It’s time to talk about the mischief my own folks got up to, whether down the tractor path, out behind the woodshed or underneath the quilt.

It all began with my maternal great-grandmother, a tragic woman whom I never knew. Born poor, she expected to die poor: likely at the hands of an ugly man. During the bitter winter of 1908, as endless rain turned the steep narrow laneways of Scarborough into rivers and the North Sea pounded the shores of Britain, her life teetered on the icy edge of a poverty precipice until drastic circumstances tipped the balance, tossing her into a hopeless abyss. Back then, women were merely chattel tied to the selfish whims of high-handed people in pants—fathers, husbands, constables, magistrates, clergymen, bureaucrats and politicians. She lost everything: her home, her children, her freedom. They said she got what she deserved, but maybe she never had a chance.

2

T’Coppers

1908

Yorkshire, UK

Winnie hated turnip even more than she hated cabbage. She tried to imagine the taste of carrots, beets, peas and beans: vegetables that had vibrant colour. Were they sweet… juicy… salty…tart? And what about lamb? It seemed there were as many sheep in Yorkshire as rats in London, yet she’d never tasted a chop. Picking up the vegetable cleaver, she pressed down firmly into its flesh, splitting the small turnip evenly in two with a soft thud. She also had an onion and a sprouting potato—two more colourless vegetables that grew in darkness to add to the simmering fish-head soup. She didn’t care much for fish heads either.

A persistent rain rattled the slate shingles overhead. The skies grumbled and flashed. Water gurgled through the downspouts, gushing onto the street below, coating the cobblestones with ice. Realizing that the fading light from the window behind her would soon be gone, Winnie wiped her hands on her dress and struck a match to the candle, briefly catching her own blurred reflection in the rain-streaked glass—a disappointing sight, for sure. She knew she was a plain Jane, but she didn’t dwell on it. There were more urgent concerns, like turning scraps of food into a meal for five people.

Her mother often mused that when it came to finding a husband, Winnie shouldn’t be choosy. Mary-Ann dozed on a stool with her head slumped onto one arm and her back pressed against the wall. She appeared to be a tired, looser version of her daughter, with flyaway strands of faded hair hanging over her flushed face. Winnie thought she looked old for forty-three, but then, no one expected to live beyond fifty. Even at rest Mary-Ann seemed troubled, as if a thorn pricked through her undergarments, making her twitch ever so slightly. Winnie tried to remember a younger, happier mother but she couldn’t. When her father, George Lear, had been around, those weren’t happy times either. Winnie came home one day to find him gone. More men came and went, all much the same: useless fellows who stunk of liquor, sweat and fish. Only the boots under the bed changed.

Winnie’s oldest brothers, Francis and Arthur, had escaped by enlisting in the army: one stationed in India, the other in South Africa. The middle brother, Joseph, counted down the days until he would be old enough to join the navy, three years hence, but he’d be fortunate to stay out of jail that long. Since taking up with a ragtag group of lost boys who survived on theft, forage and handouts, he’d got into no end of mischief. He tried to find work on the fishing boats, but they needed strong stocky lads to pull in the huge nets, not short bony ones like him. He’d have been blown overboard with any unexpected gust of wind. George, the youngest child, stuck to Winnie like gum to a shoe. Together, they spent their days begging for coins to appease Mary-Ann, hoping to earn a day in school. They had to keep moving, as sitting too long on the damp stones made them ache; housewives took a broom to their backsides, and shopkeepers threatened to summon the constable. Rainy days were the worst, when busy pedestrians hurried by with nary a glance at these two neglected children.

Winnie worried about her own future. A girl had to marry or how else could she get by? But what kind of man would she be stuck with? Then there was the issue of babies; she didn’t want any. They wrap tiny fingers round a mother’s heart, guaranteeing her a life of poverty and servitude. She didn’t dislike children, but they were such a responsibility. Take George, for example. She loved him, she cared for him and tried to keep him safe, but he took his lickings from the street boys: always another bruise or scrape.

She dreamed of singing in the music halls. Walking along the promenade where all the entertainment establishments were located, she’d stare at the posters of painted ladies: women with ruby lips, tiny waists, feathered hats and pastel-coloured silk gowns. Of course, she’d never seen a performance but imagined it to be a wonderful lifestyle resplendent with applause and flowers, where beautiful women basked in the attention of gentlemen in top hats. Perhaps she could somehow support herself without a husband. She understood that girls were vulnerable, dependent upon finding a good man, but all the men Winnie knew provided neither comfort nor support. Women still had to work…even harder once they had children. She need look no further than her own family to see the unfortunate results of a failed relationship…or two…or three.

Fellers wan’ a lass wi’ soft thighs an’ ready pottage pot on t’fire, nut a cheerful chatterbox, Winnie. Appen, thoo do well ti find a hubby who don’t stink o’ fish, an’ be ’appy tha’sen, Mary-Ann had advised her. An’ don’t be whingin’ on aboot it!

Ah don’t wan’ a hubby. Ah wan’ ti sing in t’music ’alls.

Don’t be daft!

Ah has a voice, Mam!

Lahke a broken wheel, ’tis! Mary-Ann had snapped.

Winnie began to sing a little ditty that she’d heard out on the street.

Winnie, Ah’ve noa time fer this.

At twelve years of age, Winnie knew very well that she didn’t want to end up like her mother. A plan would have been useful, but she had no idea how to go about making one. No one she knew ever had a plan. Boys could join the military or the merchant marine, but girls had nowhere to go.

Only two ways a lass can get by, Mary-Ann said. Thoo thinks poorly o’ marriage, thoo don’t wan’ t’other.

Why’d thoo marry, Mam? Winnie asked.

Me da’ says one day, Pick one o’ me mates. ’Tis time to be off. Ah says, Noa, t’all stink! So t’ugly one, Francis, picked ma. Promised ma a ’ouse on t’hill. A rose garden an’ all. Ah were daft, Ah were. Wha’ a piece a dung! A lazy drunk. An old bloke, ’e were, and me eighteen. Soon, Ah hated t’bastahd!

Winnie picked up the shawl from where it had slipped to the floor and covered Mary-Ann’s shoulders with it. Despite the glow from the coal fire, a chill wind blew through the cracked window. She washed the empty cup and put the gin bottle back on the shelf.

Her brothers sat on a thin rug, quietly playing tic-tac-toe with string and stones. George’s pet, Spike, a mangy alley cat, curled contentedly in the cradle of his crossed legs. George often dragged home junk from rubbish bins, which is how he’d discovered the starving kitten, the only survivor of its litter. He begged a shopkeeper for some cream, promising to run errands for a week, then brought Spike home and nursed him by spoon-feeding drops into his mouth. Spike’s shaggy appearance hadn’t improved with maturity and the name itself was a misnomer, since Spike was such a fraidy-cat that when he wasn’t safe in George’s lap, he cowered under the bed.

Winnie noticed a bruise on Joe’s forehead, likely inflicted by their current stepfather, Emmett, who was always on at him for something. Admittedly, Joe had become a problem lately. Emmett didn’t mind him picking pockets—after all, he was expected to do that—but he wasn’t meant to get caught.

Nex’ time thoo brings t’coppers ’ome, Ah’ll beat thoo senseless, thoo thankless lahtle turd! Those had been his exact words.

Ah don’t want ti steal, Joe had insisted.

Thoo’ll do as Ah says, or else!

Emmett snored loudly from the bedroom, where he lay sprawled on his back, his oily black hair sticking to his neck, his mouth agape and with his muddy boots planted firmly in a puddle on the floor, as if he’d sat down to remove them but found it to be too much of an effort. He’d been in a drunken rage for hours—slamming doors, threatening the lads, yelling at the neighbours, until mercifully he passed out. At the behest of the other tenants, the constable often showed up when this behaviour got out of control: a more frequent occurrence in recent months. Usually, after a warning, Emmett calmed down, but that afternoon an entirely different scenario had unfolded.

Winnie’s knife hovered just short of sinking a second cut into the stale turnip when a loud rumble shook the house, as if thunder overhead would jar it from its foundation. However, it was not the weather but the unmistakable stomping of heavy boots on the stairs that roused Mary-Ann from her rest. The door burst open and six uniformed constables barged into their kitchen. Winnie screamed and tried to back away from the crush of them, but it was impossible to avoid in such a confined space. Someone shoved her into a corner, banging her head while snatching the knife from her hand.

Joe yelled, Hey, up! Gi’ off—stinkin’ copper! from somewhere beneath the fracas.

George had disappeared in a sea of legs and boots. Mary-Ann tried to stand up but lost her balance and fell backward against the wall. Awakened by the commotion, Emmett roared out of the bedroom and tackled the closest intruder, but two burly officers grabbed him by the neck and forced him down, knocking over the table and scattering the chopped vegetables across the floor. Nevertheless, he mustered surprising strength for a half-asleep drunk, briefly escaping their grasp and smashing his fist into someone’s jaw before being subdued by blows from several truncheons. Mary-Ann yelled obscenities as she flung the pot of boiling soup at the intruders, setting off a shriek from the officer who got the worst of it. She also had to be restrained.

As the police dragged Emmett away, blood oozing from his nose and a gaping wound on his forehead, he managed to reach out and backhand Winnie across the face, knocking her off her