Description
GREAT BRITAIN / Canada J. W. C. Fegan - Mr Fegan's Homes 54mm bronze medal 70.17 grams
Obverse: Mr Fegan looking to the left, J. W. C. FEGAN FOUNDER
Reverse: ROLL OF HONOUR / MR. FEGAN'S HOMES
James William Condell Fegan (1852 – 1925) was an English Nonconformist evangelist and the founder of a succession of orphanages for boys. His first home opened in 1872, and he was to become a friendly rival to Thomas John Barnardo. Later in the 1880s, emigration to other parts of the British Empire was being encouraged, and in 1884, Fegan took ten boys—and then fifty more—to Canada in 1884. A "distributing home" was given to him in Toronto, and from there annual parties of boys were sent to farms in various parts of the country. The boys were encouraged to repay the cost of their passage and outfits to make the same opportunity available for others, and many of them did so. By 1907, Canadian emigrants had sent more than $11,000 back to England, and their names were inscribed on copper plates at the English orphanages.
