Rusthall becomes a refuge for the Basque children in 1937
By Anne Goldstein
In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, sixty Basque refugee children arrived at The Beacon on Tea Garden Lane in Rusthall. The local community’s role in welcoming, healing and nurturing these traumatised children should be celebrated. The Beacon was one of only two ‘colonias’ in Kent which welcomed the children – the other was Margate.
Basque children arrive in Southampton. University of Southampton special collections.
The Spanish Civil War (1936-9) was a bitter conflict. The town of Guernica was bombed in April 1937 by the planes of the Nazi Condor legion. It was the first saturation bombing of a civilian population. The Basque government appealed to the foreign nations to give temporary asylum to their children. There were acute food shortages. However, Britain had a policy of non-intervention. The Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin even said in a letter that the British climate would not suit Basque children.
Thanks to fund-raising by the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief, organisations like the TUC, the NUT, the Catholic church, the Salvation Army and ordinary concerned British people, on 31 May 1937, the SS Habana set sail from Bilbao for Southampton.
On 21 May 1937, 4000 children aged from 5 to 16 crammed into a ship meant for 800, along with teachers, priests and volunteers. It remains the biggest influx of refugees to Britain in one day. Each child wore a cardboard hexagonal label with an ID number and the words 'Expedición a Inglaterra'.
SS Habana with the Basque children onboard, 1937. University of Southampton special collections.
The children had been told by their parents that their time in Britain would be ‘sólo tres meses’’ – only three months. However, the reality was different. Some never went home and many who returned in adult life felt detached from their families. “My parents were poor and illiterate, I had an honours degree,” said one woman who only went home in 1959.
The first day at sea was very choppy around the Bay of Biscay and the children were very sick. The second day was sunny and optimistic. A picture of SS Habana arriving at the port shows children waving handkerchiefs and the Salvation Army greeting them with sweets.
The Basque children first came to the temporary North Stoneham reception camp near Southampton, which was run by volunteers. The tents on the muddy 30 acre site were rented from the government and interest had to be paid on top of this. On arrival, the children were given tea. This British tradition confused them – they saw it as a drink for ill people.
Temporary reception camp, North Stoneham. University of Southampton special collections.
The Basque children adored the English white bread. Some touchingly put it in their pockets to take home, while others got ill from eating too much of it. The volunteers gave the children a coloured armband to wear when they collected their food, to avoid them coming up multiple times. If they got a yellow one, many bravely decided to go without their meal, rather than have the indignity of wearing Franco’s colour.
When Franco’s forces captured Bilbao, a priest announced the news from loudspeakers from a van. Children started crying and some rushed at the van and banged on it with their fists, angry and frustrated. When a small plane flew over the campsite, just to take a photograph, the children instinctively ran and hid.
The Basque children allocated to Rusthall had a wonderful time. It was a ‘home of smiles’ according to the Matron, Miss Blackwell. The Beacon was known for its caring and therapeutic approach. The children’s troubled drawings of ships being bombed changed to pastoral scenes of cattle in fields. The Marquis of Abergavenny took the ‘niños vascos’ on a hunt at Eridge Castle. There was boating, cinema trips and a memorable time when the Basque children were saluted in admiration by local school children on a visit to the Opera House.
Rusthall raised funds to keep the children at The Beacon, supported by the 250 members of the Kent and Sussex Children’s Appeal committee, led by the inspirational educator Miss Muriel Amy Payne. Adults paid 6d and children 3d to visit The Beacon and to see the Basque children, dressed in their traditional costumes, dancing and singing their poignant songs from home.
Newspaper advertisement for the opportunity to meet the Basque children.
Individuals sponsored children at 10s a week and Mrs Hodgson, the warden, spoke to various groups, such as the Women’s Institute, urging them to make donations. The churches were generous. The Mayor of Tunbridge Wells, Edward J Strange, set the local tone by saying it was people’s ‘Christian duty’ to raise funds for the refugees, whatever their political views.
Manuel, a Basque child who was disabled, was helped to walk through physiotherapy from Mr RC Cheesman in Tonbridge. People in Rusthall helped by giving lifts. He is the only child on the Rusthall list that we know by name.
The children played in Happy Valley next to The Beacon.
The Basque children stayed in Rusthall for more than three months, celebrating Epiphany in January 1938. Twelve returned home after the festival, their bags stuffed with toys and considerably plumper than when they arrived. Children who returned tell of having to give a Fascist salute to grim-faced guards as they crossed a bridge from France to Spain.
By 1945, 250 Basque children remained in this country, their parents killed or in prison. We know some of the Beacon children were dispersed elsewhere. It would be fascinating to find out if any of them stayed in Britain and made it their home.
The Beacon welcomed thirty Jewish refugee children fleeing Nazi Germany and Austria at the end of 1938, with others to follow. Its history of compassion in action continued.
The Beacon today is a restaurant and wedding venue.
Anne Goldstein, has been researching the Basque and Jewish children who lived in The Beacon. This article by Anne originally appeared in the September issue of Rusthall Life Magazine. In the August 2021 community play Happy Highways she played one of the Basque children as an adult.
