This book focuses on the ways in which the British settler colonies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa treated the political rights of indigenous peoples, from the imperial policies of the 1830s to the national political settlements in place by 1910. Drawing on a wide range of sources, its comparative approach provides an insight into the historical foundations of present-day controversies in these settler societies.

Child, nation, race and empire is an innovative, inter-disciplinary, cross cultural study that contributes to understandings of both contemporary child welfare practices and the complex dynamics of empire.

It analyses the construction and transmission of nineteenth-century British child rescue ideology. Locating the origins of contemporary practice in the publications of the prominent English Child rescuers, Dr Barnardo, Thomas Bowman Stephenson, Benjamin Waugh, Edward de Montjoie Rudolf and their colonial disciples and literature written for children, it shows how the vulnerable body of the child at risk came to be reconstituted as central to the survival of nation, race and empire.

Yet, as the shocking testimony before the many official enquiries into the past treatment of children in out-of-home 'care' held in Britain, Ireland, Australia and Canada make clear, there was no guarantee that the rescued child would be protected from further harm.