United Kingdom

The arrival of the Habana was an evacuation of children. Almost four thousand of them left Santurtzi on a single ship in May 1937, spent a few months in tents on the outskirts of Southampton and were then spread among colonies all over the country. Most went back to their families, and a few hundred stayed.

The crossing

The British Government kept to its policy of non-intervention, but it agreed to take in Basque children: first 2,000, aged between six and twelve, and then 4,000, with a preference for girls among the older ones, up to the age of sixteen. The former Labour MP Leah Manning travelled to Bilbao to organise the selection.³

The steamer Habana sailed from Santurtzi on 21 May 1937. According to Charlie Nurse’s article on the blog of the Institute of Historical Research, she carried 3,826 children, accompanied by 120 señoritas, 80 teachers, 16 priests and 2 doctors; the association of those children gives 3,840 children, 80 teachers, 120 helpers, 15 priests and 2 doctors. The ship had been designed for about 800 passengers. She came through a storm in the Bay of Biscay and reached Southampton on Sunday 23 May.³⁴

North Stoneham and the colonies

When they came off the ship, the children went to a camp put up in great haste at North Stoneham, in Eastleigh, on the outskirts of Southampton, with tents spread over three fields.³⁴ The British Government put up no money: it required the newly created Basque Children’s Committee, chaired by the Duchess of Atholl, to guarantee ten shillings a week per child for their keep and their education.⁴

From the camp they were spread all over the country. The Catholic Church undertook to look after 1,200 children and the Salvation Army took in 400; around 1,600 went to some seventy colonies supported by local committees, among them those at Cambridge and at Caerleon, in Wales. By mid-September not one was left in the camp.³⁴

Those who went back and those who stayed

Most were eventually reunited with their families, although from September 1939, with the world war, repatriations became more difficult. According to the Institute of Historical Research article, some 400 stayed for good, orphans or young people over sixteen who decided not to go back; the children’s association says that in 1945 more than 250 were still in Britain. The last colony closed around 1945 and the committee was wound up in 1951.³⁴

The memory of that expedition is kept today by the Basque Children of ’37 Association UK, which publishes work on the colonies and is preparing the ninetieth anniversary of the arrival.⁶