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Record #5420

Name :: : Marcelle D. O'BRIEN (1944 - )
aka : Marcel O'Brien
Father: :
Mother: :

BMD and other details

Date of Birth: : Q4 1944
Marriage (1): :
Marriage (2): :
Date of Death: :

Abode (1) : Place of BirthEngland, Sussex, Worthing

Abode (2) : Place of Death / Burial

Sailing Information

Date of Arrival: : Jul 1949 (unknown)
Country: :
Ship: : Otranto
Placement Family: :

Homes / Agencys

Institution (GB): :
Agency: : Fairbridge Homes

NotesA birth registration was found for Marcelle D O'Brien: Mother's Maiden Surname: Osborne; Date of Registration: Jul Aug Sep 1944; Registration district: Worthing; Registration county: Sussex, Isle of Wight; Volume Number: 2b; Page Number: 467.

In 1949, M. D. OBrien, 4, arrived in Fremantle, Australia, with one other child.

Marcelle was the subject of an inquiry which involved Queen Mary of England. The Argus reported in 1951:

A little girl of six slept peacefully in a small Australian town last night, unaware that she is the centre of a poignant human drama in which the Queen herself, and her brother-in-law the Duke of Gloucester, have intervened.

The child is Marcel O'Brien, an orphan who, soon after birth, came under the care of an Empire organisation for the care of homeless children.

When little Marcel was 13 months old she was handed over to Mrs. C. Chapman, a widow, who lives in the pleasant little Sussex, town of Lingfield.

Mrs. Chapman loves all children with passionate devotion. She has cared for nearly 100 such waifs as Marcel. And she had a child of her own, a little girl called Valerie.

She was told that Marcel would stay with her for two years and would then be sent to Australia.

She accepted her charge on those conditions. But she came to love Marcel, next to her own child, above all the others she had known.

Twenty months ago Marcel was duly sent to this country. Mrs. Chapman wept bitterly, but accepted the inevitable.

Then recently her own child, Valerie, died aged nine. Mrs. Chapman was prostrate with grief. As the days wore on she was overcome with longing for the other child, Marcel.

She appealed for her return time and again over the months. Her appeals failed. Then she had an inspiration.

She would write to the Queen and the Duke of Gloucester. The letters went, imploring their help to bring Marcel home.

Almost by the next post she received this letter from the Queen's private secretary:

"I am commanded by the Queen to say how very sorry Her Majesty is to hear of your tragic loss. The Queen understands you wish to have Marcell back from Australia to bring up as your own child, and Her Majesty is causing inquiries to be made to see what can be done."

Mrs. Chapman was overjoyed, but later the same day the postman knocked again at her little council house in Lingfield. A second Royal letter was slipped through the letter box--this time from teh Duke of Gloucester.

Mrs. Chapman opened it. When she read it she wept.

The letter was kindly in tone. The Duke sympathised sincerely with Mrs. Chapman's feelings, but earnestly he urged that she "might reflect again." Might it not be, he asked, that it would be in Marcell's real interests to leave her in the warmth of the Australian sun, to grow up among the wonderful opportunities Australia had to offer.

Mrs. Chapman was inconsolable. She still wanted Marcel.

The following day the postman knocked a third time.

A third Royal letter arrived. The Queen was writing again to Mrs. Chapman through her lady-in-waiting.

"I am to tell you," the letter ran, "there are legal reasons why Marcel cannot be brought back. The queen knows how disappointed you will be to hear this, but Her Majesty hopes you may gain some comfort from knowing that it is best for Marcell to stay in Australia, and that legal difficulties apart, it would naturally be very disturbing for a child of her age to be brought back to England, even though it would have been to so kind a home."

Today Mrs. Chapman is inconsolable. To Trevor Williams, The Argus correspondent in London, she said yesterday:

"Months before Marcell was five I knew I could not bear to part with her.

"I asked the home if I could adopt her as my very own, but they said tha the child's background made adoption impossible, and that in any case she must go to Australia as they had said."

On April 16, 2002, a Media Statement from the Minister for Community Development for Western Australia reported:

Perth woman re-united with mother after 50 years thanks to Child Migrants Trust.

The State Government?s funding of the Child Migrants Trust has paid off for one Perth woman, who will be reunited with her 86-year-old mother from whom she was separated as a baby.

Marcelle O?Brien left Perth today for the United Kingdom to meet her mother of whom she has no memories and a sister she didn?t know she had. Ms O?Brien arrived in Perth at the age of five as part of the Commonwealth Child Migration Scheme. She had lived with a foster family in the United Kingdom from the age of one until she came to Australia in 1949. The Child Migrants Trust helped Marcelle to locate her mother.

Community Development Minister Sheila McHale farewelled Ms O?Brien at the Perth International Airport.

In August 2001, Ms McHale announced an additional $36,000 in funding for the Child Migrants Trust on top of its annual allocation from the State Government of $64,000.

The Minister said it was heart-warming to see how the trust assisted the lives of individuals.

?The years of loss and sadness through separation can now come to end for this family,? she said.

?It took many years and much hard work for the trust and Ms O?Brien to locate her mother. I congratulate them on their perseverance.

?The trust supports up to 40 reunions with family each year for its clients in Western Australia.?

The Child Migrants Trust is an organisation that provides services to former British child migrants.

Between 1913 and 1968 approximately 2,950 British children were sent to WA.

In Australia, the trust operates offices in Melbourne and Perth. A higher percentage of child migrants were located in WA than in other States. The trust currently has 300 clients in WA.

ContributorsCreated : 2009-03-02 21:02:00 / From original database

Last Updated : 2015-04-18 05:15:51 / Berlin-Bob

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Surnames starting with: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 30 Entries

Page: [1] 2 3 4 5 138 Entries

ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links
3057	ABBOTT, Harold Lancelot	1895	ENG, SSX, Steyning	Jul 1911 : Corsican	CAN	Labourers & Domestics
21088	ADAMS, Percy Robert	1884	ENG, SSX, Hastings	Apr 1898 : Labrador	CAN	Barnardos
8059	ADAMS, Sophia Elizabeth	1847	ENG, SSX, Hurstpierpoint	Jun 1869 : Austrian	CAN	Maria Rye
16636	ALABASTER, George William	1877	ENG, SSX, Chichester	May 1890 : Parisian	CAN	Rev. William J. Pady
2851	ALCE, William Henry	1894	ENG, SSX, Seaford	May 1911 : Corsican	CAN	Louisa Birt
9623	ALDRICH, Francis Vincent	1900	ENG, SSX, Brighton	May 1910 : Corsican	CAN	Unknown Catholic Group
10218	ALEXANDER, Edward Bubbings	1901	ENG, SSX, Rye	May 1913 : Corsican	CAN	MacPherson Homes
10417	ALEXANDER, Kevin Ernest	1909	ENG, SSX, Littlehampton	May 1921 : Minnedosa	CAN	Father Hudsons Homes
25137	ANDREWS, Herbert George	1912	ENG, SSX	Feb 1924 : Euripides	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
19225	BACKSHALL, Charles Albert Edward	1903	ENG, SSX, Brighton	Sep 1912 : Sicilian	CAN	Barnardos
16427	BANKS, Harry	1915	ENG, SSX, New Haven	Jul 1923 : Minnedosa	CAN	Barnardos
16392	BANKS, Hilda Pearl	1909	ENG, SSX, Eastbourne	Sep 1921 : Minnedosa	CAN	Barnardos
16391	BANKS, Ivy Melisa	1917	ENG, SSX, Eastbourne	Sep 1921 : Minnedosa	CAN	Barnardos
4077	BARBER, Walter	1887	ENG, SSX, Camberwell	Jun 1906 : Siberian	CAN	Middlemore
8684	BARRINGER, Frank	1895	ENG, SSX, Lewes	Aug 1905 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos	Shanley
11076	BATHE, Harry	1889	ENG, SSX, Brighton	Sep 1901 : Tunisian	CAN	Barnardos
4317	BEATEY, James Henry	1873	ENG, SSX, Steyning	1888 : - Unknown -	CAN	Washwell House
16688	BLUNT, Albert	1882	ENG, SSX, Eastborne	Mar 1892 : Carthaginian	CAN	Barnardos
22125	BONE, Peter Knowles	1913	ENG, SSX, Eastbourne	May 1931 : Westernland	CAN	National Association of Boys\' Clubs
3481	BOUGH, Arthur	1896	ENG, SSX, Steyning	Mar 1906 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
27021	BREACH, Godfrey James	1913	ENG, SSX, Hastings	Mar 1926 : Berrima	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
8737	BRENTON, Charles L.	1911	ENG, SSX, Hailsham	Apr 1928 : Andania	CAN	Waifs & Strays
5511	BROOKMAN, Michael John. D.	1930	ENG, SSX, Brighton	Aug 1939 : Orama	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
26272	BROWN, Horace	1920	ENG, SSX, Hastings	Apr 1930 : Jervis Bay	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
3330	BRUNGER, Ada Zora	1899	ENG, SSX, Hastings	Apr 1912 : Corsican	CAN	Louisa Birt
3329	BRUNGER, Charles Edward	1896	ENG, SSX, Hastings	May 1910 : Corsican	CAN	Louisa Birt
4247	BUDDLE, Adelaide Jane	1887	ENG, SSX, Brighton	Sep 1895 : Sardinian	CAN	Barnardos
10661	BURRAGE, Arthur	1899	ENG, SSX, Horsham	Jul 1915 : Hesperian	CAN	Catholic Emigration Society
4718	CARNOHAN, Percy Bell	1897	ENG, SSX, Brighton	Oct 1905 : Canada	CAN	Barnardos
3497	CHARMAN, George Frewin	1896	ENG, SSX, Horsham	Apr 1908 : Lake Champlain	CAN	Fegan Homes for Boys
ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links

Page: [1] 2 3 4 5 138 Entries

Surnames starting with: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 30 Entries

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