Annie MacPherson

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Annie Parlane MacPherson (1833 – 27 November 1904) was a Scottish evangelical Quaker and philanthropist who founded Home Children, sending poor and orphaned children to Canada and other colonies.[1]

Biography[]

She was born in Campsie, by Milton, Stirlingshire, and educated in Glasgow and at the in Gray's Inn Road, London. After her father died she moved to Cambridge, but soon after returned to London. Touched by the poverty in the East End of London in 1868 she opened the Home of Industry at 60 Commercial Road in Spitalfield.[2] She influenced members of the , a temperance association of women, independent but affiliated to the British Women's Temperance Association, such as Mary White and Anne Bryson, who took her ideas back to influence women activists in Glasgow.[3]

In the 1870s, she organised for Home children to be sent to Canada from her home in London, and also had arrangements with Barnardo's Homes of Dr. Barnardo in London, Quarriers homes in Scotland, and Smyly homes in Dublin, Ireland[4] similar to arrangements with English and Scottish homes.[5]

In Canada she had set up a number of Homes, Marchmont, Galt in Ontario and in Knowlton Quebec [6]

The Doyle Report of 1875 into the emigration of children from these homes cast a shadow over the process of exporting children although it acknowledged the benevolent motives of MacPherson and others.[7] Her sister Louisa MacPherson married Charles Henry Birt, and helped her sister in her mission.[8]

In 1873 she established a home in Liverpool called The Sheltering Home.[9]

MacPherson died in 1904.[10]

References[]

  1. ^ British Home Children descendants Annie Macpherson "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 6 July 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) British Home Children.
  2. ^ "Home Children Guide - Annie Macpherson". Library and Archives Canada. 9 September 2020. Archived from the original on 14 December 2015.
  3. ^ Smitley, Megan K. (2002). 'Woman's mission': the temperance and women's suffrage movements in Scotland, c.1870-1914. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. p. 140.
  4. ^ Young Immigrants to Canada Archived 26 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine Smyly Homes of Dublin, Ireland.
  5. ^ The golden bridge: young immigrants to Canada, 1833–1939 By Marjorie Kohli
  6. ^ Gods answers, a record of Miss Annie Macphersons work at the Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada by Clara M.S. Lowe, (Introduction by )Rev. John Macpherson, LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO (1882)
  7. ^ Doyle Report into MacPherson and Rye Archived 11 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ "Louisa Birt". retirees.uwaterloo.ca. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  9. ^ "Sheltering Home for Destitute Children, Liverpool, Lancashire". www.childrenshomes.org.uk. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  10. ^ "Macpherson, Annie Parlane (1825–1904), promoter of child emigration : Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - oi". oxfordindex.oup.com. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
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