British child migration schemes to Australia, 1947-1970: historical perspectives and public memory today

1947年至1970年期间，约有3，200名儿童在没有父母陪伴的情况下，通过澳大利亚和英国政府资助的儿童移民计划，由教堂、宗教团体和慈善机构运送到澳大利亚。与早期的英国儿童移民计划（例如1869-1924年间将约9万名儿童送往加拿大的计划）不同，战后向澳大利亚的移民计划与当前家庭外照顾儿童的趋势背道而驰。1946年，有影响力的儿童保育委员会（柯蒂斯）报告建立了一个原则，即儿童的家庭外照料应提供一个类似于“正常”家庭的环境。然而，澳大利亚的移民计划几乎把所有的孩子都送到了寄宿机构，其中许多都是偏远的，大的，没有人情味的，也是柯蒂斯报告所批评的那种。尽管内政部的努力，儿童移民到澳大利亚的志愿组织进行的工作仍然在很大程度上不受监管。这个项目将进行这些移民计划的第一次全面的历史研究，探讨其战后恢复的原因，在英国和澳大利亚参与其中的各种政府和志愿组织之间的相互作用，以及它们的演变和关闭。在公众对这些计划的记忆中，这些计划往往代表着一种同质现象，在这种背景下，本项目将对从事这项工作的组织的不同文化和工作方法提供更有区别的说明，这些工作对儿童移民的海外经历有重要影响。它还将开展前所未有的工作，研究这些计划与战后时期家庭外儿童保育的更广泛趋势相比的异常程度，并考虑其对理解战后新兴福利国家的混合经济的影响。这些移民计划仍然是公众关注的焦点，通过最近和正在进行的历史机构虐待调查，北方爱尔兰、皇家澳大利亚儿童性虐待机构反应委员会和内政部儿童性虐待独立调查委员会。前英国儿童移民被送往新南威尔士州莫隆的费尔布里奇农场学校，最近也收到了澳大利亚法律的历史上关于历史性虐待儿童的集体诉讼的最大和解建议（2400万澳元）。该项目将提供重要的历史认识，公众对这些计划工作的持续重新评估可以借鉴这些认识。在一系列经验丰富的国际从业人员的经验（包括PI与IICSA合作的经验）的基础上，该项目还将研究在历史虐待儿童调查中使用历史理解的方式，并考虑学术历史学家参与这些过程的不同模式的潜力和挑战。除了编写一本学术专著作为关于这些计划的重要历史文本外，该项目还将通过为V&A童年博物馆提供新的永久性展览材料，以及在主要地点进行儿童移民歌谣全国巡回演出，预计英国主要民间音乐家也将进一步得到区域和国家媒体的报道，扩大和加深公众对这些计划的了解。除了该项目的学术受益者外，通过该项目制作的材料预计将在未来五年内吸引400万至500万公众。

Between 1947 and 1970, around 3,200 children were sent from Britain to Australia, unaccompanied by their parents, through child migration schemes funded by Australian and British Governments and delivered by churches, religious orders and charities. Unlike earlier British child migration schemes (such as those which sent around 90,000 children to Canada between 1869-1924), the post-war migration schemes to Australia operated against the grain of current trends in the out-of-home care of children. Building on concern with standards of residential care for children, an awareness of the trauma of family separation through war-time evacuation and professional support for psychological theories emphasising the importance of the parent-child bond, the influential Care of Children Committee (Curtis) Report in 1946 established the principle that the out-of-home care of children should offer an environment resembling a 'normal' family home. The migration schemes to Australia, however, sent children almost entirely to residential institutions, many of which were remote, large and impersonal, and of the kind that the Curtis Report had criticised. Despite the efforts of the Home Office, child migration work to Australia undertaken by voluntary organisations remained largely unregulated.This project will undertake the first comprehensive historical study of these migration schemes, exploring the reasons for their post-war resumption, the interactions between the various governmental and voluntary organisations involved in them in both Britain and Australia, and their evolution and closure. In the context of public memories of these schemes that tend to represent them as a homogenous phenomenon, this project will provide a more differentiated account of varying cultures and working methods of organisations undertaking this work that had an important bearing on child migrants' experiences overseas. It will also undertake unprecedented work in examining the extent to which the schemes were anomalous in comparison to broader currents in the out-of-home care of children in the post-war period and consider the implications of this for understanding the mixed economy of the emergent post-war welfare state.These migration schemes remain a focus for public attention through recent and on-going investigations in the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Northern Ireland, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Australia, and the Home Office's Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). Former British child migrants sent to the Fairbridge Farm School in Molong, New South Wales, have also recently received the largest proposed settlement ($24m AUD) for a class action concerning historic child abuse in Australian legal history. This project will provide essential historical understanding on which this continuing public re-evaluation of these schemes' work can draw. Building on the experiences of a range of experienced international practitioners (including the PI's experience of working with IICSA), the project will also examine the ways in which historical understanding is used in historic child abuse inquiries and consider the potential and challenges of different models for academic historians' engagement in these processes. In addition to producing an academic monograph that will be a key historical text on these schemes, the project will also extend and deepen public understanding of them through new permanent display material for the V&A Museum of Childhood and a national tour of the Ballads of Child Migration at major venues involving leading British folk-musicians which is also expected to receive further regional and national media coverage. In addition to the academic beneficiaries of this project, material produced through it will engage an expected public audience of between 4-5 million people over the next five years.