How Father James Nugent emigrated over 2000 children overseas
Often, when we look back on the darker parts of history, we wonder why and how people managed to be complicit in events that caused harm. We ask, “what could they have possibly been thinking?” We tell ourselves that “I would have acted differently.” This, however, is very easy to say when we live in the wake of these events and have the gift of retrospect. Understanding that the people responsible for massive systemic failures were often operating with the best intentions in mind is important because it stops us from separating ourselves from people of the past and ensures that we do not make similar mistakes in the present. One example of good intentions that resulted in a questionable outcome is the role the Liverpool Catholic Children’s Protection Society (CCPS) played in emigrating hundreds of impoverished and orphaned children from England to Canada.
Through the 1860s and 1870s, various cities within England were undergoing economic changes that made finding permanent work incredibly difficult. Liverpool, which was a prominent port, was one of those cities. Poverty was a reality for many of the inhabitants of Liverpool. Much of the work on the docks was considered casual, families were left fatherless due to a considerable number of men being lost at sea, and Irish people, who immigrated due to the famine, often lacked the skills necessary to find work in the evolving industrial landscape. Victorian England was also in the midst of a typhus and cholera epidemic that claimed the lives of 5000 people in 1849 alone. All these factors led to the phenomenon of vagabond children, as the streets became overrun by kids who were stealing, panhandling, and trading in order to stay alive (Parker, 25-6). Around this same time, the Roman Catholic diocesan hierarchy was restored, which established Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman as the first Archbishop of Westminster. Cardinal Wiseman, along with his successor Cardinal Manning, considered taking care of the poor to be a Christian responsibility, and they both dedicated their lives to doing just that. The belief that the poor needed Christian guidance led to Cardinal Manning opening several reformatories, industrial schools, and workhouses in an attempt to get children off the streets. Someone who was inspired by these actions was Father James Nugent (Child Immigration).
James Nugent was born in Liverpool on March 3rd, 1822, and he assumed his first priestly duties in 1849. Prior to the establishment of the CCPS, Nugent had already been involved with the child homelessness epidemic as he was a prominent figure in the Liverpool Catholic Reformatory Association which opened the reformatory ship Clarence along with several night shelters. Despite the best efforts of the Catholics, the Poor Law Board issued an order that required workhouse children to receive three hours of education a day in Poor Law Schools, which is where it was believed by the Catholics that children were being “exposed to Protestant indoctrination” (Parker, 26). On top of this, Nugent had witnessed Rye, a notable Anti-Catholic, gathering destitute children for emigration and concluded that it was a plot to place Catholic children in non-Catholic homes (27). Nugent estimated that there were 23,000 homeless children in Liverpool, and he was deeply concerned by the hordes of children that were without guardians and Catholic education, but he recognized that there was also insufficient access to residential accommodations within Liverpool (Child Immigration). It was these factors that led to his advocation for child emigration to Canada. Nugent believed that this emigration offered to “not only save Catholic children from the moral and physical hazards of city life and parental neglect, but also from the clutches of a predominately Protestant Poor Law System as Canada promised an upbringing in Catholic families that often lived in identifiable Catholic communities” (27).
According to records from Library and Archives Canada, Father Nugent escorted his first group of thirty-five Catholic children to Montreal on August 19th, 1870, and they all received a placement within a few days. The seamlessness of this experience was encouraging to Nugent, and he eventually enlisted Mrs. Elizabeth Hudson and Mrs. Margaret Lacy as matrons to help escort larger groups of children overseas once the CCPS was established in 1881. Between 1881 and 1902, approximately 2400 children were taken to Canada by members of the CCPS (94). Mrs. Lacy was especially active within the society, and she alone is responsible for bringing hundreds of children to receiving houses in Ottawa, Windsor, Guelph, Waterloo, Wellington, Kingston, Toronto, Sudbury, and Montreal. Upon visiting 140 children in their new homes in 1885, Mrs. Lacy reported that the results were “entirely satisfactory.” However, she concluded that it was “only to be expected that some of the children should not realise to the full hopes of their benefactors. Some were looked upon as a source of cheap labour, and others were brought up and educated as their own children” (135 Years of Care).
In the summer of 1887, the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincet de Paul in Kingston were asked by the CCPS to start receiving Home Children in their orphanage, House of Providence. The sisters agreed, and House of Providence received its first arrivals in 1888 (Our Story). It is through examining the records from the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul that we can gather a better understanding of how the process of placing the Home Children often went sour. According to their registers, House of Providence received approximately 327 English orphans, at least 167 of which were noted as being brought to Kingston by Mrs. Lacy. Of these 327 children, 108 were recorded as being “replaced,” meaning they were returned to House of Providence by their first guardian to be placed with another. In Uprooted, Roy Parker writes that “it was commonplace for children to move from place to place. The main reason lay in their [guardian’s] dissatisfaction. They were ‘too slow,’ ‘too small,’ ‘dirty,’ ‘disobedient,’ ‘obstinate,’ ‘untruthful,’—and so the list continued.” (216). In correspondences written by the General Superior, she details various issues the orphanage was having, such as potential guardians believing they could exchange a boy for a girl, children under 6 remaining in the orphanage for over a year, there not being enough Catholic homes to place children in, and disabled or otherwise sickly children not being able to find homes. She proposed various solutions, including lowering the number of children that were admitted into the orphanage, having Mrs. Lacy bring the boys back to England, payment of more than four dollars for children under 6, and prohibiting the admission of disabled children. Despite the General Superior’s suggestions, all these issues persisted, which ultimately led to House of Providence cancelling their contract with the CCPS in August of 1891 (Cadieux, 1-30).
These records raise many questions about the treatment of the Home Children by both House of Providence and the CCPS. If children were in such dire need of permanent homes, why was House of Providence reluctant to place them anywhere other than a Catholic household? If it is a Christian responsibility to take care of the poor, then why did House of Providence take such issue with admitting young and disabled children? If the CCPS had been informed on numerous occasions that House of Providence was having problems, why did they ignore the requests outlined by the General Superior? The answers we look for have been lost to time because the archive can not contain every piece of information. We are lucky that House of Providence, unlike many other receiving houses, kept records regarding the Home Children at all. Not knowing the bureaucratic or personal reasonings behind why CCPS, House of Providence, and the guardians did not seem to be working in the best interest of the children makes it easy to vilify them. Children, especially those that lack an education and come from poor backgrounds, are unable to sufficiently advocate for themselves. The available records make it look like the adults in this situation were failing the children, and for that, it feels more compelling to assume that the adults lacked concern. Parker comments on this attitude by saying “it is tempting to see the reason for a child’s return as essentially self-interest on the part of their [guardians.] In many ways, it was, but their feelings and attitudes could span anger, indifference, despair, or regret” (216). CCPS, House of Providence, and the guardians were all aware that they were dealing with children who came from terrible circumstances. It is far more likely that the institutions involved in child emigration were working within their means to provide for the children as best as they could, even if that meant many orphans ended up in dubious situations. Success in this situation meant that no child returned to the streets of Liverpool.
When we look back on the mass emigration of British orphans, it may seem obvious that moving over a hundred thousand children overseas carries massive amounts of risk. People like Father Nugent understood that Liverpool had no opportunities for the children that had been dealt a bad hand and knew that Canada provided the potential of a future. The Archives and Special Collections of Liverpool Hope University writes that “annual reports of the CCPS included copies of letters sent by some of the emigrants. Most expressed contentment, or at least resignation to their new life, but there is also a constant theme of loneliness running through them.” Contentment, resignation, and even loneliness are miles better than the abject poverty they came from, and while many of the Home Children’s stories will never be told, it is best to assume that most lived out satisfactory lives. Father James Nugent’s legacy lives on through Nugent Care, which was established in 1924 when the CCPS, Catholic Children’s Aid Society, and Father Berry’s Homes converged into one charity (About).
Works Cited
“About: Our people, our history, and our work.” We Are Nugent. Accessed March 26, 2024 https://wearenugent.org/about/
Cadieux, Sharon. Paul Woodrow. Home Children Records of the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul Kingston 1888-1899. Kingston Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society, Kingston, Ontario, 2013
“Catholic Child Immigration from England and Liverpool.” British Home Child Group International, Accessed March 26, 2024 https://britishhomechild.com/resources/sending-agencies-organizations/catholic-child-immigration-from-england-and-liverpool/.
“Nugent—135 Years of Care.” Liverpool Hope Library Blog. Archives & Special Collections Liverpool Hope University, 2016. https://liverpoolhopelibraryblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/nugent-135-years-of-care/
“Our Story.” Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul. Accessed March 26, 2024, https://providence.ca/our-story/home-children/history/.
Parker, Roy. Uprooted: The Shipment of Poor Children to Canada, 1867-1917. The Policy Press, 2008.
Madison Hall, March 28th 2024