British Home Children

The Canadian British Home Children Registry contains details of some 83,234 children as at the date of this page. Over 100,000 children of varying ages were sent from the United Kingdom to Canada between 1869 and 1948. They were purportedly orphans, although many were not - their families had fallen on hard times resulting in the children being sent into various charitable institutions for their care and upbringing. The intention behind sending them to Canada was to find them employment in domestic service or farming, and thus to enable them to make lives for themselves.

The Registry currently lists only 5 Lovelocks (and no Lovelucks), all of them boys. Their basic details are in the following table:

Name	Arrival Date	Age	Ship	Sending Organisation
John Godfrey Lovelock	1911	8	Sicilian	Barnardo's
Thomas H Lovelock	9 Mar 1911	9	Sicilian	Barnardo's
William Lovelock	28 Mar 1887	12	Parisian	Barnardo's
William Lovelock	1893	12	Labrador	Barnardo's
William Lovelock	7 Jul 1893	10	Oregon	Fegan

What we can add to the above at present is as follows:

John Godfrey Lovelock : There is no record of the birth of a John Godfrey in the GRO data and neither Ancestry nor Find my Past have any record of his baptism. However, he was recorded as an 8-year-old 'Boarder from Dr Barnordo's' in the 1911 Census, living with William and Emma Latchford in North Weald, Epping, Essex. His birthplace is given as Abertillery, Monmouthshire, Wales. He is not identifiable in any of our Canadian Census records, but he seems likely to be the John G Lovelock aged 46 who was living in Tucson, Pima County, Arizona in the USA in 1950. With him then were his wife Mary E, born in Canada, and two children aged 6 and 3 born in Michigan. The Michigan births suggest that he is the John Lovelock aged 33 who, with wife Mary (born in Canada), was living in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan in 1940, although his age recorded then of 33 is not quite consistent with the other data. Unhelpfully his birthplace recorded in 1940 was 'Wales England', but the entry also records that in 1935 he was resident in Windsor (Ontario), Canada. His birthplace in 1950 was simply 'England'. Imagery of a Border Crossing record at Ancestry shows that he left Windsor for Detroit in late 1935, at which time he gave Abertillery as his birthplace. Fortunately the owner of one Public Member's Tree at Ancestry has discovered John's marriage record which shows that he married Mary E Bromley in Detroit on 24 April 1937. Crucially, the Marriage License names his parents as Thomas Lovelock and Emily Jones, although there is no record of such a marriage in the GRO data. Another Public Member's Tree at Ancestry includes imagery of John's Certficate of Death. His death was reported by wife Mary and occurred on 21 March 1951. He was obviously seriously burned in an explosion and fire, which may have been related to his employment as a Gas Fitter, and lingered for some 30 hours after the event before succumbing to his injuries. Mary gave his date of birth as 5 November 1902, and named his father as Thomas Lovelock, although she apparently did not know his mother's name. He was obviously known to her and their family as Jack, which name appears on the headstone photograph on the Find a Grave Web Site. He is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Tucson, Arizona. Mary was born in 1905 and died in North Las Vegas in Nevada in 1994.

Thomas H Lovelock : There is no record of the birth of a Thomas H in the GRO data and neither Ancestry nor Find my Past have any record of his baptism. There was a Thomas H recorded with the Holbrook family in Middleton, Norfolk County, Ontario in 1911 but that entry gives a date of birth of December 1899 and a date of arrival in Canada as 1901. Neither Thomas appears in any other Canadian Census Return.

William Lovelock : William was among a group of 209 Barnardo's boys and may be the son of John Lovelock and Sarah Charlotte Rodwinch who was born on 8 April 1875 and baptised in St John the Evangelist, Limehouse on 29 April. His father died in June 1879 and his mother remarried a Thomas Crook on 26 December 1879. William was not with his mother in 1881, nor in 1891, by when she had been widowed for the second time, so may be the boy sent to Canada in 1887.

William Lovelock : If this boy was named as just plain William there is no record in the GRO data of such a birth being registered in 1881. There were two births in the latter half of 1880 which could, on the face of it, be him if his age of 12 was recorded in the first half of 1893. The first of those births, in the Portsea Registration District, was of a child who died before the year's end, and the second probably spent his whole life in Yorkshire, dying there in 1922. This William in Canada appears to be the one in the Bell household in 1901 in Cartwright Township, Durham West, Ontario. He was recorded as a Farm Labourer, born on 18 January 1881. The only GRO Birth record that fits is of a William Alfred Lovelock, but we know he was still living in London in 1901. However, in 1911 a William J Lovelock born in England in January 1881 was lodging with the McNaulty family in Vancouver City, British Columbia. We have concluded that the 1901 and 1911 entries are of the same man, and have identified him as the William John born in the first quarter of 1880. The GRO record does not name his mother but he appears in the 1881 UK Census listed immediately below Rebecca Lovelock in the Return from Southwark Workhouse, so she is presumed to be his mother. They were members of the Beckenham Tree. Rebecca did not have William with her in 1891 so he could well have been in a Barnardo's Home, although no Census record has been identified. He never married and according to FamilySearch died in Vancouver on 15 September 1925, some ten years after his mother. The FamilySearch record gives his date of birth as 19 January 1879, which is assumed to be an error.

William Lovelock : If this boy was named as just plain William there are two births in the GRO data in 1883. The first one was born and died in the first quarter. The second one was the son of Charles Frederick Lovelock and Ann Dabney, born in the July-September quarter. He was with his parents in Hackney, Middlesex in 1891, but we have no record of him after that until he married, still in the Hackney area, in 1915. In 1901 there was a William Lovelock born on 14 August 1883 lodging with the Davis family in Louth Township, Lincoln and Niagara, Ontario whose birthplace is recorded as Quebec; we have assumed that to be an error, and believe that William is the one born in Hackney. He does not appear in the 1911 Canadian Census. If this identification is correct he died in the Hackney Registration District in 1930.

The Library and Archives Canada Web Site provides similar basic information on most of those listed above. In addition it provides the following details:

Name	Arrival Date	Age	Ship	Sending Organisation
Horace L Lovelock	14 May 1911	17	Pomeranian	Not stated
Harry Lovelock	23 Mar 1928	15	Ascania	Not stated

What we can add to the above at present is as follows:

Horace L Lovelock : This is Horace Lambert Lovelock from the Compton Tree. He is probably unique amongst Lovelocks in having appeared in two different Census Returns from two countries in the same year. In the UK 1911 Census he is described as an Unemployed Shorthand Typist, living with his grandmother Elizabeth Lovelock, but the Library and Archives Canada Web Site classifies him as a Labourer. Elizabeth did not die until 1927 and his mother, Amelia Jane Lovelock, not until 1929 so it is not clear why he was considered to be a British Home Child. He was back in the UK by 1939 and died in the Watford Registration District in 1968. More details of his life are contained in his Webtrees entry at: https://loveluck.net/LovelockTrees/individual.php?pid=I242&ged=compton

Harry Lovelock : The Library and Archives Canada entry for Harry indicates that he went to Canada as part of one of the immigration schemes set up as a result of the Empire Settlement Act of 1922, designed to facilitate the resettlement of agriculturalists, farm labourers, domestics and juvenile immigrants throughout the Empire. Strictly speaking he is therefore not a British Home Child, although he did arrive as a member of a group of 8 boys. He was a member of the Lyneham Line and more details of his life are contained in the 'Notes' section of his Webtrees entry at: https://loveluck.net/LovelockTrees/individual.php?pid=I9056&ged=wilts-trees2