Abstract
By the 1860s colonial governments had long been convinced that the UK’s gentry possessed the key to successful recruitment. This attitude is exemplified by explicit instructions given to the first agents appointed in 1861 by the NSW government to tour the UK promoting emigration: their mission was to ‘seek the cooperation of gentlemen having local influence amongst those portions of the Community whom it is especially desirable to attract to our shores’.1 One of the functions of this chapter is to explore the origin of this well-entrenched acceptance of the gentry’s role in promoting emigration in rural regions, from 1831.2 Threads are drawn, more or less chronologically, between a range of unpaid promoters — including landlords, clergy, and local gentryled emigration committees — who often overlapped in terms of patronage, influence and practice.
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Notes
Premier Robertson to Dalley and Parkes, 18 May 1861, V&PNSWLC 1861–62, Vol. 2, p. 785, quoted in Albert A. Hayden, ‘New South Wales Immigration Policy 1856–1900’, Journal of The American Philosophical Society 6:3 (1971) p. 17.
The cooperation and promotion of emigration by the landed gentry was not unique to the UK. Scandinavia’s ‘upper crust’ closely cooperated in the organized promotion of emigration to the USA, particularly to Minnesota in the second half of the nineteenth century. See Ingrid Semmingsen, ‘Emigration from Scandinavia’, Scandinavian Economic History Review, 1 (1972) p. 57.
These procedures and responses were, with little variation, still in place a century later with the re-introduction of Commonwealth emigration schemes managed from Australia House following World War Two. Ten pound emigrants seldom had longer than six weeks to organize sale of their house and furniture and to prepare for their voyage following the receipt of their embarkation notice which depended on character, age, occupation and health criteria and the payment of the deposit. See R.T. Appleyard et al, The Ten Pound Immigrants (London, Boxtree Press, 1988) pp. 63–64. Although a notice at Australia House in 1949 guaranteed ‘Men Wanted: Sail in Three Months’, some candidates were disgruntled by the ‘monotonous routine’ which sometimes created delays. See letter from Bob Carter, Hon. Sec. Kent County and London Association, Adelaide, to the Editor of the Advertiser, 4 November 1950, p. 2.
A ‘pauper’ was defined by Under-Secretary Hay as a temporarily redundant labourer whose character was not determined by his or her redundancy. See Madgwick, Immigration into Eastern Australia 1788–1851 (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1937:1969) p. 91.
Fred H. Hitchins, The Colonial Land and Emigration Commission (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1931) p. 10 passim.
Douglas Pike, Paradise of Dissent: South Australia 1829–1957 (London: Melbourne University Press, 1967) p. 83. Pike’s analysis of the politics which underpinned the animosity between the Hortonian and Wakefieldian factions during the early 1830s reveals that essentially (although the means to their ends differed) Wakefield’s view that the ablebodied poor might be transposed into a self-confident labour force capable of purchasing land in due course if land, labour and capital were correctly balanced, is hardly different from Horton’s view that with state aid, paupers might be converted from ‘indolence and bitterness into grateful independence as landed proprietors’. See pp. 52–95.
H.J.M. Johnston in British Emigration Policy 1815–1830: ‘Shovelling out paupers’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) also emphasizes that emigration schemes to settle paupers in Canada in the 1820s were proposed by reformers who saw emigration ‘as a weapon against the poverty that bred radicalism and revolt but who were unwilling to take steps to eliminate pauperism at home’. See especially p. 9.
But see Frank Broeze, Mr Brooks and the Australian Trade (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1993) p. 136, who argues that Wakefield’s theories on systematic colonization were less important than the actions of private shippers.
See Pinnock to the PLC, 22 December 1835, CO 385/9, 174–9. See also Hitchins, The Colonial Land and Emigration Commission, pp. 15, 19, and Appendix 4, below. For a discussion of the developing interest of shippers and merchants in the Australian trade, a necessary component for efficient mobilization of human cargo, see F.J.A. Broeze, ‘British intercontinental shipping and Australia, 1813–1850’, Journal of Transport History, 4:4 (1978), 189–207; idem, ‘“Our home is girt by sea”: The passenger trade of Australia and New Zealand, 1788–1914’, in Klaus Friedland (ed.), Maritime Aspects of Migration (Koln, 1989); idem, ‘Private enterprise and the peopling of Australia, 1831–1850’, Economic History Review, 25:2 (1982) 235–53; idem, ‘The cost of distance: Shipping and the early Australian economy, 1788–1850’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, 28:4 (1975) 582–597; idem, Mr Brooks and the Australian Trade.
Marshall’s activities as a bounty operator are discussed below. For a discussion of the political background to the implementation of single female emigration in 1831 and analysis of the bad press suffered by the women in the UK and Australia and subsequent acceptance of prejudiced evidence by historians, see A.J. Hammerton, ‘“Without Natural Protectors”’ Historical Studies, 16:65 (1975) 539–66.
See Oliver MacDonagh, A Pattern of Government Growth 1800–1860 (London: Macgibbon Kee, 1961) pp. 124–9 for a commentary on Elliot’s pedigree, his bureaucratic connections, and his various roles at the CO.
CO 385/9, pp. 2–8. Lts Hemmans and Forrest were members of a corps of half-pay naval officers who, beginning with the first appointee, Lt Low of Liverpool in 1833, superintended the departure of emigrant ships bound for all destinations. They were required to furnish information to prospective emigrants to all destinations, give advice and protect emigrants from unscrupulous shipping agents. Their duties included inspecting ships for seaworthiness, and it was hoped that by enforcing the passenger acts the prevalence of contagious disease on ships bound for North America might be eliminated. Such measures included the inspection of food and water provisions. For a comprehensive analysis of the Emigration Officers’ duties see Oliver Macdonagh, A Pattern of Government Growth, esp. Chapter 5. By 1851, emigration officers (all naval officers) were stationed at Liverpool, London, Plymouth, Glasgow (and Greenock), Belfast, Limerick, Londonderry, Queenstown, Sligo, Donegal, Ballina, Waterford. See Thom’s Irish Almanack and Official Directory, Dublin, 1851.
In short, ineligible women were welcome so long as the colonies were not footing the bill. Women from Irish institutions suffering from health problems including impaired vision on arrival in Van Diemen’s Land on the Boadicea were among those whose passages were fully paid. See Hammerton, ‘“Without Natural Protectors”’, p. 565; Hugh Campbell, ‘A proper class of female emigrants’, Tasmanian Historical Research Association Papers and Proceedings, 35:2 (1988), pp. 66, 73.
See Haines, Shlomowitz and Brennan, ‘Maritime Mortality Revisited’, International Journal of Maritime History, 8:1 (June 1996) 133–72.
Pinnock to Colonel McDouall, Stranraer, March 4 1835, CO 385/9, p. 18. Malcolm Gray, in drawing the connection between migration and the rural lowlands of Scotland, has defined Ayr and Aberdeen as counties where there was a significant rise of rural population in the agricultural parishes between 1801 and 1851. Yet Argyll belongs to a region of westerly mountain fringes which were ‘characterised by loss of population or by increase at notably lower rates than adjacent lowland parishes.’ See ‘Migration in the rural Lowlands of Scotland 1750–1859’, in T.M. Devine and David Dickson (eds), Ireland and Scotland 1600–1850 (Edinburgh, 1983) pp. 114–5; Margery Harper, in Emigration from North East Scotland, Vol. 1, (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988) pp. 117, 139, argues that although Aberdeen was a prosperous region relatively unaffected by the worst effects of cyclical downturns in trade and unemployment, one agent for NSW bounty emigration in 1841 advertised for help to purchase outfits for destitute prospective assisted emigrants to Australia.
Madgwick, Immigration into Eastern Australia, p. 101. Comprehensive and systematic data on contract prices are only available for 1839 to 1840 and for 1847 to 1885. In 1839 and 1840, the averages were £17.15.5 and £18.10.2, respectively, while from 1847 to 1885, the annual average only exceeded £16 in 1853–5 and in 1875. See John’ McDonald and Ralph Shlomowitz, ‘Passenger Fares on Sailing Vessels to Australia in the Nineteenth Century’, Explorations in Economic History, 28:2 (1991) pp. 192–207 for data on contract prices in 1839–40 and 1847–85.
2 May 1838, quoted in Roderick Balfour, ‘Emigration from the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland’ (unpublished M. Litt. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1973) pp. 72–73. See also David Macmillan, Scotland and Australia, p. 262, who cites an equally lively extract from the Inverness Courier on 30 May 1838. Both Macmillan and Balfour analyze the Scottish gentry’s unsuccessful lobbying of the CO (via several committees for the relief of Highland destitution) to increase large-scale unselected emigration from Scotland. Elliot refused to relax selection criteria apart from giving Boyter discretion to include elderly relatives whose passage was fully paid by a benefactor.
See Bernard Bailyn, Voyagers to the West: A passage in the peopling of America on the eve of the Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1988) p. 306 for a discussion of the sudden scarcity of recruitable labour during seasonal but short booms in manufacturing, or during the harvest, which compounded the risks involved for shippers investing in indentured labour. The CLEC was frequently confronted with a high proportion of defaulters for reasons they were sometimes unable to fathom — up to 35 per cent on the Garland in 1851, for example. See ‘Correspondence relative to emigrant depots’, in BPP 1851 (379) vol. XL, p. 27. In 1858, the numbers defaulting again climbed as high as 35 per cent in four government ships sailing from Plymouth, necessitating urgent recruitment by the local CLEC agent.
See Mark Brayshay, ‘The Emigration Trade in Nineteenth Century Devon’ (unpublished paper, Faculty of Science, Polytechnic South West, Plymouth, 1991).
Priced at one shilling, the booklet’s popularity was responsible for the printing of a second edition in the same year. See W.S. Shepperson, British Emigration to North America: projects and opinions in the early Victorian period (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1957), p. 10.
Colonel George Wyndham (1787–1869) was the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Ayliffe and the third Earl of Egremont. His parents were married in 1801 (after the birth of their children) and legally separated in 1803. See Caroline Dakers, Clouds: The Biography of a Country House (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993) pp. 3–5.
David Fitzpatrick has summarized some of these letters and petitions in ‘Thomas Spring Rice and the Peopling of Australia’, Old Limerick Journal 22 (1988), 39–49. He also surveys unsuccessful attempts via the 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon, Foynes, Limerick, to persuade the CO to establish a department of the CLEC in Ireland to promote government-assisted emigration during the famine. Monteagle’s public positions included various posts in Whig administrations from 1832, such as Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Colonization from Ireland. His London house was situated in Park Street, next door to the CLEC’s office.
See also Christopher O’Mahony and Valerie Thompson, Poverty to Promise: the Monteagle emigrants 1838–58 (Sydney: Crossing Press, 1994) which reproduces many of the letters in context.
Patrick O’Farrell, The Irish in Australia (Sydney: NSW University Press, 1986) p. 69, cited in Fitzpatrick, ‘Thomas Spring Rice’, p. 47.
Colin S. Holt, ‘Family, Kinship and Friendship Ties in assisted emigration from Cambridgeshire to Port Phillip District and Victoria, 1840–1867’ (unpublished MA thesis, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 1987) p. 42. This is not, perhaps, surprising given the fire and brimstone memorial sermon preached by the Revd Robert Merry, M.A., Vicar at Guilden Morden, following news of the shipwreck. Merry published the sermon, dedicated to the Earl and Countess of Hardwicke, benefactors of some of the emigrants. Costing 1 shilling (with profits going to the building of a schoolroom and master’s house), and complete with appendix ‘containing an account of the shipwreck’, it was entitled The Resurrection and the Last Judgement: A sermon preached in the parish church of Guilden Morden, Cambridgeshire, February 15, 1846, on the shipwreck of the emigrant ship Cataraqui, off King’s Island, Bass’s Straits, on the 4th of August last. (Cambridgeshire Collection, C87, Cambridgeshire Reference Library). The sensational news was published widely in Cambridgeshire; see for example, the horrifying account in the Cambridge Chronicle, 7 February 1846, 14 February 1846. Nevertheless, ships wrecked while carrying government emigrants were extremely rare, and this was the only voyage to suffer major loss of life.
For an extensive account of the shipwreck, see Andrew Lemon and Marjorie Morgan, Poor Souls They Perished: The Cataraqui — Australia’s worst shipwreck (Melbourne, 1986).
See Robert J. Shultz, ‘Assisted Immigration into New South Wales and Port Phillip District 1837–1850’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Australian National University, Canberra, 1971), Appendices D and F, for lists of agents authorized to import bounty immigrants into NSW and Port Phillip. For a definition of ‘bounty’, see Appendix Four, below. On the commercial positioning of bounty operators and their relations to each other, see Broeze, Mr Brooks and the Australian Trade. He has, however, underestimated the extent of the Agent-General’s and the CLEC’s monitoring of bounty selections.
Frost Memoirs, MLSA, D6588(L), p. 65. Public meetings were held in Devon and Cornwall during the late 1830s by SA agents at Falmouth, Penzance and Launceston, accompanied by bill posting and press reports. See Phillip Payton, The Cornish Miner in Australia (Kernow: Dyllansow Truran, 1984), p. 12.
Mark Brayshay, ‘Government-assisted emigration from Plymouth in the Nineteenth Century’, Report of the Transactions of The Devon Association for the advancement of Science, Literature and Art, 112 (1980) p. 197, documents some of the terse letters of rejection sent by Walcott to agents who had allowed ineligible candidates to apply.
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© 1997 Robin F. Haines
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Haines, R.F. (1997). Recruiting in the Countryside. In: Emigration and the Labouring Poor. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25704-1_4
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