By Olwen Purdue
Published in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, January 2026.
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Abstract

This article examines the emigration of children from Belfast workhouse in the opening years of the twentieth century. Belfast, a thriving industrial city at the heart of empire and itself a product of colonial expansion, was the only Irish poor union to emigrate children during this period. The article explores the ideas of child welfare, the commitment to empire, and the shared identity with Canada’s settler class that encouraged Belfast’s female poor law guardians to start emigrating workhouse boys to the empire at a time when the Union at the heart of that empire was under threat. It reveals the logistical considerations Belfast’s guardians navigated in establishing the system, and the anxieties they experienced when the reality of a better start in life for these boys did not seem to live up to their expectations. Finally, it seeks to recover something of the experience of the emigrated boys themselves asking to what extent these Belfast boys did actually become ‘Empire builders’.