21 April 2017

Gordon Flowerdew, home child?

Following on yesterday's post about the Yarmouth Independent becoming available on the British Newspaper Archive, I took the opportunity to check it out at the Ottawa City Archives. BIFHSGO has purchased a subscription for use by visitors to the Archives .
This article about Eric Flowerdew and his wife, successful poultry farmers in BC, caught my attention.  He came from a large Norfolk farming family, and served with British Forces during the First World War arriving in Canada shortly thereafter.
The article, from April 1927, ends with the advice that "Canadian farmers want real workers. For that class there is every chance. Others had better stay away."
A name like Flowerdew is one we all wish we had to research. Google popped up one Gordon Flowerdew, Eric's older brother, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross serving with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
His biography in the DCB ends "Flowerdew is of some interest both for the way he lived and for the manner of his death. Like many other young Britons, he had come to Canada at the turn of the century to seek his fortune without giving up his British roots and had volunteered to fight for the empire in 1914. Tragically, but also typically, he died carrying on a military tradition centuries-old but set in a different, industrialized style of warfare."
Gordon Flowerdale arrived in Canada in 1903, one of the pre-war immigrants from Britain I'll be speaking about at the Alberta Genealogical Society conference this week end. He appears in the Home Child database on the LAC website but given his age on immigration, 18, and background he doesn't fit the profile of the typical home child.

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