Reference Material
Passengers on the 'Habana'
Names of Basque Children (Niños) who remained in Great Britain, 1948
For many years now I have wanted to put together a list of names of the niños who remained in Great Britain after the Spanish Civil War had ended.
There were many reasons why they did not return to their homeland.
A number of children's parents had been killed. Some parents could not take them back because of illness or poverty; other families were in exile or untraceable. In addition some children or young adults chose to stay in the UK. We do not know all the reasons but some 280 children remained and made their way in life in the UK.
The list contains the identification tag number of each individual together with their name and age when the vessel "Habana" sailed from Santurce on 21st May 1937.
There are four names with a dagger symbol (✝), which signifies that they died in this country during or before 1948.
I know that some niños returned to Bilbao and then came back to live the rest of their lives in the UK. If they returned then they were no longer under the care of the Basque Children's Committee and therefore their names are missing from the list.
The list is in PDF format, and if any changes need to be made I would be very grateful if you could inform me via secretary@basquechildren.org and we will make any additions or removals as are necessary.
It may be that some people object to having their or their family's names published in this list and I would like them to contact the Association. I hope all the surviving niños, their children, grandchildren and relatives are able to extract some historical insight from seeing the information contained in this list, and the Association and I would value any feedback.
The data have been taken, from "¡Salvad a los Niños!" by Gregorio Arrien, with permission from the author.
Gerald Hoare