Series 01: Oral history interviews with former child migrants from Britain

MLOH 539

series

1983-1997

Nonmusical Sound Recordings, Oral Histories

961227

Partly Digitised : MLOH 539/1-5, 7-39 are not digitised.

16 audiocassettes (13 hr., 44 min.) - 10 × 7 cm, 4 mm tape

Child migrants were children, mostly of school age, from institutions and homes in the United Kingdom. Between 1947 and 1953 over 3200 children migrated to Australia under approved schemes.

The main agencies involved in child migration were Barnados, Fairbridge, Catholic Church agencies and some Protestant Churches.

The Fairbridge Society sent underprivileged children from Britain to Fairbridge Farm schools in Australia. The main Fairbridge Farm schools they established were at Pinjarra south of Perth in Western Australia, and at Molong, near Orange in New South Wales.

Youth migrants sponsored under the Big Brother (voluntary) scheme were known as ‘Little Brothers’. Between 1925 and 1930 about 2,000 British youths, aged 16 to 21, came under this scheme to start new lives on farms in Australia.

References:
Child migration to Australia – Fact sheet 124 – National Archives of Australia. http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs124.aspx (accessed 14 March, 2012)
A History of Fairbridge Farm School, Pinjarra, Western Australia. http://www.fairbridgekids.com/index.htm (accessed 14 March, 2012)
History of Fairbridge Farm School Molong, NSW. http://www.users.on.net/~quincejam/farm.html (accessed 14 March, 2012)
NSW State Archives. http://investigator.records.nsw.gov.au/Entity.aspx?Path=\Series\14785 (accessed 14 March, 2012)
Geoffrey Sherington is a professor in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. He has researched extensively on British child and youth migration to Australia.

Reference:
University of Sydney. Faculty of Education and Social Work. http://www-faculty.edfac.usyd.edu.au/projects/schoolchoice/index.php?p=personnel-geoff (accessed 13 March, 2012)

Item 01: Bert Coltman interview by Geoffrey Sherington
Item 02: Eric Acott interview
Item 03: Alan Binfield interview
Item 04: Trent Cheese interview
Item 05: Jeremy Clark interview
Item 06: David John Harlow interview
Item 07: Bill Layman interview
Item 08: George Payne interview
Item 09: N. Radcliffe interview (self-recorded)
Item 10: Edwin Skinner interview
Item 11: Rees family interview
Item 12: Evelyn Wickens interview by Geoffrey Sherington
Item 13: Graham Budd interview
Item 14: Maurie Gray interview

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In copyright:
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy copyright holder

MLOH 539/1-5, 7-39: Former child migrants at Fairbridge Farm Schools interviewed by Chris Jeffrey, 1985-1986. (These are copies. The masters are held in the Battye Library, Western Australia)

Fairbridge : Empire and child migration / Geoffrey Sherington and Chris Jeffery. Nedlands, W.A. : University of Western Australia Press, 1998.

The description of this material has been supplied from the Oral History Digitisation Program, undertaken 2014 to 2017, of the Library's oral history collections.

These interviews were recorded in the course of research for the book 'Fairbridge : Empire and child migration', by Geoffrey Sherington and Chris Jeffery.
Some of this material has been provided to the library with limited documentation. If you can provide, or require, more information about this material, please enquire through the Library’s Ask A Librarian service.