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

1947年至1970年期间，通过由澳大利亚和英国政府资助并由教堂、宗教团体和慈善机构提供的儿童移徙计划，大约有3 200名儿童在没有父母陪伴的情况下从英国被送到澳大利亚。不像早期的英国儿童移民计划（如1869年至1924年间将大约9万名儿童送往加拿大的计划），战后移民到澳大利亚的计划与目前儿童外出照料的趋势背道而驰。基于对儿童住宿照顾标准的关注，对战时疏散带来的家庭分离创伤的认识，以及对强调亲子关系重要性的心理学理论的专业支持，1946年有影响力的儿童照顾委员会（柯蒂斯）报告确立了儿童的户外照顾应该提供类似于“正常”家庭的环境的原则。然而，澳大利亚的移民计划几乎完全把孩子送到了寄宿机构，其中许多是偏远的、大的、没有人情感的，也是柯蒂斯报告所批评的那种。尽管英国内政部（Home Office）做出了努力，但由志愿组织承担的儿童移民澳大利亚的工作在很大程度上仍不受监管。该项目将首次对这些移民计划进行全面的历史研究，探索战后恢复移民计划的原因，英国和澳大利亚参与移民计划的各种政府和志愿组织之间的相互作用，以及移民计划的演变和结束。在公众对这些计划的记忆背景下，这些计划往往是一种同质现象，该项目将提供一个更有区别的描述，说明从事这项工作的组织的不同文化和工作方法，这些文化和工作方法对海外儿童移民的经历有重要影响。它还将开展前所未有的工作，检查这些计划在多大程度上与战后时期家庭外儿童护理的更广泛趋势相比是异常的，并考虑这对理解新兴的战后福利国家的混合经济的影响。通过北爱尔兰历史机构虐待调查、澳大利亚机构应对儿童性虐待皇家委员会和内政部儿童性虐待独立调查（IICSA）最近和正在进行的调查，这些移民计划仍然是公众关注的焦点。被送往新南威尔士州莫龙费尔布里奇农场学校的前英国儿童移民最近也收到了澳大利亚法律史上最大的集体诉讼和解金（2400万澳元），涉及历史上虐待儿童的行为。该项目将提供必要的历史理解，以供公众对这些项目的工作进行持续的重新评估。基于一系列经验丰富的国际从业者的经验（包括PI与IICSA合作的经验），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。除了制作一本关于这些计划的重要历史文本的学术专著外，该项目还将通过为V&A儿童博物馆提供新的永久展示材料，以及在主要场所举行的儿童移民歌谣全国巡回演出来扩大和加深公众对这些计划的理解，这些演出将由英国主要的民间音乐家参加，预计还将得到进一步的地区和全国媒体报道。除了该项目的学术受益者之外，通过该项目制作的材料预计将在未来五年内吸引400万至500万人的公众观众。

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.