Curator Kim Tao and Pam Wright at the latest exhibition at Albury’s Library Museum. Picture: KYLIE ESLER
PAM Wright was just five years old when she was shipped from Britain to Australia and told by government authorities she was an orphan, despite both her parents being alive.
The Bright resident will share some of her thoughts at today’s opening of Albury Library Museum’s latest exhibition that looks at the controversial British child migration scheme.
From the 1860s to 1967 more than 100,000 children were shipped to Commonwealth nations in need of population growth and labour.
Mrs Wright and 15 other girls arrived in Albury and spent some time at St John’s orphanage at Thurgoona.
Mrs Wright’s father tracked her down several years later but, by then, she had been declared a ward of the state.
He pleaded his case to politicians and she was finally released into his care.
About 30 years ago, the pieces fell into place after she who read a book about children being deported from their homes in Britain.
The exhibition, One Their Own — Britain’s Child Migrants, will run until April 28.