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Record #17228
Name :
: William John GUERIN


Father
:
Mother
:
BMD and other details
Date of Birth
:

Marriage (1)
:
Marriage (2)
:

Date of Death
:
Abode (1) : Place of BirthEngland
Abode (2) : Place of Death / Burial
Sailing Information
Date of Arrival
: 11 Apr 1905
Country
: Canada

Ship
: Kensington

Placement Family
:
Homes / Agencys
Institution (GB)
:

Agency
: Barnardos
NotesIn 1901, William John Guerin, the eldest of seven children born to Emily Jane Tippett, was convalescing in the Chateau Bellevue Infirmary in Margate, Kent. This establishment, on Wilderness Hill, took children from some inner London boroughs to recuperate after serious illness. The sea air was considered beneficial and it was well away from the dirt and smog of the city.
At this time, his mother was living in very poor conditions with three of her children and her partner Isaac Benson. They all lived in two rooms in a house in Clerkenwell. Her income as an artificial florist was insufficient for her to provide for all her children, the others staying with her sisters and one in the workhouse. The next reference I found for William was when he was sent to Canada by Dr Barnardo's in April 1905. He was not actually a 'Barnardo's Boy'. He had only come under their auspices at the end of Feburary that year, having been on the Shaftesbury Homes' training ship 'Arethusa' before that. The ship was moored on the Thames at Greenhithe in Kent and its aim was to train boys from poor families for the Royal and Merchant Navies. However, this was not to be young William's destiny. He left Paddington with two hundred and sixty six other boys on March 30th bound for Liverpool. It was the first group to leave the UK that year, and the event was reported the following day in the London 'Times', as Dr Barnardo himself went to see them all off.
William landed in Portland, Maine on April 11th. Their onward journey to Toronto would almost certainly have been by train. Quite a distance. Normally, on arrival, the practice was to place boys with farmers for whom they would work. It seems to have been almost arbitrary who went where. However, it would appear that William was unusual in having arranged his own placement. He had chosen to work for a farmer named Samuel Doupe in Blanchard, Ontario, which suggests that he had prior knowledge of the family. The only clue I can offer to that appears in the 1851 UK Census, where William's grandfather, John Guerin, is shown living next door to a family called Doupe. Although they were not the same Doupes, they had all originated in Ireland and had many Christian names in common. It certainly seems an odd coincidence if there was no connection at all. How else might he have known about them?
William stayed working with the Doupes until about 1908, when for some reason, he set off across Canada, finally getting married, having a family and settling in British Columbia. His descendants still live there.



Emily Jane Tippett married William Guerin on April 30th 1888 at All Saints Church, Newington, London SE, just off the Old Kent Road. Their first child, William John Guerin, had been born on January 6th that year at their home in Trafalgar Street near the church. The couple moved around the area over the next four years and had two more children, Elizabeth Cordelia (Kitty) and Walter. William was a wood turner and some time around 1892 the young family moved to Alverstoke (part of Gosport, near Portsmouth) where there may have been employment opportunities in the Royal Dock Yards. While they lived there, Emily gave birth to my Grandmother, Emily Margaret, and Great Aunt Aggie (Agnes).
In 1896 they moved again, this time to Southampton. William, then thirty nine, was taken seriously ill and died in August in the South Hampshire Infirmary, Southampton. Emily was four months pregnant with their last child, Alice. At some time between Alice's birth in December 1896 and 1900, Emily returned to London, a widow with six children to support. With no social security, she had only her sisters and the Poor Law to fall back on. In 1901 she was working as an artificial florist (making flowers for hats etc) and living in Clerkenwell. She had moved in with a boot maker called Isaac Benson, with whom she had a child, Cordelia. The baby, tragically, died before she was one of TB, probably exacerbated by the poor conditions in which they were forced to live.
In the 1901 Census, Emily only had two of her other children living at home, Walter and Agnes. Emily ('Cissie') was living with her Aunt Elizabeth Billingham in the East End of London and William was at The Chateau Bellevue Infirmary in Margate, Kent, on the coast. This was an establishment which had an arrangement with some Inner London boroughs to allow sick children from the city to recuperate after illness. It is not impossible that William himself might have had TB. Of Kitty I could find no mention, but one of Emily's other sisters is also missing from the census and she had had Kitty living with her in 1891, so it's possible she was still there.
The saddest story of all was that of little Alice, who, at the tender age of four, was an inmate at the Alverstoke House of Industry - the workhouse. Her place of birth was listed in the 1901 Census as St Pancras (a London borough close to Clerkenwell) so presumably she had gone to London initially with her mother and siblings. I discovered that the options for a widow with children were very bleak in those days. In order to qualify for 'Outdoor Relief' (a loaf of bread and a little money) from the Poor Law Union, she had to have as few of her children living with her as possible. The alternative was the ignominy of the whole family going into the Workhouse, where they would have been separated anyway. It would appear that Emily did her best, but she may have been unable to place Alice so had to give her up. What a choice. (The site of the Alverstoke House of Industry is now an executive housing estate, built in the 1980s. The original gatehouse was retained and is incorporated in the design.)
The story, however, has (I hope) a happy ending. I was unable to trace what had happened to Alice, until I discovered that she had left the UK in 1924 and gone to Quebec on the 'Antonia'. Her last known UK address was at Marine Villa, The Esplanade, Shanklin, IOW, where she had been a domestic servant. I have yet to discover what happened to her in Canada, or perhaps America, but at least she survived the Workhouse.
William John was sent to Canada in 1905 as one of a party of 'Barnardo's Boys' and made a successful life for himself in British Columbia. Kitty and her husband Gordon B Rand also left the UK, sailing for Quebec in 1923. I have yet to discover what happened to their mother, Emily Jane. 
ContributorsCreated : 2012-10-08 10:30:52 / From original database

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IDNameDOBPlace of birthArrivals & ShipsDest.AgencyFamily links
17228 GUERIN, William John ENG,     Apr 1905 : Kensington CAN Barnardos