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« on: Friday 30 December 16 11:12 GMT (UK) »
Thank you so much to all who have helped out. I've tried to summarise all the major points, and whilst there may be some errors, I'm going to show this to my aunt now. Incase anyone is interested, here is the summary:
Eileen’s grandparents on her mothers side John & Annie Carter were born & grew up in Dorset where John worked as a labourer on a farm. Looks like they had 8 children: Stanley, Henry, Anthony, Sydney, Dorcas, Dorthy, and Herbert, moving to various places over the years and giving birth to Eileen’s mother Dorothy in Iklesham, East Sussex. Dorothy emigrated at the age of about 23 to Nova Scotia to work as a domestic servant, at some point may have worked in Cobalt, Ontario.
Eileen’s grandparents on her fathers side John & Martha Anne Garforth were born in Ashton Under Lyne near Manchester where it seems they lived all their lives. They had 5 children, Eliza, John, Florence, Joseph and Harry. Joseph was born in 1888, but in 1897 both parents died. His father in April, and mother in June. As was common practice at the time, orphaned children or simply children from poor families were sent overseas by organisations like Barnados to former colonies such as Canada for a supposed better life. The were known as “British home children” or “Barnados babies”, but the reality was more like indentured servitude. Only a year after both parents had died Joseph was sent at the age of 9 years old to Halifax, Canada on 31st March 1898 from Liverpool aboard the Labrador There is also a record of his sister Florence being sent to an orphanage in Bristol, and so it seems the entire family was torn apart.
A 1901 Census lists Joseph lodging with Herbert H Smith an Ontario farmer at Pipestone, Brandon, Manitoba, then possibly lodging with his newly wedded sister and family in the 1911 Census in Assiniboia, Saskatchewan. Records indicate he spent most of his working life doing manual jobs like logging, driving and labouring but it appears from various addresses and correspondence that Joseph had moved out west near British Columbia by 1915 and joined the Canadian Mounted Rifles.
WWI broke out on 28 July 1914, and it appears he was sent back to England, Ashton infact, because a Joseph Garforth enlists with the 9 Res Manchester Regt in May 1915 at Ashton Barracks ( army number 3851). He had several months training in England and was also hospitalised several times (he appears to have had chronic health issues) before being granted temporary leave to work in munitions in Prescott, Lancashire. He was the called up again and sent to H L I Battalion in Montrose and was sent to hospital in Aberdeen.
Continued in next post..............