William Quarrier, a Glasgow businessman, began to send children to Canada from his home at Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, through Miss Macpherson in 1872. Sometime in the 1880s he purchased this home in Brockville, through which Quarrier wards were placed in eastern Ontario until 1939. Note the variety of styles in hair and dress. Like many of his evangelical colleagues, Quarrier emphasised the need for children from his institution to be instilled with a sense of individuality. The gentleman in the front row is probably Alexander Burges, Quarrier's son-in-law, who ran the Canadian home. "Fairknowe," like the other British branches, was a distributing home, not a residence. Almost all these young girls would have been placed in situations within a fortnight of their arrival in Canada.
