ABSTRACT
In the nineteenth century, child migrants were shipped off for ostensibly philanthropic reasons, to protect them from the evils of their environment in Britain. But in the twentieth century, philanthropy took second place to unadulterated imperialism. Child migrants were thought of as "Bricks for Empire Building". The main reason for this was the Boer War in South Africa which ended in 1902. The idea of farm schools was by no means new; Barnardo had built one in Russell, Manitoba, many years earlier. One of their major disadvantages was that they were all set in the open countryside, isolated from people. Children, faced with their new surroundings usually in the middle of nowhere, were often totally bewildered. Fairbridge stressed that the farm schools were no charitable undertaking but an "imperial investment". There would therefore be no shame in being a pauper, every child would be proud to be representing England.
