This thesis explores the intersection of gender, class, and child welfare in late Victorian society through a case study of Emma Maitland Stirling (1838-1907) and her legal battle with working-class widower Arthur Delaney (c. 1860-1907) for custody of his children. Stirling, an upper-class philanthropist involved in the British Home Child migration movement, leveraged prevailing social and moral norms to legitimize her custody of the children. Drawing on archival material from Scotland and Nova Scotia, alongside reform literature and personal testimonies, this study examines how Stirling deployed gendered assumptions of female benevolence and class prejudice to maintain control over vulnerable families. By analyzing court proceedings, social reform discourse, and Stirling’s published defences, the thesis argues that child-saving philanthropy often functioned as a tool of social control. This work contributes to a deeper understanding of how philanthropic authority could be exercised to undermine working-class paternal rights under the guise of moral reform.

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