Boys from Dr. Barnardo's Homes About to Leave for Liverpool.
This group portrait of boys bound for Canada was taken in an interior courtyard at Stepney Causeway in about 1890. By the 1890s very large parties like this one had become typical and several thousand home children were arriving in Canada each year. Note how young most of the boys are; the average age of those in the first eight rows is probably seven or eight. These children would not have been indentured immediately but boarded out at the expense of the home until they were eleven or twelve.
