09/28/2026
In recognition of British Home Child Day, the Beachville District Museum would like to highlight the experience of Joseph Albert Evenden. Evenden’s trunk, donated by Al Fewster, now resides in the BDM collection.
Home children were part of an immigration scheme that took orphaned or impoverished children from Britain and sent them to British colonies, primarily Canada and Australia. Church or philanthropic organizations, such as the Barnardo Homes, took in children, provided them with a trunk and clothes, shipped them to a colony, and then had them enter into contracts like the one pictured here. While some children were taken in as family, the majority of home children were taken in to be workers or indentured servants.
Joseph Albert Evenden became indentured at the age of 13 for seven years. Any wages he earned through his placement were sent to the Barnardo Home to be kept in trust until his contract was complete at the age of 20, with a dollar deducted each year as an administrative cost. In return, Evenden was provided with a small wardrobe, trunk, and a placement on a Canadian farm. No wage was guaranteed for his work on the farm, and no guarantee of his wellbeing or safety was offered. As his contract outlines, Evenden was to “obey his master or mistress cheerfully” and “go into any situation to which he is sent [by the Barnardo Home],” for the following seven years. A copy of the contract was pasted on the inside of Evenden's trunk, impossible to lose unless he lost the whole trunk.
Evenden arrived in Canada in August of 1889 after sailing for two weeks on The Sardinian. He landed in Quebec and went to Toronto to a distribution home. From there, Evenden was placed with Percival Langford, a farmer in Zorra. Evenden appears on the 1891 census alongside the Langford family, but not as part of it. He was listed as both a “domestic” and a “farm boy.” Unfortunately, we can’t know what Evenden’s experience was. We have no letters or records from his time with the Langford family. The only thing that we have from Evenden’s time indentured to the Barnardo Homes is this trunk and a handful of records.
Evenden eventually grew up. He married in 1900, had children, had financial struggles, separated from his wife, moved, tried again. He lived a life outside of his childhood. He passed away in March of 1950. His story, his childhood, is tragically common. An estimated 100,000 children arrived in Canada in similar circumstances.
Only in recent years has attention been brought to the stories of home children and their struggles. Home Children Canada has a variety of resources available for those who wish to learn more or seek out family members in the registry.
