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Thanks to financial support from the Friends of the Archives
of Ontario, the Archives has acquired a set of highly significant
Canadian immigration records from Columbia University. While
at Columbia, they were known as the Toronto Emigration
Office Records, or more informally as the Hawke
Papers. These records, which date from 1831-1892,
were mainly compiled by Anthony Bowden Hawke and his successor
J. A. Donaldson. Hawke was the first specialized emigrant
agent assigned to assist immigrants in settling Upper Canada
(which became Canada West, and then Ontario). He served
as Chief Emigrant Agent for a number of years.
This important collection is now part of the Archives' larger collection of Provincial Immigration Records. It includes official correspondence and records which document assistance provided to immigrants in the form of transportation, food, and shelter. Of particular note are records of assistance provided to widows, orphans, and others who fled to Canada during the difficult Irish famine time period. Earliest in date are financial records containing accounts of A.B. Hawke, Peter Robinson, Alexander McDonell and others.
While the records originate mainly from the Toronto and Kingston emigrant offices, records of arrivals and destinations pertaining to other locations are also included. Some registers document the arrival of young children, including "Barnardo's Boys", who were among the more than 100,000 British Home Children sent to Canada between 1870 and 1940.
These papers will be of immense value to genealogists and scholars studying immigration patterns and conditions of life in nineteenth-century Ontario.
Due to the fragility of the original documents, these records have been microfilmed by the Archives of Ontario and will be available in the Archives Reading Room and through Microfilm interloan as of 1 February 2001. |
