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The Limits of Potential: Race, Welfare, and the Interwar Extension of Child Emigration to Southern Rhodesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

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Research Article
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2009

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References

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18 Parliamentary Papers (PP), 1904, vol. 32, Cd. 2175, “Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration.”

19 While most mainstream reformers abided by this class-bound vision of children's potential, some socialist campaigners, most notably Margaret McMillan, argued that poor children held the same promise as their more privileged peers. See Carolyn Steedman, “Bodies, Figures and Physiology: Margaret McMillan and the Late Ninteenth-Century Remaking of Working-Class Childhood,” in In the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare, 1880–1940, ed. Roger Cooter (New York, 1992), 19–44.

20 Murdoch, Imagined Orphans, 120–41.

21 ibid., 61.

22 Swain, Shurlee, “Child Rescue: The Emigration of an Idea,” in Lawrence and Starkey, Child Welfare and Social Action, 101–20. One prominent child rescue organization that diverged from this view was the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), which espoused family intervention to correct instances of neglect and abuse. See George Behlmer, Child Abuse and Moral Reform in England, 1870–1908 (Stanford, CA, 1982)Google Scholar. Nevertheless, the NSPCC did favor removing children from their families in extreme cases, and, indeed, the society participated in child emigration to Canada during the early twentieth century. For a statement of the views of its director relating to child emigration, see Robert Parr to Home Office, 22 June 1910, The National Archives: Public Record Office (TNA: PRO) HO 45/10598/188663.

23 Barnardo's Homes, Annual Report, 1911, p. 8, D.239/A3/1/46, ULSCA.

24 Barnardo's Homes, “A Gilt-Edged Investment,” Night and Day 29 (December 1906): 7. Emphasis in the original.

25 Murdoch, Imagined Orphans, 43–66.

26 Barnardo's Homes, “Seedpods of Success—Not Failures,” promotional leaflet, 1913, D.239/A3/17/10, ULSCA.

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33 For other examples of how these distinctions between the “whiteness” of different Europeans were enacted in immigration and social policies across the settler empire, see, e.g., Mlambo, Alois, “‘Some Are More White than Others’: Racial Chauvinism as an Actor in Rhodesia Immigration Policy, 1890–1963,” Zambezia 27, no. 2 (2000): 139–60Google Scholar; Klausen, Susanne, Race, Maternity, and the Politics of Birth Control in South Africa, 1910–1939 (New York, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Warwick, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia (New York, 2003), 139–64Google Scholar.

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35 Kingsley Fairbridge, “The Farm-School System: A Suggestion,” The Times, 24 May 1910, 46.

36 Earlier proposals for farm schools in Canada and New Zealand had focused on juveniles over the age of fourteen. Fairbridge's school was the first specifically to target children. See Sherington and Jeffery, Fairbridge, 13–14.

37 The inspection reports of the state child welfare department give a sense of the conditions at Pinjarra in its early days. See, e.g., Copy of A. O. Neville's Report on Pinjarra, 28 July 1913, Sherington Papers, box 1, State Library of New South Wales.

38 CES, Annual Report, September 1913, p. 11, D.296/D1/2/4, ULSCA.

39 Fairbridge's system was also taken up by other child emigration charities. Barnardo's established a farm school in Picton, New South Wales, in 1929, as well as a branch exclusively for girls on the outskirts of Sydney in 1933. In 1937, the Australian government approved the Catholic Christian Brothers organization to begin accepting British boys in their farm schools in Western Australia, and in 1938 the Trustees of the Lady Northcote bequest opened the Northcote Children's Farm in Victoria. On the extension of the farm school system to Canada, see Patrick Dunae, “Gender, Generations and Social Class: The Fairbridge Society and British Child Migration to Canada, 1930–1960,” in Lawrence and Starkey, Child Welfare and Social Action, 82–100.

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43 CES, Annual Report, 1931, pp. 5–6, D.296/D1/1/1, ULSCA.

44 Kingsley Fairbridge to the Commonwealth Superintendent for Immigration, 1 October 1921, A436, 46/5/597 Part 1A, Australian National Archives (ANA).

45 See, e.g., the attempts made in South Africa by Barnardo's in 1904 as well as Christ's Hospital in 1921. Stuart Barnardo, Journal of a Visit to South Africa, 1904, D.239/A3/17/42, ULSCA; Christ's Hospital to the Oversea Settlement Committee, 1921, TNA: PRO Colonial Office (CO) 721/32.

46 A. G. B. West, “Fairbridge Farm Schools (Inc.) Rhodesian Prospects,” 1936, TNA: PRO Dominions Office (DO) 35/697/4.

47 Quoted in Kennedy, Islands, 2.

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57 Fairbridge Society, “Notes of a Meeting Held at Mr Hambro's House,” 26 May 1937, D.296/K2/1/2, ULSCA.

59 Gordon Green to G. F. Plant, 8 February 1937, TNA: PRO DO 35/708/4.

60 Malcolm Delevingne to High Commissioner's Office, 11 August 1945, A445, 133/2/115, ANA.

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64 Fairbridge Society, Minutes of the Southern Rhodesia Committee, 27 October 1938.

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78 The association entered into an agreement with the British Federation of Social Workers to make these evaluations soon after the conclusion of the war. Women's Group on Public Welfare, Child Emigration: A Study Made in 1948–1950 (London, 1951), 20.

79 Fairbridge Society, Report of the Southern Rhodesia Committee. The existing records are unclear as to how high children's IQ needed to be for admission; however in 1948, Barnardo's estimated the standard to be 130. Barnardo’s, Irwin to Hambro, 8 July 1948, D.296/ K2/2/1, ULSCA.

80 Rhodesia Fairbridge Memorial College brochure, 1954, D.296, K2/4/5, ULSCA. Ultimately the Fairbridge Society judged that these new criteria of selection required the formation of a separate organization. Accordingly, the subcommittee disbanded in 1939, and some of its members regrouped as the Rhodesia Fairbridge Memorial Association.

81 Rose, Governing the Soul, and The Psychological Complex.

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88 For a study of the interwar origins of this ideology, see Rooke, Patricia and Schnell, Rudy, “‘Uncramping Child Life’: International Children's Organisations, 1914–1939,” in International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939, ed. Weindling, Paul (Cambridge, 1995), 176202CrossRefGoogle Scholar.