The Golden Bridge Child Migration from Scotland to Canada 1869–1939

Thinking points

  • What upper age limit defines childhood?
  • What might have been the fate of the migrant children, had they remained in Britain?
  • Did the authorities do enough to protect the children? If not, why not?
  • What do you think about children from other countries being adopted into British and Canadian families?
  • Should children be consulted, and their views considered when decisions are being made about their futures?
  • Are there enough agencies in Britain to enable people to trace their birth parents and families?
  • What childcare measures might be introduced today to protect children?

Acknowledgements & Copyright

See credits and acknowledgements for more information and full copyright details.

Further Information

Relatives or descendents of home children

If you know or suspect that your relative was migrated to Canada as a ‘home child’ and you would like more information concerning the family circumstances of that relative or ancestor, Quarriers maintain a genealogy database of children who spent at least some of their childhood in the Orphan Homes of Scotland.

See Quarriers Genealogy and Records for more information.


Further Reading

For more information about the virtual Golden Bridge project, the article ‘Preserving and re-presenting social work history with new media: digitising the Golden Bridge exhibition’, published by New Scholarship in the Human Services, is now available in the online Currents journal.

For a detailed history of the Quarriers organisation, see The Quarriers Story by Anna Magusson.

Other useful sources of information include: