In 1959 David Hill's mother - a poor single parent living in Sussex - reluctantly decided to send her sons to Fairbridge Farm School in Australia where, she was led to believe, they would have a good education and a better life. David was lucky - his mother was able to follow him out to Australia - but for most children, the reality was shockingly different. From 1938 to 1974 thousands of parents were persuaded to sign over legal guardianship of their children to Fairbridge to solve the problem of child poverty in Britain while populating the colony. Now many of those children have decided to speak out. Physical and sexual abuse was not uncommon. Loneliness was rife. Food was often inedible. The standard of education was appalling. Here, for the first time, is the story of the lives of the Fairbridge children, from the bizarre luxury of the voyage out to Australia to the harsh reality of the first days there; from the crushing daily routine to stolen moments of freedom and the struggle that defined life after leaving the school. This remarkable book is both a tribute to the children who were betrayed by an ideal that went terribly awry and a fascinating account of an extraordinary episode in British history.

This study investigates the motives for the establishment of the Fairbridge child migration scheme, examines its history in Australia and Canada, and outlines the experiences of many of the former child migrants.

Recent historical work has done much to focus attention on changing conceptions of children's rights during the 19th and 20th centuries. These essays address a variety of themes including the abuse of children, and the role of the welfare state.

This collection of twelve essays represents an important contribution to the understanding of child welfare and social action in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They challenge many assumptions about the history of childhood and child welfare policy and cover a variety of themes including the physical and sexual abuse of children, forced child migration and role of the welfare state.

Originally published in 1989. The extraordinary story of Britain’s child migrants is one of 350 years of shaming exploitation. Around 130,000 children, some just 3 or 4 years old, were shipped off to distant parts of the Empire, the last as recently as 1967. For Britain it was a cheap way of emptying children’s homes and populating the colonies with ‘good British stock’; for the colonies it was a source of cheap labour. Even after the Second World War around 10,000 children were transported to Australia – where many were subjected to at best uncaring abandonment, and at worst a regime of appalling cruelty. Lost Children of the Empire tells the remarkable story of the Child Migrants Trust, set up in 1987, to trace families and to help those involved to come to terms with what has happened. But nothing can explain away the connivance and irresponsibility of the governments and organisations involved in this inhuman chapter of British history.

The Forgotten Children was David Hill's heartbreaking account of the abuse that he and other 'orphans of empire' survived at the Fairbridge Farm School in New South Wales. Part memoir, part oral history, the book became a bestseller. It was also the catalyst in a subsequent battle for justice, which resulted in the Fairbridge kids being awarded a record $24 million in compensation by the NSW Supreme Court. And that was just the start of a reckoning with institutional abuse of power that reverberates to this day. In Reckoning David recounts stories of the shocking systemic abuse at Fairbridge, and how he led the fight against the powerful people and organisations - including the Australian and British governments and the Royal Family -- who denied and covered up terrible crimes perpetrated on innocent children, some as young as five years old. David's fight for acknowledgement and restitution was for himself but especially for those kids, who as adults showed remarkable, enduring resilience and determination in holding to account the establishments responsible for their suffering. Reckoning is both a tribute to the children who were betrayed by broken system and a compelling account of an extraordinary quest for justice. It is the story of how David Hill and the other Forgotten Children took on the institutions that tried to break them - and won.