Summary

Letter from Gordon E. Barritt of National Children's Home and Orphanage, Highbury Park, London, England to Shelagh (formerly Sheila) Philpott, Australia, 21 August 1962, with apologies for not replying earlier to Sheilas' previous letter and advising he has received her birth certificate from Somerset House (copy in Research File). The Rev Gordon Barritt was responsible for After-Care for the National Children's Home and Orphanage, London from about 1961.

Part of a collection of documents, photographs and an oral history inteview relating to Shelagh (formerly Sheila) Philpott (nee Bannister), an unaccompanied British child migrant. The material documents her time in care in the National Children's Home and Orphanage in England at Bramhope, near Leeds; her migration to Australia in 1950 and her efforts to trace her family later in life. The research file includes photocopied material.

Physical Description

A letter typewritten in blue ink on one side of a single sheet of plain buff-coloured paper with dark blue printed letterhead and a signature in blue ink.

Significance

Statement of Historical Significance:
This collection documents the experience of an unaccompanied British child migrant who was relocated to Australia under the UK child migration programmes of the post War period, and to whom an apology was formally made in 2010 and reparations made under the UK Child Migrants Fund in 2019.

The documents are enriched by an oral history interview of the former child migrant, now in her eighties. The material covers the period before her migration as well as the lengthy period in Australia when she suffered from the ongoing impact of that migration programme. It documents her later return as an adult to England to find her family and her mental struggle with her identity. The material includes items showing the part played by local Australian social welfare organisations and their relationship to the after-care efforts of the UK National Children's Home.

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