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Fairbridge Empire Settlement through Child Colonization

Glasgow children leave behind their families and poverty to seek a better life on the other side of the world.

Documentary 1931 69 mins Silent

Overview

Will handing your kids to strangers 9,000 miles away free them from poverty? Some of these children from the Calton district of Glasgow are shoeless, but all seem happy. Their smiles continue for the cameras as they leave Waterloo Station for Southampton Terminus and a ship onward to Fremantle, Australia. Their own kin have been replaced by the 'big family' at the Farm School in Pinjarra, but have they swapped destitution for an education in paradise or something more like child labour?

This film serves a propaganda purpose, aiming to win public support for the Child Emigration Society, seven years after the death of its founder, Kingsley Fairbridge. Child migration was a controversial child care strategy, and the use of the terms 'Empire Settlement', 'Colonization' and 'Dominions' in the film's title cards reveals its other purpose - populating the empire with white people. Eventually the improved economic and social conditions provided by the welfare state in Britain would overtake schemes such as these, but the Farm School at Pinjarra remained open until 1981.

Original title

Fairbridge Empire Settlement through Child Colonization

Genres

Documentary

Country

United Kingdom

Location

AncoatsSouthampton

Language

No Dialogue with English subtitles