Quinte News article on Marchmont Plaque
Read here by following this link: http://www.quintenews.com/2017/09/last-plaque-commemorates-marchmont-home/158304/
The plaque commemorating the Marchmont Home’s impact on the city of Belleville in the late 1800s and early 1900s. (Photo: Brock Ormond/Quinte News).
The Hastings County Historical Society continued its unveiling of plaques commemorating important moments in the Quinte region’s history for Canada’s 150th anniversary Thursday afternoon.
The Marchmont Distributing Home, active in Belleville from 1875-1925, was the latest moment in history honoured inside the Belleville Club on Pinnacle Street.
It’s estimated that the Marchmont Home, with guidance from Scottish Home Children founder Annie MacPherson and her associates, brought in 10,000 orphaned, abandoned and impoverished British children from workhouses, industrial schools and the streets of Britain.
British Home Child Group International Vice-President Sandra Joyce says she has been working hard to uncover the lives of British Home Children ever since she found out her father was one in 2004.
Sandra Joyce memorialized the stories of the Marchmont Home into three books. The most notable of these stories was Trees and Rocks, Rocks and Trees, which she says was based on her father’s life as a British Home Child. Joyce says she found out about her father being a Home Child in 2004 and has been involved with BHCGI since January 2015.