Quarriers Story: One Man's Vision That Gave 7,000 Children a New Life in Canada

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

William Quarrier was born, in 1829, into incredible poverty. At age
seven he was working 10 hours a day, six days a week, in a Glasgow
factory. Later in life, when he apprenticed as a shoemaker and went on
to own several shoe shops, his experience with childhood poverty
prompted him to find ways to help some of the thousands of homeless
inner-city children. His first ventures in this direction involved
organizing shoeshine boys so they had some food and shelter. From these
“brigades,” Quarrier’s charitable work expanded until, c. 1870, he
founded the Quarrier’s Village, with the goal of giving as many
children as possible a chance to escape the grim life on the streets.
The village grew to a large, self-contained site, with a school, a
church, workshops, greenhouses, a poultry farm, and cottages to house
the children. At its height it had 52 buildings and housed 900 to 1,200
children at any given time.

Between 1872 and 1938, 7,000 children from the village emigrated to
Canada, to be adopted by families in rural Canada or to work as farm
labourers or domestics. The book paints a realistic picture of the
experience from the children’s point of view. These “Home
children” and their descendants have contributed considerably to the
development of Canadian society.

The history, like William Quarrier’s life, centres on the
children’s village and the emigration activities, including a few
memories and reflections by individual children. It also covers other
activities undertaken by Quarriers, past and present, such as the
building of leading-edge facilities for the treatment of tuberculosis,
epilepsy, and learning disabilities.

The book is a portrait of William Quarrier, his charitable work and the
organization he founded, which continues strong 100 years after his
death. Above all, it is a thoughtful, balanced social history that
explores the responsibility of society— Scottish and Canadian—to its
children.