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Record #4597
Name :
: Alice Trixie RUTTY (1893 - )
  aka : Griffin


Father
:
Mother
:
BMD and other details
Date of Birth
: 1893

Marriage (1)
:
Marriage (2)
:

Date of Death
:
Abode (1) : Place of BirthEngland, Sussex, Brighton
Abode (2) : Place of Death / Burial
Sailing Information
Date of Arrival
: 2 Oct 1903
Country
: Canada

Ship
: Dominion

Placement Family
:
Homes / Agencys
Institution (GB)
:

Agency
: Barnardos
NotesA birth registration was found for Alice Trixie Rutty: Year of Registration: 1893; Quarter of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec; District: Brighton; County: Sussex, East Sussex; Volume: 2b; Page: 20

A possible sibling Ernest born 1895 was admitted to Strand Union School at Edmonton on 24 June 1908, address of mother unknown, he was transferred on 15 March 1911 to the Infirmary. He had previously been admitted on several occasions to the Infirmary between 1900 and 1905. He was stated as being born in Brighton. In 1901 Census, he was aged 6 and a patient in Wandsworth and Clapham Union Infirmary. Battersea, London. In 1911, He was aged 16 and an inmate in Wandsworth Union Infirmary.

In 1901, Alice Trixie Rutty, 7 years of age, was shown as a pupil at Dr. Barnardos Home, Ilford, Essex, England. (Source: 1901 Census of England; Class: RG13; Piece: 1652; Folio: 86; Page: 12.)

In 1903, A. J. Rutty, 10, arrived at Quebec, Canada, in a group of 127 Barnardo girls en route to Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.

42701-26 Harold Vivian LANCASTER, 20, motor mechanic, Peterboro, 266 Simcoe St. same, s/o Vivian William (b. Canada) & Annie Jane, married Alice Trixie RUTTY, 30, clock maker, Brighton England, 435 Rogers St. Peterboro, d/o parent's names unknown, witn: Annie Jane & V. W. LANCASTER both of 2 Crescent Ave. Peterboro on Nov. 6, 1926 at Peterboro

In "Nation Builders: Barnardo Children in Canada" by Gail Helena Corbett, (Published by Dundurn Press Ltd., 2002, ISBN 1550023942, 9781550023947, 133 pages) Alice Rutty Griffin wrote:

"1903

They took me in and I had a little blue muffler and coat. I was six and I was crying. They sent me to the Girls' Village Home, a beautiful place with rows and rows of cottages each named after a flower. My cottage was Honey Suckle Cottage. After that I went to be boarded out at Aunt Patti's who got paid for keeping us Barnardo Children and sending us to school each day. One day they took me from her and sent me and some other girls to Stepney Causeway where they fitted us for Canada.

Mr. A. B. Owen, the head Canadian man came to get us. We were so excited to get a ride on the boat that we didn't worry much. As we came close to the Canadian shoreline the trees were splendid with colour and I remember saying "Do trees grow like this in Canada?" I was ten years old. We arrived in Montreal and I can remember sitting on the floor in the Montreal Station, our bags scattered all around us. Finally, we arrived at Peterborough. We had trunks with our full name and number on the front and in the trunk we had clothes, a Bible, a Sankey Hymn Book and a toy.

First, they placed me out at a farm and by 12 years old I had matured into young womanhood which frightened me terribly having not knowledge of it. My periods stopped and the farm woman accused me of playing around with the hired boy as we worked in the fields side by side. She took me to the village doctor and sent me back to Hazelbrae complaining that there was something physically wrong with me.. The Hazelbrae doctor prescribed medicine and soon things were back to normal.

Out I went again, this time I stayed only 2 months and took down with rheumatism and the doctor said I was in a very run down condition so they sent me back to the Home where I stayed for a year to get built up. My nerves were so bad since childhood that bed wetting was an embarrassing problem. In England we were punished for bed wetting and at the Home in Peterborough I had to stand in the hallway while all the children filed past. I hid my face in my pinafore for shame. When I was older the doctor attending me traced my problem back to the childhood punishments and severe nervous condition which had developed. My condition was so run down that I remember one farm woman rubbing my cheeks to get them rosy before the visiting lady from the Home arrived.

Finally they sent me to a maiden lady and her mother where I stayed for 15 years. The woman had to work in the woolen mill to support herself and her mother. The burdochs had grown right to her back door. Each day, I would take the sickel [sic] and work the burdochs back. Then I dug a small garden patch further back each year until finally Miss ____ had a man plough it. I loved to cut the wood with a cross cut saw securing the log with my foot, whistling away, happy as a lark. I guess I would have stayed there forever, except one day a friend came to me and said: "Listen, are you going to stay with Miss ____ all your life? You come out and get a place of your own. In fact I know a place for you at Dr. and Mrs. ____."

At the doctor's I was treated like a maid for the first time in my life. I lived in back quarters and used back stairs and was never premitted [sic] to be with them. For weeks I would return to my room and cry and write to Miss ____. But I could not go back.


Often I thought about Hazelbrae, those big trees and the wide meadow, and the hill we used to roll down and the Christmas I stayed, the splendid dinner, Christmas pudding and everything. even the ladies came and ate with us. On the 24th of May and holidays the Home would have a party out on the large lawn under the trees, we would have tea together. Sometimes Old Girls would come back to the Home to renew acquaintances.

I never heard about or from my own people. Finally I sent to Somerset House to see if I'd been registered and I found out from them that my father was registered as a travelling jeweller and died when I was one year old leaving two brothers and my mother who remarried. I wondered about my mother and Barnardo said that they were very sorry but she had never inquired for me since she took me to Stepney Causeway." 
ContributorsCreated : 2009-01-07 10:39:03 / From original database

Last Updated : 2009-08-22 05:06:16 /

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IDNameDOBPlace of birthArrivals & ShipsDest.AgencyFamily links
4597 RUTTY, Alice Trixie1893ENG, SSX, Brighton Oct 1903 : Dominion CAN Barnardos