To Homes Across the Seas: Salvation Army Migration

In 1953, the Salvation Army described itself as “the largest voluntary emigration agency” in the world. In the preceding 50 years, it had assisted nearly a quarter of a million people to emigrate from the British Isles to the then-British Dominions across the world. Archivist Ruth Macdonald explores how the organization went from a Christian revival society in East London to a global emigration agency and how migration from Britain was both promoted and contested as a solution to the economic and social welfare issues of the day.