Before and after photo of Henry Bates from Middlemore Homes

Description:Henry was taken into Middlemore Homes in November 1904. His father had died and his mother had remarried. His step-father had been out of work for months and his mother had to sell most of their furniture to buy food and pay the rent. Henry had earned money by selling nails on the streets and his mother was taken to court because he played truant from school. He was sent to Canada for a 'new life' by Middlemore Homes.
This photograph is printed in the Middlemore Homes Annual Report for 1905. The Annual reports were produced to give information to people about the work that the homes did with children. The reports also listed who had donated money to the charity. In the reports there are ‘before and after’ photographs of children, descriptions of their home life and backgrounds, descriptions of the journey to Canada and reports on settlement in Canada. Photographs are taken for many different reasons to tell many different stories. When we look at a photograph we cannot see it as telling us the whole story. We have to question why it was taken and what that means about what the photo tells us.

Questions to think about: Why do you think this photo was taken? What does it tell us about what happened to the children in Middlemore Homes?
Can we tell anything about how the children feel from these photos? How reliable do you think these photos are?