View source for Margaret Humphreys

{{Short description|British social worker and author (born 1944)}}
{{BLP sources|date=October 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2022}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2011}}
{{Infobox person
| name          = Margaret Humphreys 
| honorific_suffix = [[Order of the British Empire|CBE]] [[Order of Australia|AO]]
| image         = Margaret Humphreys.jpg
| alt           = 
| caption       = Humphreys at ''[[Oranges and Sunshine]]'' premiere, in May 2011
| birth_name    = <!-- only use if different from name -->
| birth_date    = {{birth year and age|1944}}
| birth_place   = [[Nottingham]], England, United Kingdom
| death_date    = 
| death_place   = 
| nationality   = 
| other_names   = 
| occupation    = Social worker, author
| years_active  = 
| known_for     = 
| notable_works = 
}}
'''Margaret Humphreys''', {{postnominals|country=AUS|size=100%|sep=,|CBE|AOh}} (born 1944) is a British social worker and author from [[Nottingham]], England. She worked for [[Nottinghamshire County Council]] operating around [[Radford, Nottingham|Radford]], [[Nottingham]] and [[Hyson Green]] in child protection and adoption services. In 1986, she received a letter from a woman in Australia who, believing she was an orphan, was looking to locate her birth certificate so she could get married.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.leftlion.co.uk/read/2019/july/margaret-humphreys-home-children-child-migrants-trust/|title= Margaret Humphreys CBE, the Home Children Scandal, and the Lost Children of the Empire|publisher=LeftLion|accessdate=7 July 2019}}</ref>

In 1987, she investigated and brought to public attention the British government programme of [[Home Children]]. This involved forcibly relocating poor British children to [[Australia]], [[Canada]], [[New Zealand]], the former [[Rhodesia]], and other parts of the [[Commonwealth of Nations]]<ref name="cmt">see [http://www.childmigrantstrust.com Website of the Child Migrants Trust], retrieved 19 June 2006.</ref> often without their parents' knowledge. Children were often told their parents had died, and parents were told their children had been placed for adoption elsewhere in the UK. According to Humphreys, up to 150,000 children are believed to have been resettled under the scheme,<ref name=empty>{{cite book |last=Humphreys |first=Margaret |title=Empty Cradles |publisher=[[Transworld Publishers|Corgi]] |year=1996 |isbn=0-552-14164-X}}</ref> some as young as three,<ref name=cmt /> about 7,000 of whom were sent to Australia.<ref name="BBC1">see [https://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/eastmidlands/series9/week_nine.shtml "British children deported to Australia"], BBC ''Inside Out'', retrieved 19 June 2006.</ref>

Saving money was one of the motives behind this policy. The children were allegedly deported because it was cheaper to care for them overseas. It cost an estimated £5 per day to keep a child on welfare in a British institution, but only 10% of that, ten [[shilling]]s, in an Australian one.<ref name="BBC1" />

==Child Migrants Trust==
Humphreys' investigations led to the exposure of the child migration scheme in two major articles by Annabel Ferriman in ''[[The Observer]]'' newspaper in July 1987 and to the establishment of the Child Migrants Trust, initially financed by Nottinghamshire County Council, her employer, and later by the British and Australian governments, and constituted as a [[Charitable organization|registered charity]] under English law.<ref>{{EW charity|328385|Child Migrants Trust}}</ref> The Trust was later established as an incorporated body to comply with Australian regulations and opened offices in Melbourne and Perth.

The primary aims of the Trust are to enable former British child migrants to reclaim their personal identity and reunite them with their parents and relatives.<ref name="about">see [http://www.childmigrantstrust.org/ABOUT/Index.htm About the Child Migrants Trust] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071021230704/http://www.childmigrantstrust.org/ABOUT/Index.htm |date=21 October 2007 }}, retrieved 19 June 2006.</ref> A key feature of the work of the Child Migrants Trust has been a sustained attempt via the mass media to develop public awareness of this previously obscure chapter in the social history of all the countries concerned. Humphreys took part in the British television documentary ''The Lost Children of the Empire'' screened in 1989 and later broadcast in Australia. A popular history book with the same title was published to coincide with the documentary. Its description of child migration policy begins with Britain's early involvement which started in the 17th century when children were sent from [[London]] to boost the population of [[Virginia]]—the first British outpost in America. Child migration continued over the next 350 years across three continents, including North America and Africa, ending in Australia in 1970.

==Christian Brothers==
In 1998, a British Parliamentary Select Committee began an inquiry into child migration schemes, and published a report in August that year which criticized the policy in general, and particularly certain [[Roman Catholic]] institutions in [[Western Australia]] and [[Queensland]] such as the [[Congregation of Christian Brothers#Sexual abuse of children|Christian Brothers]] where child migrants were housed and allegedly abused. The [[Western Australian Legislative Assembly]] passed a motion on 13 August 1998 apologizing to former child migrants.<ref name="timeline">see [http://www.goldonian.org/barnardo/child_migrationl.htm "A child migration timeline"], ''The Goldonian''.</ref>

==Australian affairs==
In 2007, both the Queensland and Western Australia governments announced redress schemes for those who as children were abused while in State care. These schemes allow former British child migrants to apply for financial compensation if they do not wish to or cannot pursue civil litigation claims against the State.

==Honours and recognition==
Humphreys was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in March 1993 and an honorary [[Master of Arts]] in 1996 by [[Nottingham Trent University]] in recognition of her work. She was named a Paul Harris Fellow in 1997 by the Rotary Foundation of [[Rotary International]] "in appreciation of tangible and significant assistance given for the furtherance of better understanding and friendly relations among peoples of the world".<ref name="hansard">see [https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmselect/cmhealth/755/8060407.htm "Key milestones of the Child Migrants Trust"], [[British House of Commons]], retrieved 19 June 2006.</ref> On 30 May 1998 an honorary master's degree was awarded to Humphreys by the [[Open University]] as an "ambassador both for Nottinghamshire and for Britain". More recently, in December 
2011, Humphreys was awarded an honorary [[Doctor of Laws]] degree by the [[University of Nottingham]].

Both [[Kevin Rudd]] and [[Gordon Brown]], the respective [[Prime Minister]]s of Australia and Britain, in their public apologies in 2009 and 2010, thanked Humphreys for her campaigning and for her contribution to the cause of UK child migrants and their families.
<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2010/feb/20/margaret-humphreys-child-migrants-trust|title= 'People should sort this mess|work=The Guardian|accessdate=20 February 2010}}</ref>

In the 2011 [[New Year's Honours List]], Humphreys was appointed a [[Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] (CBE) for services to disadvantaged people.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-12818070|title=Margaret Humphreys on Oranges and Sunshine film|publisher=BBC|accessdate=22 March 2011}}</ref>

On 10 April 2019, Humphreys was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) "for distinguished service to the community, particularly to former child migrants".<ref name=2019-S2>[https://www.gg.gov.au/sites/default/files/files/honours/honorary/Gazette%20C2019G00339.pdf 2019-S2] – Officer (AO) in General Division (10 April 2019)</ref>

==Book and film ==
''Empty Cradles'', Humphreys' account of the formation and early struggles of the Child Migrants Trust, was published by [[Corgi (publisher)|Corgi]] in 1994.<ref name=empty/> Its sales of over 75,000 copies helped to fund the work of the Trust at a critical time when British government grants had been stopped. ''Empty Cradles'' has been dramatised as the 2011 feature film ''[[Oranges and Sunshine]]'', a 2010 British-Australian [[Drama (film and television)|drama film]] co-production directed by [[Jim Loach]] with the leading roles played by [[Emily Watson]] as Margaret and [[Hugo Weaving]] and [[David Wenham]] as two former British child migrants.

==See also==
*[[Kingsley Fairbridge]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==Other sources==
*[http://www.childmigrantstrust.com Website of the Child Migrants Trust]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20100124130101/http://www.childmigrantstrust.com/ABOUT/Index.htm About the Child Migrants Trust]
*[https://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/eastmidlands/series9/week_nine.shtml "British children deported to Australia"], BBC ''Inside Out''.

== External links ==
*[http://www.google.com/profiles/childmigrants"Related Links]
*[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/96875.stm The children Britain did not want] BBC news Wednesday 20 May 1998.
*[http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/1999-02/child_migrat/report/index Lost Innocents: Righting the Record – Report on child migration, Parliament of Australia, Senate Community Affairs References Committee]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Humphreys, Margaret}}
[[Category:1944 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:English social workers]]
[[Category:People from Nottingham]]
[[Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Honorary recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia]]
[[Category:Honorary officers of the Order of Australia]]