Past Event

Crossing the Golden Bridge: Voices of the Barnardo Children (British Home Children)

September 28, 2025. La Grange de la Gatineau

Speaker: Allan Thompson

Allan has been the head of Carleton University’s journalism program since 2020. He joined Carleton in 2003 after 17 years as a reporter with the Toronto Star, where he specialized in covering foreign policy, defence and immigration.

More than 100,000 "British Home Children" from poor and destitute families were sent to Canada between 1869 and 1939. Most were designated as orphans but two-thirds had a parent in Britain, many of whom lived in workhouses. Britain shipped these children to its colonies through different charities with the promise the children would have a better life abroad. Many Home Children ended up as farm hands and domestic servants. Some were exploited and others adopted into families. Dozens ended up on farms in the Gatineau region including at least 23 identified in Cantley, as shown in this article.

Crossing the Golden Bridge: Voices of the Barnardo Children, is based on Allan's interviews with surviving "Bernardo Children", children brought to Canada by the Barnardo charity. Their experiences were shared by Home Children everywhere.

Allan first created this presentation as a radio documentary based on one of his first major pieces he attempted as the final project of his Bachelor of Journalism degree at Carleton University in 1986. It was never broadcast. After September 28th was designated as British Home Child Day in Canada, Thompson returned to his original material to turn the documentary into this fascinating audio-visual presentation.