Margaret Humphreys - Child Migrants Trust

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 registered charity under English law. The Trust was later established as an incorporated body to comply with Australian regulations and opened offices in Melbourne and Perth.

Empty Cradles, Humphreys' account of the formation and early struggles of the Child Migrants Trust, was published in 1994. Its sales of 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 directed by Jim Loach with Emily Watson, Hugo Weaving and David Wenham in the leading roles.

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. 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.