Professor Gordon Lynch, in the Department of Religious Studies, has been awarded an Arts and Humanities (AHRC) Follow-On Funding grant of £99,676 to develop work that raises public awareness of child migration schemes run by Christian churches and charities in the UK between the 1860s and 1960s. The schemes sent an estimated 100,000 children, without accompanying parents, to Canada, Australia and other former British colonies. The grant will support the development of the first major national museum exhibition about these schemes. Building on his previous successful collaborations with TrueTube, including an award-winning film on the Magdalene Laundries, a new film will also be produced that introduces students at Key Stages 3 and 4 to the schemes’ history and legacy.
Professor Lynch responded to the award, saying ‘I’m delighted at the work that we can develop with this AHRC funding. The legacy of these migration programmes remains very powerful for former child migrants and their families and we hope that these activities will provide an opportunity to learn from their experiences and to make more people aware of this relatively recent part of our history.’
For more details on the AHRC, please see the page here:
www.ahrc.ac.uk