The Maddock Family- Part 2

 The following blog post has been written by Katie Royle, a student at Manchester Metropolitan University currently studying for a Master's in Public History and Heritage. As part of her course Katie is using the Together Trust Archive located at Manchester Central Library to undertake research on some of the young people emigrated to Canada. This is the second part of  Katie's research into the Maddock family, detailing the brothers' life in Canada and beyond.

In March 1892, Charlie, Joseph and David departed from Liverpool on the steamship SS Sarnia bound for Ontario, accompanied by 150 other boys from the Refuge. For most, it would have been the first time they had ever seen the sea, and many suffered terribly with seasickness over the ten day crossing. Each child had their own wooden trunk with their names inscribed, inside each were a summer and winter outfit, new underclothes, two pairs of boots, and a prayer book. Charlie had also saved up some money and bought his brothers shiny new pocketknives. 

Marchmont Home, Belleville, Ontario, M189/9/2/4

On arrival, they were put up in the Marchmont Home in Ontario under the care of Rev. and Mrs Wallace, a house that would be ‘home’ in Canada for as long as they needed, indeed over the years the boys visited often. Their arrival was advertised in the local paper in Belleville, Ontario:

‘Rev. Robert and Mr. Wallace, expect to arrive in Canada the first week in April, with a party of boys from seven to fourteen years of age, suitable for adoption and farm work. They will be distributed from Marchmont home, Belleville.’ 

In the Refuge Annual Meeting of that year, it was stated that demand far outstripped the supply of boys available, which enabled them to match the children more carefully to the right farms. 

Canada in 1892 was not the cosmopolitan Canada that we know today. The opening up of the north-west by the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1886 had done much to urbanise its centres, such as Kingston and Toronto, however the boys would have arrived in farming country, an open landscape with rolling fields and fresh air, a sharp contrast to the industrial Manchester they had left behind. It was not just their surroundings that would have been a huge change, the climate too would have been a shock. When they arrived, it was a bright spring day in March, but the weather was extreme, with heavy snowfall in the winter when the temperature could go down to forty degrees below zero. According to the Ontario Historical Society: 

 ‘The bitter cold of winter was a new experience … the frosts lingered late in May and returned in September. Spring brought the inevitable hoards of insects, especially black flies and mosquitos, and the violent storms in summer struck terror into the heart.’ 

Charlie, Joseph, and David were all placed with farmers in the vicinity and would have been expected to work hard and in return their food, board, and clothes were provided. Being older, Charlie and Joseph would also earn a small wage. Although they were separated, they remained close, corresponding by letter and visiting each other by bicycle, occasionally meeting up at the Marchmont Home. Each year, an inspector checked in on the boys, and made a report of their lives in Canada. Charlie was placed in Belleville and wrote a letter back to the Manchester and Salford Refuge: 

‘I write these few lines to you hoping to find you in good health as it leaves me at present. You must excuse me for not writing sooner but I not knowing anything about the country I could not write. I have been in my new home a little over five months. I have got a good Christian master and Mrs. We have family worship every morning and night and grace at every meal. My master has learned me to plough … there is a lot of wood to cut in this country. The agreement Mrs Wallace made was for 3 dollars a month for 8 months and 4 months school. My master has only 1 team of horses so that he says I can go to school more than four months and I will get my wages just the same. I will he says get 24 dollars this fall of which I intend to send a little back to the Homes. I have had the privilege of going to see my brothers. David is getting along first-rate but he says he does not get much chance of going to Sunday school because the sheep have to be watched. I was surprised to see him gang-ploughing when I went to visit him. David is working for David Carter Holloway, that is 14 miles east of me. Joe, he is getting on first-rate he has a good master and attends Sunday school regular. He lives in a log house, but it is a comfortable house he lives 22 miles north of me in Moneymore, Hungerford. Where Joe and David are is like Hayfield, nearly all hills, but where I am you could see for miles and miles. You might please send the photographs which you promised us and also send me the price of a bound volume of the children own paper.’ 

Gang-plough, 11 year old David's undertook this job on the farm.

The following year, Charlie had moved on from Belleville and the inspector found him living with the farmer George Humphreys in Foxboro. The report states:

 ‘Charlie seems to be of a wandering disposition and has made many changes since last visited but says he “intends staying with Mr H during the winter”. He is a good worker, if he had more ambition might do better. A strong healthy boy. Attends church.’ 

It seems that Charlie’s ‘wandering disposition’ continued as in 1894 he left farming and joined the Royal Canadian Artillery in the Kingston Battery, Ontario. His military certificate shows that, like his father, he was working with horses as a mounted trumpeter, gaining his certificate in military instruction in 1895 to certify he is ‘able to sound all trumpet calls mounted, with thorough knowledge of all trumpet and bugle sounds (mounted, services, and infantry) and to sound the same.’ A report from Marchmont in 1896 states that ‘he continues to like it and is getting on nicely.’ David however was not so happy with his brother being a soldier with a report noting he ‘called at the home quite distressed about it but now seems reconciled to having a soldier brother’. Charlie still looked out for his brothers and being a keen cyclist, he rode 50 miles in his uniform to visit Marchmont on his break from Kingston, showing the affection he held for the place that had been his first home in Canada. 

In 1896, Charlie wrote a letter to Mrs Wallace at Marchmont stating that he was going to leave the Kingston Battery: 

 ‘I am still soldiering but I am going to try and get work on the railroad and try and work my way up … it is no use soldiering in this country because you might be a solider for a lifetime and never see any service’. 

The following year, Charlie set off to work on Crows Nest Pass railway, and from there he left to try his luck in the silver mines of Montana where, according to a local newspaper, he worked steadily and accumulated wealth. 

Joseph stayed in Moneymore, in the log cabin, for over five years, earning a wage on the farm and spent his free time hunting and fishing, a million miles away from the life he had left behind in the Manchester. His first report states: 

 ‘He likes his home. He is getting on well and learning to help in many ways in farm work. His master and mistress are very pleased with him. A strong healthy-looking boy’. 

 In a report a few years later: 

 ‘Joe is a big strong lad and seems to be giving good satisfaction. He had just returned from hunting in the woods when I arrived. Says he is well pleased. Attends church and Sunday school regularly. He hears from his brothers often.’ 

Joseph Maddock, photographed at the Refuge before emigation in 1892, M189/9/2/1

David went to visit Joseph in October 1895 at Moneymore and decided to stay, working mainly in the house. His reports describe him as a ‘good looking lad’, ‘taller than his brother’ and ‘too fond of rambling about and never saves any money’. On inspection, in 1896 Joe was ‘satisfied with his brother’s prospects and says he has a good home’. 

Tragically, in May 1899 David died in a drowning accident. According to the newspaper reports, he was fishing at dusk in the Moira River with a Mr William Holgate, who David had been working for over the summer, when his skiff somehow overturned, and neither could swim. He was 18 years old. 

David Maddock, photographed at the Refuge before emigration in 1892, M189/9/2/1

It was David’s death that brought Charlie back to Ontario, where he met and married Emmaline Rea in the same year. By 1901 he was living with his wife in Kingston and working as a ‘moulder’ with one lodger – his brother, Joseph. 

In 1906, Charlie and Emmeline emigrated to America, settling in Saratoga Springs, New York. Saratoga Springs was a new spa town and considered an upscale resort, with natural mineral springs, horse racing, and luxury hotels. Charlie bought a new house on Lincoln, next to a bathhouse and spa – a world away from the polluted waterways of the River Irk. Despite living far apart, the two brothers stayed in touch; Charlie’s 16 year old son visited Joseph in Canada, and Joseph visited Charlie, a few years after he moved to New York. Charlie worked at the Niagara Mohawk Power and Light Company as a core maker and was one of the first people on the street to own a television. He stayed in Saratoga Springs for over 50 years, until his death at age 84 in 1960. He had three children, and three grandchildren. 

Joseph stayed behind in Canada, working as a trolley man on the railway, and married Loretta Frasso on 15 February 1904 in Kingston. They emigrated to America in 1922, when Joseph took a job painting and lettering for the old Rochester and Syracuse trolley line in Lyon, New York. They settled there and stayed for the rest of his life – not far from his big brother, Charlie. Joseph died in 1956, aged 77. He had three children and seven grandchildren. 

From humble beginnings to working family men in up-and-coming New York, it is hard to fathom how their lives could have been so different if they had not gone to Manchester and Salford Refuge that sad night in 1891. It is likely they would have found themselves in the workhouse where their mother had toiled so mercilessly, or working in the Clemson dyeworks, a taste of which Charlie had had as a boy. They certainly did not have bright days ahead of them, and a life of toil and poverty would have more than likely been their lot. Instead, Charlie had saved his brothers from this fate, and when he passed away at the ripe old age of 84 surrounded by his family, he must have been proud and grateful for their escape from the slums of Manchester to a fresh new life in Canada. 


To read more about the Together Trust's history, Andrew Simpson's book 'The Ever Open Door' can be purchased through our enquiry page.