Confidential documents commissioned well before the UK government ended its child migration scheme slammed the conditions in state-sponsored facilities.
Around 7,000 children were shipped to Australia after the Second World War.
Many of them were forced to live in squalid conditions and were subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse.
The British government is following Canberra's lead and apologising to these so-called 'Forgotten Australians'.
Reports found in the UK's National Archives show officials had warned the government of the dismal conditions awaiting children who were sent to Australia, which some describing them as 'deplorable' and 'isolating', and saying that the children looked deeply unhappy.
Meanwhile British High Commissions in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane are hosting receptions for Forgotten migrants,
Former senator Andrew Murray, instrumental in securing the apologies and those made by the Australian government in November, described the event as "intensely personal".
Mr Murray, himself a former forced child migrant to Zimbabwe, is in London for the event.
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