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Record #15742
Name :
: Thomas CHERRYHOLME (1897 - )


Father
:
Mother
:
BMD and other details
Date of Birth
: 1897 (approx.)

Marriage (1)
:
Marriage (2)
:

Date of Death
:
Abode (1) : Place of BirthEngland
Abode (2) : Place of Death / Burial
Sailing Information
Date of Arrival
: 5 Jul 1912
Country
: Canada

Ship
: Corsican

Placement Family
:
Homes / Agencys
Institution (GB)
:

Agency
: Catholic Emigration Society
NotesIn 1912, Thomas Cherryholme, 15, arrived at Quebec, Canada, in a group of 49 children from the Catholic Emigration Association en route to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Thomas Cherryholme
written by his Granddaughter C. Bonnie Fowler February 24 2011

Thomas Cherryholme c1952
British Home Children

Britain is issuing its apology today. Australia has already apologized. I've never quite understood the point of government apologies being extended several years after the actual persons responsible for the decisions have long since departed. Yes, the decisions were made as a government and that I guess is why governments are apologizing. But really, the elected officials of the day -- the people who actually made those bad decisions -- are long since dead. They are the people who were responsible for the consequences of those decisions -- not the governments that followed. But historically, governments have found it appropriate to issue apologies, and in some cases, even paying significant compensation to victims' descendants. I simply don't agree that the government of today is responsible for the consequences of decisions taken by the government of yesterday. The government of today is responsible only if they don't change whatever policies allowed the horrific action to take place in the first instance. Then they would have something for which to apologize. If today's government didn't commit the injustice, why is today's government apologizing, and in some instances paying out huge amounts of money? Acknowledge the injustice; sympathize, maybe even empathize. But apologize? I just don't get it. Put in simple terms, do you apologize for something you didn't do? I don't; I apologize for stuff I've done, and only for stuff I've done. I can't apologize for something my grandparents have done.How then do I expect an apology from my grandparents' government? What their government did may have been horrific; but that government doesn't exist any more.And the government of today didn't DO it, so what would an apology today really mean?

Today, the British government will apologize for its role in the child-migration scheme. Perhaps that is appropriate, since that is the country that devised the scheme in the first place. Dating as far back as 1816, England would clear its streets of undesireables - including children - by shipping them to the New World, or sending them to penal colonies for misdemeanors. There is nothing in Canada's history books about the British Home Child scheme; it's what I call Canada's dirty little secret. Over the past 20 years or so, descendants of British Home Children, as they've come to be known, have been very vocal about their history, or shall we say their lack of history. Websites have cropped up on the Internet; specific sites have been provided for descendants to seek out their genealogical roots. And it's only because descendants of British Home Children have been so vocal that anything is known about the scheme in Canada.The children themselves never spoke of it; they were ashamed of their backgrounds. When I first started researching my family tree, I knew that three of my grandparents had originally come from England. What I didn't know 25 years ago was that they all three were British Home Children.

My paternal grandfather, Thomas Cherryholme, was in fact orphaned when he was sent to Canada as a 15 year old farm hand. He was first sent to a farm in Quebec, where he reported having been abused so he was moved to a farm just outside of Ottawa. He never had further contact with his older brother who stayed behind in England (we never knew what had happened to that brother in spite of my uncle's efforts to find him). My British Home Child grandfather eventually married a French Canadian woman and my father was their third child.

My father longed to find his "Uncle John Willy" whom he never knew. On the other side of the ocean, John William's son, whom he named Tom after his brother who went to Canada longed to know the family that he knew he must have in Canada. My research made the connection in 1999; sadly Tom (John William's son) died in 2001. His widow and family have since visited Canada and we continue to enjoy contact with our British cousins through the Internet. 
ContributorsCreated : 2011-12-27 11:59:10 / From original database

Last Updated : 2011-12-31 16:09:37 /

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IDNameDOBPlace of birthArrivals & ShipsDest.AgencyFamily links
15743 CHERRYHOLME, Edith ENG,     Mar 1911 : Sicilian CAN Barnardos  
15742 CHERRYHOLME, Thomas1897ENG,     Jul 1912 : Corsican CAN Catholic Emigration Society