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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  3 Entries        
IDNameDOBPlace of birthArrivals & ShipsDest.AgencyFamily links
9878 FUNNELL, Arthur James1891ENG,    , Worthing Jul 1902 : New England CAN Barnardos  
5420 O'BRIEN, Marcelle D.1944ENG, SSX, Worthing Jul 1949 : Otranto  Fairbridge Homes  
10560 SCOTT, Violet 1912ENG,    , Worthing Jul 1923 : Minnedosa CAN Barnardos