SD&G – There’s a proposal to designate County Road 12 in Stormont County to “The British Home Child Roadway.”
Carol Goddard, a British Home Child descendant, will make a presentation to North Stormont council Tuesday night asking for support to recognize the children who came to Canada from the United Kingdom from the 1860s to the 1930s.
The children had parents who were displaced agricultural workers, who went to the city for work during the Industrial Revolution in the British Isles.
Over 130,000 children, between the ages of three and 16, were sent to Canada to work as servants in towns, villages and farms.
“One can assume a significant (number) of British Home Children would have been sent to this area,” Goddard’s presentation states.
Goddard will tell council she is requesting the county on June 20, 2016 to designate the highway, which passes through South Stormont and North Stormont, to “The British Home Child Roadway.”
The road is somewhat in the center of the United Counties, and was mostly an agricultural area during that time period. The road also starts across from the cemetery where the graves of British Home Children, including former MPP Jim Brownell’s grandmother, are located.
Brownell has been a staunch advocate for recognizing the history of British Home Children.
In 2010, Canada declared it the year of the British Home Child and Ontario passed a designation of Sept. 28 as British Home Child Day.