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Mixed race children at Holnicote House during WW2
In 1943, Holnicote House was requisitioned by Somerset County Council, initially for use as a nursery for children evacuated from cities during World War 2. However, the council increasingly took children born to white British mothers and Black American GI fathers, possibly as an intentional policy. American GIs, including Black American troops, were stationed all over Britain, with a heavy concentration in south-west England. The children often arrived at Holnicote House as babies, some being only a few days or weeks old. This early placement is likely because at least two-thirds of the babies had married mothers. By 1948, there were 45 mixed race children of Black GIs in Somerset, of whom nearly half were placed in Holnicote House.

Somerset appears to be the only County Council which provided homes explicitly for babies born to Black GIs. As Holnicote House was used as a nursery, children were only cared for there up to the age of five, after which they were fostered, adopted or sent to homes for older children. The children who were fostered at Holnicote House tended to be cared for by young nursery nurses. Professor Lucy Bland, who interviewed over sixty children born to white mothers and Black American GI fathers for her 2018 book Britain's 'Brown Babies, talked to five people who were raised at Holnicote House, as well as three nursery nurses who worked there. All spoke very fondly about their time there.

On 23rd August 1948, Life magazine published a feature entitled ‘The Babies They Left Behind Them’. This article, which was accompanied by a photo of children from Holnicote House, attracted international public interest in the issue of Britain’s ‘brown babies’ as the estimated 2,000 children from the relationships between Black GIs and white British women were dubbed by the Black American press.