The fonds consists of A.C. Lincoln's photographs and film footage of events at Fairbridge Farm School. Fonds also includes a register of the Fairbridge Farm School Wolf Cub Pack and miscellaneous correspondence and brochures relating to Fairbridge Farm School.

The item is a video of the 50th reunion of the Fairbridge Farm School at Cowichan Station, near Duncan, BC.

Administrative records of Fairbridge Farm School, a residential training centre for underprivileged British children located near Duncan, B.C. Includes correspondence, reports, newsletters and case files of Fairbridgians (student trainees), 1935-1949. Also includes operational records re: agricultural work on the farm site and records re: English immigrant families who leased farm cottages between 1950 and 1960.

The Fairbridge Farm School was part of a philanthropic scheme aimed at strengthening the British Empire and improving the condition of underprivileged British children. The scheme was conceived by Kingsley Ogilvie Fairbridge (l885-l924), a South African-born reformer who was raised in southern Rhodesia. On first visiting England in 1902 Fairbridge was struck by the over-crowding and poverty in large industrial cities; he was also appalled by the condition of working-class children who lived in unhealthy, unstable homes in city slums. In 1909, having returned to England as a Rhodes scholar, he outlined his plans for saving these children to a group of fellow students at the Oxford University Colonial Club. Fairbridge's plan was to resettle selected British children in the overseas dominions. There, in a rural environment, children would live together in cottages within a village-like setting. Girls would receive training in domestic pursuits, while boys would be trained in manual arts and agriculture. Vocational training was to be supplemented with moral guidance and leavened with recreational pursuits in such a way that the young emigrants would be able to take their places as productive citizens in the host communities. Fairbridge's proposal led to the founding of the "Society for the Furtherance of Child Emigration to the Colonies," afterwards incorporated as the Child Emigration Society [CES]. The society raised £2,000 and in 1913 the first "farm school" was opened in Western Australia. Other training farms (which were supported by grants from the British and Australian governments and by private donations) were later established in the states of New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania.

Kingsley Fairbridge had hoped originally to open a farm school in Canada. Ten years after his death - when the CES was reconstituted as Fairbridge Farm Schools (Inc.) - his wish was realized. Encouraged by Canadian enthusiasts, an appeal was launched to help bring the farm school concept to the Dominion. The appeal was led by the Prince of Wales and sufficient funds were raised to purchase a 1,100 acre site at Cowichan Station, near Duncan, on Vancouver Island. The new facility - officially named The Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School - opened in 1935. The first principal of the farm school was Major F. Trew who held the position from April 1935 to May 1936. Trew's successor was Colonel H.T. Logan, a contemporary of Kingsley Fairbridge at Oxford and a former professor of Classics at the University of British Columbia. Logan resigned in June 1945 to join the staff of the Fairbridge Society headquarters in London. He was succeeded as principal of the Prince of Wales farm school by Mr. W.J. Garnett (July 1945 - January 1949) and Major A.H. Plows (February 1949 - January 1951.) The Fairbridge Farm School consisted of fourteen cottages, each capable of accommodating a dozen children and a resident "cottage mother". Other buildings included the principal's residence, staff quarters, a chapel, a hospital, and a school. These facilities - which were adjacent to the school's large dairy farm - were maintained with the help of subscriptions from England and a grant from the British Columbia government. Funds were also raised throughout the province and in 1938 Captain J.C. Dun-Waters donated his 2,000 acre orchard near Vernon to the Fairbridge Society. Named the Fintry Fairbridge Training Farm, the Okanagan property was run in conjunction with the main centre on Vancouver Island.

Over three hundred children passed through Fairbridge Farm School during its first ten years of operation. But after the Second World War a number of problems arose which placed the future of the school in doubt. Among these was the unfavourable dollar/sterling exchange rate, the post-war monetary controls which restricted funds from Britain, and the provincial government's decision to discontinue its operating grant. The whole concept of institutionalized child care was also being questioned in many quarters and after the passing of the 1948 Child Welfare Act in Britain [which made local authorities responsible for child care] there was no longer a need for juvenile resettlement on a large scale. Accordingly, the Fairbridge Society reluctantly decided to wind up its operations in British Columbia. The Fintry estate was sold and in the early 1950s the last of the Fairbridge "trainees" left the Prince of Wales Farm School. For the next ten years the Cowichan Station site was managed on behalf of the Fairbridge Society by the Canada Colonization Association. A subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the association leased the farm school cottages to newly-arrived English immigrant families. The arrangement was eventually discontinued and in 1975 the farm school was sold to a Victoria real estate firm. The property is now the site of a residential housing development.

Records of the Fairbridge Alumni Association and predecessor organization, Old Fairbridgian Association. Members of the association were formerly trainees at the Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School, ca. 1935-1951. Records include correspondence (1946-1975), minutes (1947-1970), newsletters and gazettes (1950-1954), constitution and financial reports 1964-1974), account books and receipts, and addresses of alumni, ca. 1953-1962. The records were maintained by the Rev. Thomas E. Speed, a Fairbridge alumnus. Photographs transferred to Visual Records Division.

Newspaper cuttings concerning Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School and Old Fairbridgians, ca. 1934-1983; copies of provincial government statutes and regulations re: welfare institutions, etc., 1937-1948; correspondence to Miss Katie O'Neill (farm school cottage mother), 1936-1941, 1960. Also a photocopy of a certificate from the Fairbridge Society in Britain to the Fairbridge Alumni Association, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Fairbridge Farm School at Cowichan Station. 1 leaf.

The series consists of two albums of photographs from the period when Lincoln was on staff at the Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School at Cowichan Station, (near Duncan, B.C.) from 1935 to 1939. It also includes class photos taken by a professional photographer, and images of the school (including an aerial photo) on postcards. Subjects include: individual students and staff (many identified), group photos, Wolf Cubs, Boy Scouts, sports and games, outdoor and farming activities, and building interiors and exteriors. The series includes a photograph of a visit by Lord Tweedsmuir and a portrait of Kingsley Fairbridge. The series also includes images of Cowichan Bay and other Cowichan Valley locations.

Documentary. Examines the emigration of orphaned or disadvantaged children from Great Britain to distant parts of the British Empire during the years 1900-1967. Approximately 150,000 children were resettled by a variety of government-sanctioned British charitable institutions, including the Barnardo Homes and the Fairbridge Society. In Canada, child migration provided boys and girls to work the land. Later migrations took children to the farms of Australia and New Zealand, and to the Fairbridge Society's College in South Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). A number of former migrant children, now adults in middle age, are profiled. They discuss their experiences and the treatment they received, including forced separation from their families, exploitation as "cheap labour", and incidents of physical and sexual abuse. Also shows the work of the Child Migrants Trust in helping former migrant children learn about and contact their birth families.

Special event coverage. Video record of Molong, Australia reunion of Fairbridge Farm School alumni. Includes congratulatory messages from Professor Stocker to Australian and British Columbia Fairbridgians, as well as a 1940s newsreel on Fairbridge Farm Schools in Australia and on the work of the Fairbridge Society.

Amateur film. Footage of Fairbridge Farm children at work and at play at the Cowichan Station school, including farming scenes, Guy Fawkes Day celebration and costume parade, harvesting, cutting hay, swimming, baseball, picnicking, and an outdoor ceremony (possibly graduation?) at the Fairbridge Chapel. This reel appears, in part, to be a compilation of shorter film items made by A.C. Lincoln and credited to "Fairbridge Pictures". The titled segments are: "Autumn scenes, Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School, Cowichan Station, V.I., B.C."; "The day with 'Boy'" (about a sheep herding border collie at a nearby farm) "Down by the Kelvin Creek" (children playing in creek, and playing baseball); "Hay Ho!" (on the hay harvest); "Our Water Babies" (more water sports); and "The Picnic, Cowichan Bay" (which shows the children walking to Cowichan Bay, eating lunch, swimming and diving, and visiting the abandoned "Butter Church" at Comiaken Hill).

Documents pertaining to Fairbridge Farm School, a residential and educational community for underprivileged British children, located near Duncan. Includes visitors books (1935-1953) and roll book of Fairbridge school staff (1935-1950). Also includes scrapbook and diary of school nurse, Margaret (nee King) Minchen (1940-1942). Photographs transferred to Visual Records accession 198706-2.

Presented by the Fairbridge Alumni Association, 1985.

Loose pages from Punishment Book kept at Fairbridge Farm School (Cowichan Station, B.C.) by duties master, ca. 1944-1946. Sheets record punishments given to Fairbridge children for offences and infractions. Also prospectus of Fairbridge Farm Schools Society, ca. 1935. Printed pamphlets transferred to Library and Maps Division; photographs transferred to Visual Records accession., 198706-2.

Received from the Fairbridge Alumni Association, 1987.

Amateur film. Footage of: land clearing for, and construction and dedication of, Fairbridge Chapel; more children arriving from Great Britain; Lower Island sports meet, 1939; farming activities at Fairbridge; recreation; Boy Scout and Cub troops; Christmas celebrations; visit of Lord and Lady Tweedsmuir; Royal visit to Victoria, 1939.