ABSTRACT
Little Ben and his Guardians is a fundraising publication that gives an overview of two of the principal welfare services available for non-orphaned children in the late nineteenth century: emigration and the free breakfast movement. The Shelter-ing Homes opened in premises adjoining a Baptist Chapel in 1873 and were founded with the intention of housing orphan and destitute children in order to train and emigrate them for jobs in Ontario, Canada. Between 1873 and 1911, approximately 6,000 children emigrated with Birt’s Sheltering Homes. The schemes were run under the rationale that poorer children, the homeless and those engaged in low paid work, such as sandwich-board men or rag pickers, should have at least one good breakfast a week. Many of the free breakfast schemes provided fertile ground for evangelizing the Christian message, trying to instil particular moral values and identifying recipients for further welfare. Free Breakfast schemes usually staged Christmas meals too.
