The Hempstead Hall labour colony: 1905-1951
The labour colony movement had its roots in religious / socialist ideals of the 19th century. Concerns about the inadequacy of the poor laws led a number of organisations to create therapeutic communities offering fresh air, plentiful work and isolation. Colonies on this model were developed for sufferers from TB, alcoholics, epileptics and the ‘feeble-minded’.
However, the movement also had a deeply pragmatic side, with a strong focus on relieving unemployment. Many of those involved in the labour colony programme were quick to see the opportunities for unemployed British men in helping to settle the Empire. Up to the start of WW1, many voluntary colonies worked with governments in Canada, and later Australia and New Zealand to develop emigrant training schemes, with a strong emphasis on the need for “white settlers”.
Although interrupted during the war years by the need to provide facilities for wounded and shell-shocked soldiers invalided from the front, training for Empire gathered momentum again after 1918, this time with active government involvement under the Empire Settlement Act.
Following the financial crash of 1929, enthusiasm began to wane and the programme never returned to its pre-war peak, By the end of the thirties, labour colonies had largely petered out and, during and after WW2, many were repurposed as remand homes for young offenders referred by the courts.
What has this to do with Hempstead? Well, in 1905, the Hempstead Hall estate, together with some 740 acres of land including Ruses Farm, was gifted to the Church Army, which had been founded 23 years earlier by Wilson Carlile. The Church Army was quick to adapt it to a Farm Training Camp which, over the next thirty years, taught thousands of boys the rudiments of farming practice before shipping them out to new lives in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Large numbers of local people continued to work the farm: William Staight from Little Bulls Farm was the farm bailiff and Jack Drane drove a lorry.
Church Army records don’t identify the boys but happily the census records do, albeit only as a snapshot based on who was there on census day in 1911, 1921 and on the day of the national register in 1939. We have made a preliminary start on following up these names and have already managed to find the passenger manifest of a ship that carried nine of them to Brisbane in June 1911. One boy, Harry Fontana from Basingstoke, was 16 when he arrived in Australia and we have traced his subsequent marriage and his death in Brisbane in 1974. As this work progresses, who knows what reminiscences of Hempstead may emerge?
In 1941, Hempstead Hall was redesignated as a remand home for boys. Those in the village who recall the Church Army’s presence say that they kept very much to themselves: they even had their own school for the younger boys, housed in a building with a green corrugated roof. Margaret Drane recalled that, on occasions, a group of boys would be walked down to the Post Office in the village and that some would come into the shop, next door to her father’s bakery, to buy sweets. In the early, emigration camp days, the boys only stayed for up to three months at a time but after 1941 they had a reputation in the village as ‘Borstal Boys’ and people were a little wary of them.
The remand home at Hempstead Hall remained under the Church Army’s management until its final closure in 1950. A letter from the Secretary of State’s office in that year refers to the “happy and unrepressive atmosphere prevailing at Hempstead Hall” and the final report emphasises the absence of ugly disciplinary incidents and the low rate of absconding.
In the end, the estate was sold privately for “nearly £43,000”. In its ten years of operation as a remand home, the Hall admitted 1,887 boys, mostly en route to Approved Schools elsewhere.
The collection below , comprising newspaper reports, government papers obtained from the Public Records Office and archive material generously provided by the Church Army, casts a fascinating light on a little known story that unfolded in our village during the first half of the last century.
Church Army Reviews
Remand Home Reports
Extract from Wilson Carlile and the Church Army (Edgar Rowan, 1912)
Miscellaneous press coverage
Country Life article, 24 May 1913
