A few home truths

Published on Saturday 28 October 2006 00:23

Q My father was born in Kirkcaldy in 1909 and was put into the Orphan Homes of Scotland at the age of 11 even though both his parents were alive. He emigrated to Canada at the age of 15. I am trying to research what life would have been like in care, as well as his circumstances before being placed there. S Joyce (Toronto, Canada)

A In the cities, charitable institutions were established for the maintenance of orphans and other destitute children. The records of such institutions can be found in a variety of places. Two Edinburgh establishments, Dr Guthrie's Schools and the Dean Orphanage, have deposited their records with the National Archives of Scotland, and these include records naming children as far back as 1854 and 1753 respectively. Records of other institutions will be found among records held by local authority archives and some, like those of the Quarrier's Homes, are still held by the institution itself today.

Quarrier's Homes opened first at Bridge of Weir in Renfrewshire in 1878 as the Orphan Homes of Scotland. The name was not changed to Quarrier's Homes until 1958. William Quarrier, a successful Glasgow shoe retailer who had himself experienced a very impoverished childhood, began caring for orphaned and destitute children in Glasgow in the early 1870s.

Quarrier determined to set up a children's village, where poor children from the towns might enjoy a new life in cottage homes, under the supervision of house fathers and house mothers.

Quarrier enjoyed the backing of a band of committed supporters, and with their help was able to purchase the land at Bridge of Weir and begin to set up the Orphan Homes of Scotland. Over the next 20 years, the Orphan Homes developed as a self-contained community comprising more than 40 children's cottages, a church, a large school, a fire station, workshops, farms and other facilities. It continued to operate much as it had in the beginning, until the late 1970s and mid-1980s, when major changes in childcare practices and legislation caused a drastic reduction in the number of children cared for in the village.

A full set of records from 1878 for the institution is thought to survive, and there should also be some volumes dating from 1871 when the Orphan Homes of Scotland had premises in Glasgow. The records of the institution were surveyed in the 1970s by the National Register of Archives for Scotland (NRAS).

• A copy of the survey (ref: NRAS1270) is available through their website, www.nas.gov.uk/nras More information about Quarrier's Homes can be found on their website: www.quarriers.org.uk

• If you have a question for the Genealogy Clinic e-mail the team at [e-mail] We will endeavour to deal with all enquiries as quickly as possible, but we regret that we cannot enter into personal correspondence.

• ScotlandsPeople is a partnership between the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon.