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THE PEOPLE OF New Zealand are predominantly of British stock, the
descendants mainly of immigrants of an initial founding period extending
over the four decades from 1840 to 1880. The foundation stock came
overwhelmingly from humble origins in the old country, with rural
labourers and village artisans providing the main elements. The majority
had been ‘selected’ for assisted passages to the colony, in the earlier years
by the settlement associations inspired by Edward Gibbon Wakefield's
theories; in the 1850s and 1860s under various schemes sponsored by the
provincial governments, and in the 1870s under an ambitious and highly
successful scheme undertaken by the General Government. During these
founding decades the only large body of immigrants who made their own
way to the colony, without assistance or sponsorship, were those attracted, mainly from
This book is a study in some depth of one major group of assisted immigrants, the recruits of the 1870s from rural England. In general it can be said that immigration studies in all the receiving countries have been hampered by a paucity of material on the experience of labouring class immigrants. In the 1870s, however, as a result of the Revolt of the Field, the English rural labourer became articulate as never before, so that a large and probably unique body of first hand reportage on the immigration experience has been preserved from this decade. The circumstances of the time gave New Zealand a larger share of this outflow than any other receiving area. All this has made it possible to probe back in unusual depth into the local and personal circumstances underlying this working class emigration. Aided by the smallness of the New Zealand community, it has also been possible to follow through to an unusually detailed study of the immigrants' colonial careers. In consequence, considerable light has been thrown on the dynamics of rural working class emigration from Victorian England, and this should be of general interest in nineteenth century emigration studies.
This book also has the aim of furthering our understanding of the
peopling of colonial New Zealand. It is considered that a close study of the
1870s throws much light on the immigration of the whole of the founding
period. Apart from the reasons already given, the choice of this decade can
be justified by the fact that its immigrant inflow was by far the largest of the
four founding decades. Furthermore, the General Government's direction
of the recruitment drive has resulted in the preservation of a comparatively
large body of official records, much more consistent in their nature than
those of the more sporadic efforts of the preceding decades. It was decided
to concentrate on English immigrants because they represented the largest
A further aim of this study is to examine emigration as an aspect of English agrarian history. Many English villages have made significant contributions to the shaping of new communities in the new lands. In turn they have received various ripples of influence from the far ends of the earth. A study of this element of the story has the merit of at once drawing attention to an important dimension of English rural history, and of probing the skills, traditions and ideals on which the migrants drew in the shaping of new rural worlds.
In carrying through the wide-ranging research upon which this study is
based, I have inevitably incurred a widespread indebtedness to many
people in both England and New Zealand. Librarians and Archivists in
many places and at every level in both countries have been unfailingly
helpful. I have made particularly heavy demands on the staffs of the
My colleagues at
Mrs Jean Pope typed the manuscript and Mrs Jean Benfield made
photographic copies. Mrs
I wish to thank Miss Judith White for the use of the unpublished
autobiographical sketches of her uncle,
My wife, Betty, and our four children, have inevitably been deeply involved throughout this long and arduous project. I owe them a special debt for their help, encouragement and patience in all its stages.
ON THE EVENING OF1 in length, for ships approaching the north-eastern extremity of the
In
The more staid of Picton's inhabitants could be excused for feeling a little
apprehensive, as they waited that evening in the deepening twilight.
Navvies had a reputation for bravado and riotous living. The term navvy
comes from navigator, the name given to England's eighteenth century
canal-builders. The great railway-building era of the mid nineteenth
century had greatly multiplied their numbers, and sent them in rowdy,
hard-drinking gangs through the length and breadth of the 2 The transformation was brought about
by higher wages, which provided more and better food. Excavating,
tunnelling and bridge building gave continuous hard work to develop the
muscles, and the gang life completed the transformation, fostering a
distinctive dress and bearing, and a delight in living up to a reputation for
reckless hard-living. Having granted that Picton needed ‘livening-up’,
there may well have been those among the locals who feared that the
process might be carried too far.
Let us turn now to the immigrant party, as they entered Queen
Charlotte Sound on this winter's afternoon, aboard the coastal steamer
Rangatira, to which they had been transferred from the sailing ship
Schiehallion after a thirteen weeks' voyage from Rangatira steamed through narrow passages opening
between a long series of headlands and broken bays. On either side rough
steep mountains plunged deep into the waters of the sound, their slopes
and gullies clothed with forest of a dark, un-English green. This landscape
must have seemed scarcely less strange to these unlettered English
labourers than it had done to the first Europeans to enter Queen Charlotte
Sound, a century before. As it had scarcely changed in the interval, it is
appropriate to quote from the description penned by Dr Anderson,
surgeon of the Resolution, who was with
The land everywhere about Queen Charlotte's Sound is uncommonly mountainous, rising immediately from the sea into large hills with blunted tops. At considerable distances are valleys, or rather impressions on the sides of the hills, which are not deep; each terminating toward the sea in a small cove, with a pebbly or sandy beach; behind which are small flats, where the natives generally build their huts, at the same time hauling their canoes upon the beaches. This situation is the more convenient, as in every cove a brook of very fine water (in which are some small trout) empties itself into the sea. The bases of these mountains, at least toward the shore, are constituted of a brittle yellowish sandstone, which acquires a bluish cast where the sea washes it. It runs, at some places, in horizontal, and at other places in oblique strata; being frequently divided, at small distances, by thin veins of coarse quartz, which commonly follow the direction of the other, though they sometimes intersect it. The mould, or soil, which covers this, is also of a yellowish cast, not unlike marl; and is commonly from a foot to two, or more in thickness.
The quality of this soil is best indicated by the luxuriant growth of its
productions. For the hills (except a few towards the sea, which are
covered with smaller bushes) are one continued forest of lofty trees,
flourishing with a vigour almost superior to anything that imagination
can conceive, and affording an august prospect to those who are
delighted at the grand and beautiful works of nature. The agreeable
temperatures of the climate, no doubt, contributes much to this
uncommon strength in vegetation …3
Darkness had fallen before the Rangatira loomed into view at Picton. She
was soon made fast, and the waiting crowd made a rush to see what little
there was to be seen. The newcomers sent up ‘several ringing English
cheers', ‘such sounds’, remarked the reporter for the local press, ‘as are
seldom heard except from new arrivals or in the Old Land.’4 The officials
of the railway contractors went on board, and soon the navvies were
allowed to disembark. Once on the wharf they were efficiently allocated to
billets that had been arranged for them. The worst fears of the locals were
soon allayed. As far as he could make out in the dim light, the reporter
concluded that they were by no means the typical navvy, but rather
‘instead of being loud of voice and rude of speech, they were just such a lot
of men as could be met with on any market day in the Midland Counties.’
Trying to place them by their voices, he detected ‘every dialect spoken in
5 The
newcomers were soon on their way to lodgings where fires were burning,
and provisions awaiting them.
Over a nine months' period from July 1872 to April 1873 the English
contracting firm of John Brogden and Sons were to bring 2,172 English
immigrants into New Zealand, among them 1,298 able-bodied men, who
had each been offered two years' work on the firm's railway contracts in
various parts of the colony.6 Brogdens thereby played a significant part at a
crucial stage in the immigration drive which helped to practically double
New Zealand's population in the 1870s. The annus mirabilis of New Zealand
immigration.
By 7 On 8
9 The New Zealand Parliament
rejected this ambitious scheme in Schiehallion party were the
first. It was not till two months later that a legal agreement was completed
to cover the matter. The New Zealand ministry had begun negotiations
with James Brogden, a member of the firm visiting the colony, and when
he declined to take the responsibility for an agreement, the negotiations
were remitted to 10
The office of Agent-General had been created by the
Charles Rooking Carter (1822–1896) had returned to England from a
successful career as a contractor in 11 In
Carter went to 12 he
mentioned a general revival of trade throughout England, and a great rise in
the price of tin, as contributing causes. There was also the competition of
unceasing emigration to the 13 Not surprisingly, after consulting his senior staff
early in 14
15 empowered the
Agent-General to require Brogdens to despatch up to 2,000 able-bodied
men, besides wives and children to make up a total number of not more
than 6,000 statute adults. Brogdens were to pay the government ten
pounds passage money per adult, and were to recoup themselves for this by
taking promissory notes not exceeding sixteen pounds per adult. All
emigrants were to be subject to inspection and approval by a New Zealand
agent. Schiehallion. Brogdens had guaranteed the men two years employment
at the wages current in New Zealand, but with the stipulation that at no
time would they receive less than five shillings for a day of ten hours. As
this was about twice the amount the local farm labourers were receiving
for uncertain employment, it is no wonder that Brogdens found plenty of
takers, especially when they made it known that they were also prepared to
advance the money to cover the various expenses of emigrating. The
majority of the recruits informed Carter that their wages had been so low
that they had been utterly unable to save any money. They gladly gave
Brogdens their promissory notes to cover their ship's ‘kit’, outfit of
clothing, and fare to 16
A day or two earlier, on Good Schiehallion17 — the first of a multitude which New Zealand agents
Schiehallion party a few were selected at 18 The majority were
single men, a few took wives and children with them, and others left wives
and families behind. The Schiehallion sailed from
Even before they reached Picton, the newcomers were made well aware
that the new country offered them a social and economic status markedly
higher than that which they had left in England. No sooner had the ship
reached 19 In the four days before they sailed for
Picton the men were enlightened by 20 The men's
pleasure at this excellent wage was soon heightened by Picton's easy social
climate and plentitude of good cheap food. Before long enthusiastic letters
were on their way to family and friends in the old country.
‘I am getting as fat as a pig’, one man told his wife in a letter dated 21 July
21 He reported beef at two and a half pence a pound and mutton at one
and a half pence, and this ‘not like old starvey pork at home.’ He told his
wife not to be frightened of the sea, and hoped that she and the children
would join him by Christmas. The same entreaty to ‘come out and enjoy
the good living’ was repeated in letter after letter, along with other
persuasive information. ‘Any man is an enemy to himself to stay at home to
work,’ John Reynolds wrote to his wife Mary on 22 a
little market town on a creek of Falmouth Harbour. As a Cornishman,
Reynolds would be well aware of the large number of deserted wives and
children who had become a major social problem in his home county since
the collapse of the copper mining industry;23 hence his reassurances to his
wife. Mary Reynolds yielded to his urging, and in Forfarshire, to join him.24
The Forfarshire also brought the wife and four children of James
Randall, an experienced workman who became first a ganger, and later a
subcontractor, on the line. His first persuasive letter was dated from Picton
on
… I am very comfortable here; like all colonials, we make a hut and live in it, but have got to cook our own food… We can go out and catch a pig any time we like two or three miles out in the bush. My brother was talking about coming; I wish he would, he could not do a better thing. ‘Tis better to be living here like a gentleman than to be in England starving. A working man here can spend more in comforts than he can earn in England. A working man is thought as much of here as a gentleman is in England. There is not the comfort here as regards feather beds; we have got to carry our beds with us where we go, but that is nothing after we get used to it.
If his wife would not be persuaded, he promised to endeavour to return in two or three years, with some money in his pockets.
The immediate future of these men did not, however, prove to be quite
as idyllic as their letters would lead one to expect. Their employers became
involved in misunderstandings and disputes with the New Zealand
authorities, with repercussions for the navvies they were introducing into
various parts of the colony. The details of the involved and prolonged
differences between Brogdens and the New Zealand government do not
concern us here. The underlying cause was inexperience on both sides —
with the New Zealand General Government feeling its way for the first
time into railway construction and immigration, and Brogdens miscalculating important aspects of the colonial situation. Distance and slow
communications aggravated the difficulties which arose. Briefly, Brogdens
got less work than they had hoped for, and it became available much more
slowly than they had envisaged. The navvies arrived more rapidly than the
firm could find work for them, and its immigration agreement proved
something of a disaster, as once the men learnt that much more liberal
terms had been introduced for government immigrants they, for the most
part, refused to meet their promissory notes to Brogdens. In England
impoverished villagers were attracted by Brogdens' credit terms, but
having reached New Zealand and found that they were expected to pay two
or three times as much for their passages as the Government's recruits,
their attitude quickly changed. The extent of the firm's problems was by no
means apparent by Marlborough Press of 14
Brogdens' representatives at Picton at first began to go back on
arrangements about the finishing time on Saturdays; and followed this by
refusing to honour their agreement to pay wages for time lost when it was
too wet to work. Eventually the men were provoked to down tools and
march to the firm's local headquarters to air their grievances. While they
were away a dray was sent round for the tools, and the men were bluntly
informed that all future work would be let by contract, for which they
would be required to provide their own tools. Most of the men inspected
the contract work offered, but could not agree with the engineer as to
specifications and prices, whereupon Brogdens withheld wages due and
refused supplies from their store. Apparently aware that public opinion
was on their side a deputation of the navvies waited upon the local Anglican
vicar, the Revd W. Ronaldson, who agreed to take the initiative in calling a
public meeting. Nine other prominent citizens were associated with
Ronaldson in the handbills calling the meeting. Brogdens' agent declined
an invitation to be present. The well-attended meeting was chaired by a
local lawyer, E. T. Conolly, later to become Minister of Justice and to
serve as a Supreme Court Judge. The navvies' spokesmen put their case
clearly and forcefully, and the meeting passed resolutions supporting the
men, and appointed a strong committee to act in their interests. This
committee arranged supplies for all the labourers who were in need, while
carrying on vigorous negotiations with the firm and authorities. Within a
week the navvies were all back at work.25
There were again difficulties on the Picton contract in mid-September
26 At the end of October sixty further navvies reached Picton,
part of a large party brought out for Brogdens on the ship Bebington.27
There were thus various reasons for the men to lose confidence in
Brogdens, and they soon began leaving the firm's employ. In February
28 In
view of the strong demand for labour in the colony, the men had nothing to
gain by doing so. It was not long before three-quarters of the Picton men
had left the railway work for farming and other employment, or to try their
29 As Schiehallion men
listed were William Annear, a Picton labourer with £225 worth of land in
the borough; Charles Fitch, also a Picton labourer, owning 23 acres worth
£180 in the county; and George Hare, a labourer at Tua Marina, a few miles
away, with an acre of county land valued at £150. Two of the Bebington
men were living at 30
The pattern of events which developed over the spring and summer of
31
Brogdens complained that of the 1299 men they had brought out, only 287
were working for their firm by 32 Although Brogdens held
nearly £40,000 in promissory notes from their immigrants, they found it
impossible to recover most of these advances despite getting 133 cases tried
by the courts. So strong were the men's feelings in the matter that many
disappeared ‘up country’ to escape prosecution, some changed their
names, others filed bankruptcy, and yet others went to gaol for debt, at the
firm's expense.33 By Lutterworth from
The general impression given by contemporary reports is that Brogdens'
immigrants provided a useful, well-behaved addition to the colony's
labour force. The Picton community was not the only one to discover that
navvies could be quite tame and ordinary mortals. When 34 A correspondent who
passed through Hampden a week or two later found that the three gangs of
these men at work there were ‘well spoken of as a steady well-conducted lot
of men’, and concluded that they were ‘not navvies in the proper sense of
the word’, being entirely new to the work.35 When a shipload of Brogdens'
36 No doubt there was a minority of ‘roughs’ among these
men, but probably the proportion who periodically set out to ‘liven up the
town’ was no greater than the colony was accustomed to. When a
surgeon-superintendent whose own character seems to have been open
to question, reported harshly on a large party of Brogdens' immigrants that
he had accompanied to Otago, C. R. Carter prepared a minute in their
defence:
There were in the Christian McAusland about 40 real navvies and I am
quite ready to admit that, as a class, they are rough in their manners, at
times unruly and require tact mingled with kindness to manage them:
but I never felt it my business to refuse to accept men of this stamp —
which were the most suitable for the requirements of Messrs. Brogden
in New Zealand. I believed them as a body to be hard working and
honest and freely accepted them. It must be borne in mind that the
gigantic public works of Great 37
No one was better qualified than C. R. Carter, to comment on the quality
of Brogdens' recruits. Throughout the spring, summer and 38 Any men branded with the letter D,
as deserters, were also to be rejected. At Uxbridge in Middlesex about ten
men were rejected for this reason. Carter applied equally stiff selection
criteria to his own interviews, declining any who in his judgement were
unfit for the hard work of colonial life. As a result of these procedures, only
a minority of applicants were approved, and Carter estimated that he saw at
least 6,000 men in selecting Brogdens' parties. They came from counties as
far apart as Cumberland, 39
Throughout Brogdens' recruitment drive, 40 He considered that it would have been absurd for
the government to have imagined it could compete on the immigration
market against Brogdens' liberal terms. To get the men they wanted,
Brogdens found that in almost every case they had ‘to pay nearly
everything’,41 and in some cases they apparently even advanced pocket
money.42 They also arranged with married men whose wives remained
behind, that they would be paid a weekly subsistence. The men were
promised that their wages would commence the day they landed in New
Zealand. With the guarantee of two years' steady work at good wages, the
total package amounted to a most attractive offer. Carter's only complaint
was that having not paid a shilling by way of deposit, the men had nothing
to lose by breaking their engagements. In many cases, once the men were
selected, their employers raised their wages and they decided to stay.
About a quarter of those selected finally declined to go, creating some
difficulties with the shipping arrangements. There can be little doubt,
though, that Brogdens' liberal terms enabled New Zealand immigration to
break new ground in the English country-side. In the latter part of 43 Without Brogdens' attractive offer, it is
probable that the initial party of reluctant starters would never have left
home.
These rural labourers were particularly sought after by the New Zealand
authorities, and even while selecting navvies for Brogdens, Carter gave
preference to men who had been brought up to farming work.44 His final
figures show that 444 of those he selected were farm labourers and 339
45 Even the strong contingent from Evening Post
of
ENGLAND'S FARM LABOURERS had been coveted by New Zealand right
from the founding of the colony, but repeated endeavours had failed to
recruit them in anything like the numbers desired. Genuine agricultural
labourers formed too small a proportion of the assisted emigrants which
the 1 When the New Zealand provincial governments from
time to time entered the immigration field in the 1850s and 1860s, they
found that agricultural labourers were the ‘most difficult to get and the
most difficult to move when they are got at’.2 A strong flow of immigration
was an essential element in Vogel's ambitious plans of 3 He reminded the House that
the Government had sent home excellent agents in
We must now examine the village world of rural England over these
earlier decades, in order to gain some understanding of these labourers who
were in such demand in this new community on the far side of the world.
We need also to understand why they were so undervalued in the land of
their birth. Why, too, were New Zealand's raw colonials so convinced that
the English rural labourer could better himself by forsaking ‘England's
green and pleasant land’ for the lonely emptiness of their treeless plains and
the blackened ugliness of their bush-burn forest clearings? And why was it
that after decades of ill-rewarded wooing, New Zealand suddenly found
herself to be the ‘promised land’ of many an English village, with farm
labourers flocking to her shores in their thousands. A large part of the
answer to these questions lies in the conditions which led to, and the
consequences which flowed from, the great Revolt of the Field which
broke upon English rural society in 4 Joseph Arch was 45 when he emerged from obscurity to lead the
Revolt, and this was the very age which
Joseph Arch was born in 5 His parents were
living with his maternal grandmother, in her freehold cottage, which she
and her late husband had been able to buy over thirty years earlier, when he
was working as a skilled hedger and ditcher on the Earl of
The wages of Joseph's father, John Arch, never rose above ten shillings a
week, and it was a saving of perhaps three pounds a year in rent, together
with the produce of their large garden, which enabled the family to escape
the humility of soup kitchen charity, and the degradation of poor law
relief, to which many of their neighbours were reduced every winter.
Nevertheless, Joseph's parents paid a price for the independent line which
they followed and taught to their children. In his autobiography6 Joseph
tells of a duel between his mother and a despotic parson's wife, following
the latter's issuing of a decree that all girls at the village school were to have
their hair cut round like a basin. For refusing to allow her two daughters'
hair to be cut, Hannah Arch was subjected to petty persecution, and never
forgiven. Joseph also records that in 7 The significance of this determined independence of spirit will
become more apparent if we examine the social and economic world of the
farm labourer of the 1820s and 1830s.
Rural England in the nineteenth century presented to the world a unique
social arrangement in the three-tiered system of landlord, farmer, and
landless labourer. Throughout the rest of the world the bulk of the rural
population owned or occupied the land they tilled — in other words, they
were peasants. If many of them were peasant serfs, this merely meant that
they were obliged to meet feudal obligations of work on their lord's
property, as well as farming their own holdings. But in England most of the
land was owned by the gentry, rented by the farmers, and worked by
landless labourers. This pattern was the product of the centuries, but it had
It is difficult to find words for the degradation which the coming of
industrial society brought to the English country labourer; the men who
had been ‘a bold peasantry, a country's pride’, the sturdy and energetic
‘peasantry’ whom 18th century writers had so readily contrasted with
the starveling Frenchmen, were to be described by a visiting American
in the 1840s as ‘servile, broken-spirited and severely straitened in their
means of living’ … From that day to this those who observed him, or
who studied his fate, have searched for words eloquent enough to do
justice to his oppression.8
The causes of this degradation were complex, and included the effects of
enclosures, the destruction of cottage industries by the Industrial Revolution, the effects on the village community of the counter-revolutionary
stance of England's ruling class in the age of the French Revolution, and the
economic and social consequences of the appearance of a surplus of rural
labour. The enclosure movement of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, which affected something like a quarter of the cultivated acreage
of England, has been the subject of much debate. On the positive side, it
undoubtedly led to widespread improvement in farming efficiency, a large
increase in food production, and increased employment, both through the
extension of the cultivated area, and of the acreage in labour-absorbing
crops. Allegations that the legal processes of enclosure were commonly a
mockery of justice are not supported by careful modern research.9
Nevertheless, it is clear that enclosure represented a destruction of much of
the traditional culture of English peasant society. A community of
cooperative self-help, governed in a paternalistic spirit, with avenues by
which the lowest villager might rise in the social and economic scale, gave
way to a rural society in which the rich grew richer while acknowledging
only minimal obligations to their increasingly pauperised labourers.
Before enclosure, a cottager with a pig or two, a cow and some poultry, on
the common, and the right to gather firewood, could maintain a certain
measure of economic independence. After enclosure he was purely a
dependent wage labourer. The steady decay of cottage industries in the face
of the Industrial Revolution accentuated this dependence. To these
economic forces, was added the political ideology of the ruling class,
fearful of the spread of ideas from
Yet not all submitted tamely to their fate. The most notable movement of
protest was the ‘Swing’ riots, which swept over southern and eastern
England in the autumn and winter of 1830–31, when Joseph Arch was a
toddler of 4 years.10 The riots were aimed mainly at the destruction of
threshing machines, which were depriving villagers of much of their winter
labour, but there was also widespread arson of ricks and barns. Many
employers received threatening anonymous letters demanding higher
wages, usually crudely written, as few rural labourers were literate. Some
were signed ‘Captain Swing’, and from these the riots have taken their
name. The movement was unplanned, its spread across England was
largely by word of mouth, and its organisation scarcely went beyond the
gathering of local village mobs. Yet it aroused deep fears in the ruling class.
The government sent troops to quell the disorders, and meted out brutal
punishments. Nineteen rural workers were executed, nearly five hundred
transported to
The Swing riots have their link with the founding of New Zealand, for
among those who over these months nightly watched the ricks and barns of
East Anglia going up in flames, was Edward Gibbon Wakefield. His
pamphlet Swing Unmasked vividly depicts the suffering villagers:
What is that defective being, with calfless legs and stooping shoulders,
weak in body and mind, inert, pusillanimous, and stupid, whose
premature wrinkles and furtive glance tell of misery and degradation.
That is an English peasant pauper; for the words are synonymous. His
sire was a pauper, and his mothers milk wanted nourishment.11
Wakefield, and his fellow colonial reformers saw planned emigration as the logical solution to the problems and discontent of rural England. The Swing riots strengthened their case, and also, their resolve.
The riots also had their consequences for rural education, and thereby
had some part in preparing the way for the very different rural revolt of
the 1870s. Over the years following the ‘Swing’ riots the propertied class,
disturbed by the increasing restlessness of the urban proletariat, and fearful
that city and country side might one day rise in unison, turned to education
as a means of social control. ‘On one point at least, Anglican, dissenter and
secularist alike could agree,’ writes John Hurt. ‘The building of more
schools would help to prevent the social unrest of the day from escalating
into widespread revolution.’12 Mainly on the local initiative of the
Joseph Arch was fortunate in that Barford had long had a school
endowed to provide education for the children of the poor. For about three
years, from the ago of 6, he attended school, and was taught by ‘as excellent
a teacher as a poor boy could wish’ who saw that he learnt the rudiments of
the three R's ‘so thoroughly that I never let them drop again.’13 But before
he was nine he had to leave to start work bird-scaring at the wage of
four-pence for a twelve-hour day.14 As Joseph grew to manhood, despite
long working hours and frugal living conditions he continued a simple
education at home, aided and encouraged by his mother. He spent much of
his free time in reading, which included the Bible and Shakespeare. His
social education was furthered by his membership of the village friendly
society (which dated from 15
In 16 He had already
proved that he could outwork the majority of his mates at such tasks as
mowing and hedge-cutting, and he was to become a show champion in the
latter craft. He soon demonstrated that he was a fast and proficient
workman in a wide variety of rural skills, including ditching, fencing,
ploughing, hurdle making and gate hanging.
From his piece-work contracts Joseph was able to bring home earnings
which were often double his previous wage. To the freehold cottage was
now added the second priceless asset of independent employment, for
17 From
time to time on his travels he was invited to preach in the local chapels. In
this and other ways he was becoming widely known and respected —
another valuable asset when his days of leadership arrived.
We must now turn to consider how this rural world was faring in the
1850s and 1860s, while Joseph Arch was trudging along its lanes and
working in its fields. These years have come to be known as the ‘Golden
Age’ of English agriculture. The demand for food grew with the steady rise
of population in the industrial cities, and England was still dependent on
her own farmers for the bulk of her supplies. With heavy capital investment
and increasingly skilled management, output rose almost as fast as the
population, so that it is estimated that as late as 18 Squires and farmers
prospered as never before, but the labourers' share of the wealth they toiled
to create increased very little. Socially, the country world remained a
class-ridden hierarchy. ‘At the sight of the squire the people trembled’,
Arch wrote. ‘He lorded it right feudally over his tenants, the farmers; the
farmers in their turn tyrannised over the labourers; the labourers were no
better than toads under a harrow.’19
We can deal briefly with the landed society of England, for the lives of
aristocrats and gentry had little direct connection with those of the
majority of the village labourers, important as they were in the general
governance of the rural world. Their oligarchy was maintained by a firm
grip on the leadership positions of county life, and a psychological
dominance based on ritual and age-old custom.29 Thus the squire's
attendance at church was part of his régime. In the ornate family pew
surrounded by the memorials of his ancestors, he was a figure apart, of
more than human dimensions in the eyes of more humble worshippers. To
him they owed the obeisance of the curtsy and the touching of the forelock.
He graced the more important of local occasions, and lent the prestige of
his name to various local institutions, but in general he was too remote to
be considered an important element of the villagers' common life. His
influence reached them indirectly by way of his tenants, the farmers. And
during the ‘Golden Age’ one aspect of this influence was an increased aping
of the gentry life styles by the farmers.
Over these years the labourer was finding the farmer an increasingly
remote and unsympathetic master. By the mid-century it had become the
general rule that farmers took no part in the physical work of their farms,21
but their men, with long memories of the village past, resented this ‘kid
22 Traditional perquisites of the farm labourer
were withdrawn by masters who now cared more about their own money
income and less about the welfare of the villagers.23 Old customs of social
intercourse between masters and men were discontinued. Once the
labourers had thought nothing of calling at the farmers' front doors, now
they often found that they were unwelcome even at the back.24
The shift in the farmers' position and attitude is highlighted by marked
differences between their role in the Swing riots of 1830–31, and in the
Revolt of the Field of the 1870s. The latter was basically a conflict between
farmers and labourers, with considerable bitterness of feeling on both
sides. But in the Swing riots, it was Edward Gibbon Wakefield's belief that
the labourers' hostility was directed at squire and parson, and that the
farmers shared the labourers' feelings.25 Hobsbawm and Rudé, after their
careful investigation of the evidence, have concluded that there is a measure
of truth in Wakefield's belief and that there was a good deal of collusion
between farmers and labourers, with farmers on occasion appearing as
active accomplices, although ‘taking them as a whole, they were uncertain
and hesitant allies’ of the labourers.26 The farmers' involvement arose from
27 From the middle of the century the farm house was
often rebuilt outside the village.28 In the late 1860s local chambers of
agriculture began to develop, where farmers and landlords mingled and
developed closer social relations.29
We must examine the new life-style of the farmers a little more closely,
to further our understanding of the deep pent-up bitterness it aroused in
the labourers. Some farmers themselves gibed at the new way of life of their
class. In discussing the social consequences of the enclosure in
Joseph Arch records that his first employer, a fairly well-to-do farmer, was
brought to grief through the extravagant manner of living that he was led
into by the 31 But over the Golden Age many
a farmer was able to ape the gentry without being ‘gazetted’. Meanwhile,
their labourers began to wonder why such masters could not afford to pay a
living wage. ‘We can look any day from our work and see them dash by
with their carriage and pair and servants in livery’,32 wrote a Gravesend
labourer, of the local farmers, when the question began to be openly posed,
with the outbreak of the Revolt. Another Kentish labourer bluntly made
the same point at a union meeting at Farningham early in the Revolt.
‘Most of the farmers and landowners,’ he remarked, ‘are now able to keep
up great establishments, a pack of hounds, and a carriage and pair, while
they pay their labourers barely sufficient to keep body and soul together.’33 These were grievances which Arch had heard muttered in fields
and cottages through the years, and which in
In the 34 He took particular interest in
the everyday life of the English countryside, and by persistent endeavours
was able to see a good deal of the inside both of cottages and farmhouses.
He reported that he found the farmers ‘the most taciturn class in
England’.35 They were, in fact, the only people he met who as a whole were
silent and reserved. On reflection White decided that this silence might be
due to the farmer's position. Knowing little more than the peasant, and
able to talk but little better, he yet had a consciousness of his superiority
which made him, in the presence of his betters, ashamed of his great mental
inequality with them. White describes a typical farmhouse parlour, its only
books a Bible and some kind of an almanac, its walls decorated with three
or four ugly coloured prints of the cheapest kind, and remarks that the
holder of a similar farm in New England or the Middle States would have
received him more on a footing of equality, taken him into another sort of
room, and had more to say in reply to his enquiries.36 White sums up the
position of the farmers thus:
In truth, the English farmer is an aristocrat. He is willing to take his
place in a system of caste, and to look up, if he may also look down.
He will touch his hat to the squire, and think it quite right that people
should be respectful to their superiors; and he is confirmed in this
opinion, or rather this feeling, when Hodge touches his hat to him …
I believe the farmers to be the most conservative body in the kingdom,
the least disposed to change, and to be the main-stay of the tory party.37
White decided that, except in matters of horseflesh, the farmer did not seek
to acquire the tastes or habits of a gentleman.38 He was content with his
place in the social scale, he read little, and thought less. It was his wife and
daughters who were often more ambitious. Richard Jefferies, himself a
farmer's son of this period, has described how ‘Mademoiselle the
Governess’ could transform the social outlook of the farmhouse, and
effectively alienate the farmer from his own womenfolk.39 The Woodlanders.
It would seem, then, that for all his prosperity, the farmer was in some
ways a victim of the social changes that had come to the villages. Ill at ease
in all but the more superficial relations with his social superiors, being led
on something of a social dance by womenfolk who no longer shared his
farming interests, he yet consoled himself in the companionship of his
fellows, as he met with them in the institutions through which they
together ruled their little world. Richard Jefferies has described how each
of the country's agricultural districts functioned as ‘a little kingdom’, with
its own capital city and well defined frontier line.40 In the market town
‘capital’ the informal ‘farmers' parliament’ met in their chosen inn to
arrange concerted action in matters of common concern. Often such a
district would have an Agricultural Association to sponsor an annual
41 Thus was the labourers' general welfare
decided. At the level of individual needs and circumstances the farmers
considered that the labourers' needs were met through their paternalistic
consideration for their men, and the ‘good feeling’ which they maintained
existed between master and man. The discovery that this ‘good feeling’ had
so widely given place to bitterness and resentment came as a shock to the
farmers when the Revolt broke upon them. The harshness of their reaction
is the more understandable when we consider that as a class they already
felt socially insecure before they learnt that they had lost the neighbourly
respect which they expected as of right from their men.
Such then were Hodge's masters. We turn now to the fortunes of Hodge
himself over these years in which Joseph Arch was being prepared in
humble obscurity to become his champion. We note first that the ‘bold
peasantry, their country's pride’, has descended in popular esteem to
become the despised Hodge, the ignorant, spiritless clodhopper. This
change for the worse in the tone and language of society's references to the
village poor had already been noted earlier in the century by their
champion, William Cobbett, who remarked on the increasing tendency for
the labourers ‘to be spoken of by everyone possessing the power to oppress
them in any degree in just the same manner in which we speak of the
animals which compose the stock upon a farm. This is not the manner in
which the forefathers of us the common people, were treated.’42 Even the
urban trade unionist, infected by the condescension that the countryman
has too often suffered from the town, came to think in similar times. The 1
Beehive, a 43 In shrewdly-argued, well-disciplined protest, the
rural labourers were almost immediately to give the lie to this caricature,
but there was more truth in the writer's assertion that the farm labourer's
‘empty head and stomach, his smock frock and squalid cottage — all that is
his — point reproachfully to those who own the broad acres of England or
who preach in her churches.’
There is ample evidence that the villagers over large areas of England had
frequent experience of an empty stomach. This was particularly the case in
the ‘corn’ counties of the south and east of England. In this area the farms
tended to be larger and the ratio of farm workers to farmers to be higher
than in the ‘grazing’ counties of the north and west. It was the
grain-growing south-east that had been swept by the Swing riots, and these
counties also gave the strongest support to the Revolt of the Field. In the
The quality of the labourer's cottage varied widely, but too often it was
wretchedly small and badly built. In the 1850s nearly half of all cottages
had only one bedroom, some had only one room. In many the floors were
of clay, which became sodden when it rained. The Poor Law had been a
contributing cause to the housing problem. It encouraged ‘closed’
parishes, that is, parishes where the proprietors acted in concert to keep
down the population, and hence the poor rates. Wherever possible,
cottages were pulled down, and labour drawn from outside the parish. The
‘open’ parish, on the other hand, was notorious for its wretchedly built
small cottages run up cheaply by small farmers and shopkeepers looking
Hunting and shooting were class sports which became more and more
fashionable throughout the century. While the villagers craved for meat,
they saw the wild creatures about them protected by the Game Laws to
provide sport for their ‘betters’. Hunger and resentment drove many
labourers to flout these class laws. The landowners built up an army of
gamekeepers to protect their quarry, and rural J.P.s probably spent more
time dealing with breaches of these laws, than with any other kind of
offence. To Joseph Arch one of the greatest indignities imposed on the
labourer was the Poaching Prevention Act of 44 On the matter of poaching Arch gave his views to a
Select Committee on the Game Laws, in
an honest labourer would think nothing of knocking over a rabbit in the
day-time if he saw it and it came in his way; and neither should I. I
don't see any harm in it because in my opinion ground game is wild.
The plain truth is we labourers do not believe hares and rabbits belong
to any individual, not any more than thrushes and blackbirds.45
But what the farm labourer thought on this or any other matter was of little
concern to his rulers in the decades preceding the Revolt. Arthur Clayden,
Arch's friend and supporter from Berkshire, was near enough to the truth
when he described the farm labourer as ‘a social Pariah … the sport of
circumstances and prey of parish-officers.’46 To complete our brief
account of the life and circumstances of the village labourer, we will let
Clayden give a glimpse of his declining years. To break the pernicious
Speenhamland system, the Labourers' Union Chronicle giving an example of this:
During the severe frost I was taking my constitutional along the
highroad, when I met a white-headed old labourer slowly wending his
way towards the town. Something in his pinched and withered look
arrested my attention, and I stopped to speak to him. I found that he
was on his way to the workhouse, leaving his venerable partner at home to
keep the place against he came out by and bye. Nothing would the
“guardians” allow him out, and so rather than starve he had bid his dear
old partner “good-bye”, and was going into that poor man's purgatory
— the workhouse. The owner of the land on which he had worked for
more than half a century is worth over thirty thousand pounds a year,
and farmer after farmer has he enriched by his toil. The clergyman of
the little village where he lived gets eight hundred pounds a year, and
preaches to a dozen people once a Sunday for it … put these facts
together and you have the materials for a speech ten times more severe
than has yet been uttered from a Union platform.47
Clearly, in his journeyings year by year through the countryside, Arch
would have been presented with copious materials for a scorching
indictment of the ordering of rural England. It was not for want of a case
that the labourers stirred so little over these decades. We must now briefly
survey the influences which had been at work among them to make
possible their sudden and unexpected revolt. One was the slow but
continuous spread of education and literacy. The quiet work of schools,
chapels, reading rooms and circulating libraries had brought the day when
newspaper reports and printed propaganda could be a potent force in
arousing and organising the village labourer. The railways and the penny
post had also helped to widen the horizon and raise the aspirations of the
rural worker, as well as making it possible for active and determined leaders
to create a ‘modern’ type of large-scale organisation embracing the
common people of the broad countryside. The continued growth of village
non-conformity, in itself an expression of protest against the existing social
order, had been quietly finding and training the leaders for the Revolt, and
giving the labourers experience in mutual action. By one means and
another, also, the labourers were made aware that they had influential
friends and advocates in other ranks of society. One such was Canon
Girdlestone, who in The Times, he obtained the means to organise a regular system of migration
from
The Revolt would appear to have been finally triggered by a setback to
rising hopes among the labourers. Although, for propaganda purposes,
their leaders maintained that the prosperity of the Golden Age had passed
the rural workers by, research indicates that between 1851 and 1871 real
wages had been rising, though by less than one per cent per year.48 The
spread of chapels and branches of friendly societies are among signs of a
general improvement in conditions, brought about by continued emigration from the countryside (both to the cities and overseas) leaving a
considerably reduced labour force to handle more work. It seems that, at
least at the busy seasons, the balance of advantage had shifted during the
1850s to favour the employee. Then, from the mid '60s on, returns from
arable land fell, and wage rates, particularly in the ‘corn’ counties, came
under strain. At this very time the labourer saw the economic advantages of
a large family begin to disappear. In the ‘corn’ counties it was the farmers'
practice to turn off single men first when winter came, to reduce the burden
of poor relief. Early marriages and large families were therefore common.
The children contributed to the family income from an early age. Children
as young as 6 were put into public gangs, organised by gangmasters who
contracted for certain kinds of farm work. Older children earned enough
to provide the family with something of a security against starvation should
the father fail to earn enough. But by the early 1870s the large family,
especially of young children, was becoming a handicap. The Gangs Act of
49 This simultaneous trend to
reduced wages, and loss of children's earnings gives added point to Joseph
Arch's ironic grace, which had wide currency in the 1870s:
It was this dashing of recently raised hopes which caused the surge of anger that triggered the Revolt.
Over the hungry months of the
Arch later confessed that he had many doubts and fears as he tramped the muddy road, between the dripping hedgerows, that evening. He was uncertain whether the scattered, depressed farm workers could be organised into an effective trade union, and he did not expect to find more than thirty or forty men gathered on that wet night at Wellesbourne. Instead he found the place ‘as lively as a swarm of bees in June’. By word of mouth news of the meeting had spread in a few hours to the neighbouring villages, and there were far too many people gathered for a meeting in the Stag Inn. It was held instead on the green outside, under the chestnut tree, with lanterns hung on bean poles for light. Arch spoke standing on an old pig-killing stool, and in his autobiography he describes the scene:
In the flickering light of the lanterns I saw the earnest upturned faces of
these poor brothers of mine — faces gaunt with hunger and pinched with
want — all looking towards me and ready to listen to the words that
would fall from my lips. These white slaves of England with the
darkness all about them, like the children of Israel waiting for some one
to lead them out of the land of 50
The village labourers had found the prophet who could arouse and lead
them, and take their case onto the national stage. Arch accepted their call as
his destiny. ‘I felt,’ he wrote, ‘as if there was a living fire in me … There
was a strength and a power in me which had been pent up and had been
growing, and now it flowed forth.’51
Over the following weeks the union grew rapidly. Arch tramped from
52 The new movement was soon involved in a
whole series of small strikes and lockouts as the men respectfully but firmly
approached the farmers for a rise in wages, and the latter for the most part
contemptuously ignored their requests, and retaliated in the various ways
open to them, when the men withdrew their labour. Fortunately for the
men, the press gave them wide publicity and considerable support, with
the result that generous aid flowed from workpeople in the towns. This
aid, and the migration and emigration of some of the men, enabled the
union to win its contest with the masters of South
He appeared to me then about forty years of age. He looked as if he
had lived hard, and worked hard. He was of full middle height, with a
strongly built frame, and a dark complexion: he was fluent in speech
and strong in voice. When I first heard him speak — on the above Good
Friday, at a public meeting at 53
Carter had two interviews with Arch on emigration to New Zealand, on this occasion. However, Arch did not at this time favour emigration, as he felt it robbed the country of its most enterprising workers, and was sanguine that his movement could win its way by other means.
Meanwhile the Revolt had spread rapidly in the midland counties and
southern England. In some places local stirrings had begun before Arch
had come forward to lead the Royal Leamington Chronicle, which had supported the labourers'
cause from the start, became voluntary treasurer. An executive of twelve
farmworkers was elected, and a consultative committee of gentlemen
favourable to the principles of the union was also set up. Members were to
pay an entrance fee of sixpence and a weekly contribution of twopence.
Some district unions declined to send delegates to the conference, the
most notable of these being the Kent (later Kent and
As a movement, the Revolt of the Field differed strikingly from the
Given the predicament of the English farm labourer and the nature of his revolt, it is not surprising that the New Zealand authorities looked to the movement with such hope. Their new land was hungry for men accustomed to hard labour, and gifted in the rural skills. The best of England's farm labourers were demanding adequate food, decent homes, the chance to better themselves and secure a stake in the land, and the right to be treated with full respect as free men. All these the distant colony could offer to men of energy and determination. Almost simultaneously the New Zealand emigration drive and the union organisations of the Revolt began to reach out into the English rural world, to recruit the village labourer. It was inevitable that their fortunes should be intertwined.
LIKE THE UNION movement of the Revolt, the New Zealand emigration
drive was untidy, improvised and disunited. The methods of the two
organisations provide interesting parallels, although, as one would expect,
their fortunes in the field tended to follow an inverse pattern. A brief surge
of heightened industrial activity in
When he accepted the newly-created position of Agent-General for
New Zealand in the 1
The assignment which 2 As there was no
emigration going on, ‘except in miserable driblets to 3
Featherson soon began to give his main attention to perfecting his
4 Thus Carter's recruitment campaign of September-October 5 This situation was eventually
tidied up, particularly by the passing of the 6 Former provincial agents provided
valuable members of 7 basing them on various provincial regulations already issued by the Governor,8 and including provision for
promissory notes where the passage money could not be met in cash. In
doing this, 9 He reported that the emigration agents condemned
his regulations as illiberal, while he himself regarded them as too liberal.
He considered, however, that a temporary generosity was necessary to
start a stream of emigration.10 Once it was flowing he thought increased
contributions towards passage money should be required, to make the
scheme largely self-supporting.
The inadequate flow of immigration provided fuel for provincial
rivalries. A major and clearly acknowledged aim of the immigration and
public works policy was colonisation of previously unoccupied parts of the
11 Although nearly two-thirds of the European
population was in the 12 and later in the year Thomas
Birch and James Seaton ‘two settlers with many years' residence in Otago’
were appointed by the General Government to go to 13 On 14 The Canterbury request for
permission to send home an agent to act for the province under direction of
the Agent-General, was granted. The appointment went to Andrew
Duncan, a provincial council member, who had begun his colonial career
as a labourer, and worked his way up to become a successful seedsman and
shopkeeper.15 Among other colonists sent home as emigration agents was
William Burton, a Taranaki settler, appointed by his province's executive
in
In its developed form
I had to deliver oral lectures on New Zealand: making out the quarterly
emigration returns fell to my lot: sometimes I acted as Despatching
Officer to our emigrant ships sailing from 16
Finally there were the local agents, people such as school teachers,
booksellers, drapers, and estate agents, working on a commission basis.
They distributed advertisements and application forms in their areas.
Despite this impressive organisation, for more than two years the results
achieved were, as we have seen, quite disappointing. In the circumstances
of
It is not easy I imagine to catch 8,000 English emigrants just now. It is
curious to compare hypothesis with fact: the hypothesis being that there
are a vast number of half starved Englishmen who would make good
colonists; the fact that paupers are utterly unfit for colonists, and those
who are fit are generally well employed at home, and don't want to go
abroad.17
Though the colonists got nowhere near their 8,000 emigrants for 18 pointed
out that Brogdens had proved such formidable competitors to his own
recruitment that he had placed the whole of his staff at their disposal in
order to get their contract disposed of and out of the way. Furthermore the
government had hampered him by instructions not to land emigrants in the
months of June, July and August (the southern winter), while it was
difficult to get emigrants to move over the northern winter months of
December, January and February. As a result, his effective emigration
season was limited to the seven months from May to November. He was
confident, however, that the future prospects of emigration were good.
Interest in New Zealand was increasing daily in 19
20 Cholmondeley had served for abour fourteen years as
curate of a large parish in Norfolk, had done a little recruiting for
Canterbury Province in Gloucestershire in
… their ignorance, and, as a result of this, their fear of moving from their native place. The farmers, who are the chief employers of labour, are not slow to take advantage of this timidity. Lest immigration should cause a rise in the price of labour, they discourage it as much as possible, infecting doubts into their workmen's minds as to the possible motives of emigration agents.
Cholmondeley recommended that the colony carry out more effective
propaganda among the working class, and that wherever necessary
emigrants should be advanced the fare to the port of embarkation. On 5
21
In 23
As to passage money, it is perfectly certain that you will never get any
large immigration unless you pay the whole passage money. Even then
New Zealand would hardly be on a level with the States, because the
additional outfit for a long sea voyage, and the dread of the voyage itself
would more than counterbalance the small payment required for
emigrating to
The same message was contained in a letter to the Lyttelton Times,
written on
… people of the class who have to do hard and rough work, get so
badly paid that they can, by no means of their own, hope to get money
to better their condition by emigrating to your colony or elsewhere.
They are helplessly wedded to the soil of old England, unless means can
be provided, not only to take them away free but to induce them to see
that the exchange will benefit them; and your colony, nor any other,
will never be benefited by the wealth which would result from their
labour could you obtain it….24
Jenkins then gave a number of examples from his area of working men who had had to abandon intentions of emigrating to New Zealand. One, a gardener of good character, with a family, had accumulated ten pounds by careful saving over a period of time, but was told that he must find fourteen pounds, and so had been unable to go. Jenkins claimed that he could multiply examples such as this.
It may be asked why the government's repeated instructions to
25 This vacillation of 26 It was now clear
that he would require unequivocal instructions from the government
before he would introduce free immigration. Before we see how the New
Zealand cabinet came to take this step, we must return to the unions of the
Revolt, for their changed circumstances were encouraging their voices to
become among the most potent of those calling for this very policy.
As we have seen, in the early stages of the Revolt, union attitudes to
emigration were coloured by hopes of a new order in the homeland.
Emigration agents, however, hopefully canvassed the unions, and unfortunately for all involved, among the most successful were those of the
Brazilian Government. By means of extravagant promises about 1,000
emigrants were induced to leave for 27 The dampening effects of this
episode on all emigration recruitment among the unions can be imagined.
James Jenkins, the
However, better news was coming from emigrants who had gone
elsewhere. Queensland was the only British colony offering free passages
in 29 The National's executive resolved to pay
railway fares and provide outfits for members emigrating to Queensland as
part of a policy of assisting surplus agricultural labourers to emigrate and
they indicated that if other British colonies offered free passages, similar
help would be given to their recruits from the union. By 30 The Kent Union continued to
end further small parties to Queensland over the following years, while
others were sent to
We have already seen that the generous terms of Brogdens' emigration
offer induced a number of National Union members to emigrate to New
Zealand during 31 This was followed up
later in the year by two visits to the offices of the National Union at
32 In 33 He must have
been aware that the unions were becoming increasingly interested in emigration
as the intractable attitude of many farmers and landowners became more
evident. The National Union received a foretaste of the strength of
organised opposition when on
The National Union's changed attitude to emigration found expression
in a memorial from its executive committee to the Legislative Assembly of
New Zealand, dated 34 The memorial first depicted the
English farm labourers' condition thus:
Their homes have, in many cases been wretched in the extreme; their wages insufficient; and their food scant and unwholesome. It has been impossible for them to educate their children; to avoid the miseries of debt; or to make provision for old age; - and the result has been that after years of hopeless toil, during which they have had largely to appeal to public charity, they have been compelled to end their days as paupers in the Union Workhouse.
The memorial proceeded to tell of the formation of the National Union,
with the aim of redressing these grievances. It stated that emigration had
been found to afford the speediest solution of the many difficulties, but
that unfortunately many English labourers were going to settle among
‘people who are aliens in customs, language, and religion’ in
It is, however, vain to expect that the labourer will, unaided, find his
way to the English Colonies; and we therefore appeal, through you, to
the country you represent urging that free passages from an English
port, if not from their homes, be provided for all eligible labourers and
their families who are willing to seek your shores; and further, that
provision be made for their reception and for their transfer to fields in
which their labour may be most in demand. Should it be possible for
your Government to meet our wishes, and so to attract to its own land
the tide of emigration now flowing to
On 35 There was no chance of persuading
Arch to visit New Zealand at this stage, as he had decided early in the
summer to accept an invitation from the Canadian Government to visit
their country. He sailed for 36 This useless, low-level reply was justly criticised in the
colony. There was as yet nothing to induce any officer of the union to make
the long journey to New Zealand.
But a new day was about to dawn for New Zealand immigration. On 5
37 reported that although in general they
considered that a system of immigration should be largely self-supporting,
and that part payment of passage money in cash served to guarantee, as a
general rule, an emigrant's eligibility as a new settler, yet in view of the
urgent demand for labour in the colony and the competition for immigrants
in the Home labour market, for a time free passages should be offered to
immigrants. Meanwhile the New Zealand Premier had come to the same
conclusion. This was Julius Vogel, who had first held cabinet office in June
To overcome the slowness of mail communications, Vogel decided to
make maximum use of the cable facilities available from Melbourne. The
day he took over the portfolio, he cabled 38 The importance of seeking the cooperation of the
unions, and especially of Arch, was further emphasised in the despatches
which followed the telegram. On 39 Vogel's letter was published in the
Labourers' Union Chronicle of
Under Vogel's energetic direction the path of emigration to New Zealand
was made as smooth as possible. To spur recruitment an order in council of
40 The earlier inhibitions about immigrants landing in New
Zealand over the winter months seem to have silently disappeared.
Not only had the New Zealand administration begun to take all possible
measures, but it seemed in these closing months of 41 The number of emigrants leaving 42 The farmers now had additional cause for wishing to crush the
rural unions, but they appear to have waited for the outcome of the general
43 On
It is infinitely easier to procure 40,000 emigrants, now that the
Agricultural Unions have taken up emigration, than it was to obtain
5,000 when they were opposed to it. All the Unions are working
heartily with me, being convinced that they can only hope to succeed in
their present struggle by shipping off the surplus labour … The stream
thus set flowing will not easily be stemmed, especially if the reports sent
home by emigrants to their friends continue as favourable and
encouraging as hitherto.44
Under the changed conditions
We will now return to the beginning of this new day in emigration to
New Zealand, and follow the fortunes of the first large party of rural union
recruits, to see how the new union-colonial government cooperation
worked out in practice, and to gain further understanding of what the
experience of emigrating meant in human terms. Vogel's telegram of 11
Labourers' Union Chronicle of 45 Carter found that
Holloway was interested in selecting a party of several hundred emigrants,
The New Zealand authorities were fortunate in the man they had
enlisted. Carter reported that ‘the position that Mr Holloway occupies
amongst the agricultural labourers appears to me but second to that of Mr
Arch, who is now on a mission in 46 Holloway's background was
very similar to Arch's.47 He was born in
Mongol scheduled to sail from Mongol was a new ship, about to sail for New Zealand to
inaugurate a mail service between the colony and 48 The reason for Vogel's prohibition
was the danger of losing immigrants to the neighbouring colonies. The
rapid acceleration of New Zealand recruiting throughout Scimitar to leave Mongol.
Most of Holloway's recruitment meetings went unreported, and many
of them must have been primitive gatherings under the stars ‘in the
highways and byways and open fields’.49 C. R. Carter found time for
another visit to Oxfordshire on 25 November, to address ‘a very large
number of labourers’ in a tent at Charlbury.50 The previous evening the
Burford branch of the union had held a ‘capital meeting’ in the Primitive
Methodist chapel, and among the speakers was Holloway, to give ‘a
stirring address on emigration to New Zealand’. The Labourers' Union
Chronicle gave Holloway every assistance. On 15 November it published a
summary of Carter's lecture at his Milton-under-Wychwood emigration
meeting of 4 November, supplied by Holloway; a long and enthusiastic
letter from a
… it would do a person good to see with what spirit they left the shores of Old England. Some say they must feel it, so they did, but with joy, saying they felt at last free, and should be able to hold their heads up. One of the women was so pleased that she kept singing - “The ship is ready, and the wind blows fair, And we shall soon be free.”
On 17 November Holloway put his scheme before the union's National
Executive, which endorsed it, and issued directions to district secretaries
throughout the country to give their support, and especially to encourage
emigration from places where farmers seemed likely to take advantage of
labourers during the winter. The Executive's support was reported in the
Chronicle of 22 November and a week later the editor issued a clarion call,
in a leader entitled ‘Labourers, Away to New Zealand’:
Not a farm labourer in England but should rush from the old doomed country to such a paradise as New Zealand…. The exiled labourers will be requited for their ages of suffering as a class in the Eden of New Zealand, and avenged for all the spoliation they have suffered from the plundering landed aristocracy, and a mean, thoughtless set of farmers by leaving them …, by taking themselves off as fast as ships and steamers will take them to the land of promise; - A GOOD LAND - … A LAND OF OIL, OLIVES AND HONEY; - A LAND WHERE IN THOU MAY'ST EAT BREAD WITHOUT SCARCENESS: THOU SHALT NOT LACK ANYTHING IN IT….
Away, then, farm labourers, away! New Zealand is the promised land
for you; and the Moses that will lead you is ready.51
Holloway's campaign was thus well under way by the time Arch returned
with a good report from Chronicle of
The news of large schemes of emigration to New Zealand, The Times, in a rather patronising
editorial of
The arrangements for assembling Holloway's party and their journey to
53 In 54
At Banbury, in north Oxfordshire, a large number from the south
Scimitar's passenger list as a farm
labourer of 43 years. The
At
As the journey continued through the winter countryside, reports
circulated in the immigrants' carriages of farmers offering ‘prizes and other
inducements’ when they realised that their best men were departing. At
midday Didcot junction was reached. Here it was found that the railway
company had failed to make the expected arrangements for the party to
proceed by the fast train scheduled to reach
The party had been scheduled to sail after a brief weekend in the depot,
but now the hazards of winter emigration began to come into play. The
Mongol (and possibly also the Scimitar) was detained in the 55 Both ships
reached Mongol. The immigrants spent nine
days in the badly overcrowded depot, their stay rendered the more irksome
by persistent wet weather. Colds and catarrh were prevalent, the bedding
was damp, and there was a dank smell about the place, caused largely by
people continually going out into the rain and getting their clothes damp.56
With measles and scarlet fever widespread in the country, there was cause
for foreboding. Even in the best of weather it would have been a
challenging task to keep the nearly 700 emigrants crowded into the depot
occupied and happy. As over 300 of them had been recruited by the
57 On arrival Taylor heard the curious
story of the harassment of the Cullimores, an emigrant family recruited by
the union. Feeling it should be given publicity, he had an affidavit prepared
for publication in the Chronicle.
Joseph Cullimore, a 39-year-old farm labourer from near Windsor,
decided to join Holloway's party and emigrate with his wife and seven of
his children. Two sons, Job aged 16, and Fred, aged 14, were hired by a Mr
Vidler of Clever, near Windsor. On 6 December Cullimore informed
Sawyer, Vidler's steward, of his plans, and arranged that the boys be
allowed to leave. In the course of the following week the steward forbade
the boys leaving as they were busy with the horses, and sent a letter to the
father to this effect. At 5 a.m. on Friday, 12 December, the boys left their
lodgings near the steward's house, and went to Maidenhead – apparently
starting a day earlier than the rest of the family in order to escape. The
steward overtook the boys at Maidenhead station. Job escaped and
travelled to Newbury, but Fred was caught on the railway stairs. He was
taken to the police station, locked up for three hours, and then taken back
to Windsor, where he promised to go back to work, and was allowed to do
so. He was rescued by William, an elder brother who was not emigrating,
acting on instructions from the father. They were pursued and recaptured
by the farm's carter and the steward's wife, but managed to escape again.
Meanwhile Job, who had gone to Newbury, was arrested at the railway
station there, on the strength of a telegram from the steward, and locked
up. On Saturday morning the father arrived and had Job taken before the
Mayor of Newbury at his private house, but the Mayor said he could not
act without another magistrate, and that the boy must go to Windsor.
However, the police first took Job to his master, Vidler. Vidler refused to
discharge him. In Windsor Job was collected by Vidler's son, and taken to
the farm. Finally, about midday on Sunday 14 December, the master
relented, and told Job to go after his father. Holloway and Taylor both
witnessed the statement signed by Job, Fred and their father. Both boys
signed the affidavit with their marks, and the father's literacy may not have
extended far beyond signing his name.59 This incident illustrates both the
vulnerable position of the illiterate or semi-literate labourer, and the
persistence among rural employers of an outlook that regarded labourers as
little more than serfs.
Taylor and Holloway obviously taxed their ingenuity to help the party
to while away the days. Holloway was best at sermons, which he provided
both on Sundays and midweek. Taylor was more versatile, and fostered
singing, dancing and even leapfrog. One evening he was able to borrow a
magic lantern with slides on ‘numerous witty and humorous subjects’. The
depot manager subsidised a visit to a Christy Minstrel entertainment, and
the depot chaplain supplied each emigrant with a small packet of tracts.60
Scimitar, one of them with an advanced case of scarlet
fever which the parents had succeeded in concealing up to this point,61 and
another two families were sent from the Mongol with scarlet fever
infection.62 The Mongol sailed on 23 December with 313 emigrants, 125 of
them being children under 12.63 The Scimitar sailed the following day with
430 emigrants, 165 of whom were children.64 Holloway's party of 327 was
divided between the two ships.
The experience of the Mongol's emigrants on the voyage is comparatively well documented. The Labourers' Union Chronicle published a
diary of the voyage kept by James Dixon Gore, a single man of 25, a painter
from 65 emigrating with a family party whose other members
were Henry Gore, 21, a gardener, and Alfred Gore, 31, gardener, with a
wife and two young children. Holloway also kept a diary, and although he
travelled saloon, he kept close touch with the emigrants. The evidence
given by a number of the emigrants to the Royal Commission appointed to
investigate the deaths from sickness during the voyage, is also available.66
Finally, a well-written account of the voyage was supplied to a New
Zealand Anglican journal by the Revd H. M. Kennedy, who acted as ship's
chaplain.67 Kennedy had been curate of the Irish parish of Toughboyne the
rector of which was a brother of Sir George Bowen, Governor of New
Zealand from 1868 to 1873. When he decided to emigrate to New Zealand,
many of his parishioners decided to accompany him. As chaplain he took
an active interest in the emigrants, assisting with the school, and helping to
nurse the sick. Holloway and he cooperated well on the voyage, but
between the lines of Holloway's diary one senses something of a feeling of
rivalry with Kennedy.
Holloway was laid low with sea sickness for the first four days, and was
unable to attend the Christmas day service conducted by Kennedy. By
Sunday, 28 December, Holloway had found his sea legs. Having attended a
morning service conducted by Kennedy for the emigrants and crew, he
decided to make a move in the interests of nonconformity. He pointed out
to the captain that there were a goodly number of dissenters on board, and
gained permission to hold a Sunday evening service for them throughout
the voyage. On New Year's eve Holloway did not feel at ease among the
merriment and dancing of the saloon passengers, so retired to his cabin,
and in good Methodist tradition passed the events of the previous twelve
By the time the Mongol had been at sea a couple of days it was apparent
that the infection of both measles and scarlet fever had been brought
aboard. The first cases occurred among the single women, but on 26
December Alfred Gore's 5-year-old daughter Emily went down with
scarlet fever. The surgeon found that the measles infection was spread
throughout the ship so no attempt was made to isolate it. However, all the
early cases of scarlet fever occurred in the after compartment, occupied by
the single women and a few families. On 26 December the surgeon
therefore arranged for this area to be isolated from the rest of the ship, and
the school which had just commenced was broken up. Emily Gore and the
other scarlet fever patients made good recoveries, and as no new cases
appeared, the isolation was relaxed on 10 January, and school was
recommenced. The schoolteacher, Edward Wright, was a civil and
mechanical engineer. He was assisted by the Revd Kennedy, who thus
came to know the children very well.
James Gore's diary provides various glimpses of the day-by-day life of
immigrants and crew. He had decided by 5 January that the captain was
‘such a stingy fellow’. On the 6th he saw two sailors put in irons. They had
been down the hold all day getting up coal, and eventually refused to
continue without extra rations, which the captain would not grant. On the
evening of the 10th the emigrants gave a grand concert amidships, which
Gore voted a great success. He contributed two songs. Saloon passengers
paid a shilling each to attend, and the singers and musicians spent the
takings on a supply of Bass's bitter beer. Next morning Gore enjoyed the
parson's ‘first-class sermon’ on temperance. On 13 January the emigrants
had their boxes up from the hold, to equip themselves for the long easterly
run in the southern latitudes. On the 14th Gore averred that ‘the captain
dare not put in at the
I feel I should like to be in Old England, to have a roll among the hay, or sitting under a shady tree whispering a soft tale to a girl that was rather affectionate. It was an awful bore to be stuck for'ard, and all the single women aft, and not allowed to speak to one another…. We saw a shoal of sperm whales basking in the sun.
Meanwhile the measles epidemic continued, with over fifty cases in the first
four weeks. The first death was that of the infant son of Henry and
Catherine Lammas, from Holloway's own village of Wootton. In those
days of high infant mortality this death and that of a 2-year-old on 9
Mongol's upper decks had been inadequately caulked, and
despite complaints this was not attended to for about three weeks. Until
then a great deal of water leaked on to the bunks of the married quarters
from the crew's daily washing of the upperdeck. The ship's provisions
were also ill adapted to the large number of children, and many of them did
not take well to the basic diet of preserved meat and hard ship's biscuit.
Supplies of food suited to the sick were quite inadequate.
On 22 and 23 January the Lammases lost both their remaining children, and Holloway was doing his best to comfort the heartbroken parents. The following day the Cullimores lost their youngest, a boy of eighteen months. In telling of these child deaths, Kennedy wrote:
the most heartrending, perhaps (was) that of Mrs. S 's children, two fine boys, general favourites, both of whom died of malignant scarlet fever. The death of the second was most painful: the mother who was fairly frantic, drove off the sailors and would not allow them to remove the body, nor can I say that I had much better success, when sent for.
Kennedy also wrote of two other cases which were extremely painful to
him. They were two 10-year-old girls Annie Johnson and Emily Hewitt,
who regularly attended his Sunday School class, and led their companions
for him at the singing class. Emily was one of the eight children of Daniel
Hewitt, a 35-year-old groom and coachman from
Mr Johnson (a very intimate friend of mine, & one who has helped me materially in holding our services) lost his eldest daughter, Annie, by death today, a most interesting girl of ten summers. This is the ninth death on board. Mr Johnson speaks in the highest terms of the attention the doctor has given his family.
Apart from the unusual number of deaths, the voyage was proceeding most
satisfactorily for the captain, who was trying for a record run in his new
ship. To conserve coal, he did his best to delay the use of the condenser by
reducing the emigrants' water allowance. Once the cooler southern
latitudes were reached he transferred the serving of water to the emigrants
from the carpenter to the fourth mate, and reduced the daily issue even
further below the regulation allowance. He told the mate to ignore
complaints. After receiving many complaints on the matter from members
of his party, Holloway took the issue up with the captain, and part of the
cut was restored. On 22 January, after rounding the 68 The captain had his reward when the Mongol
steamed into
From this quarantine period the Revd Kennedy had a touching incident to relate, concerning Joseph Johnson's second daughter, 8-year-old Mary Jane. The Johnsons had lost their third daughter, 6-year-old Emma, only three days after the death of Annie. When the ship reached port, Mary Jane was sickening with scarlet fever, and she died shortly after landing on Quarantine Island. One calm evening, some days later, Kennedy was standing on deck looking over the side of the vessel when the following episode occurred:
one of the quartermasters (W), a hard, weather-beaten old sailor,
came up to me very quietly. I knew him well: it was he who sewed up
the dead bodies and held the plank from which they were committed to
the deep. A grim looking man he was, and, I thought, quite callous; and
it appeared strange to me that the children liked him and called him
‘uncle.’ On this occasion he looked quite changed, his usually harsh
voice was soft and low and his face kind and gentle; he asked about the
little girl that had died on the island. ‘Was it’, said he, ‘her as used to
wear the red cloak and call me “uncle”, with black eyes and hair’. I told
him that it was. ‘Ah! poor lassie, I am sorry for her, I am sorry for
her,’ said he, and then continued, ‘But I'm glad she didn't die on
board.’ On asking why he said ‘Well, you see, at first the children
didn't like me because 'twas I buried them, and the little lass caught
hold of my hand one day after her sister had died, and asked me would
I throw her into the sea too if she died, and then began to cry, and said
“Uncle, sure you won't throw me over”. ‘So,’ said he. ‘I promised her I
The Johnsons also lost Ada, aged 3, on Quarantine Island, and were left
with only infant Ellen. However, four daughters and two sons were to be
born to them in New Zealand.69 Joseph and Louisa entered vigorously into
the opportunities offered by the new land. On
We were pleased to hear that you were getting on so well at the chapel,
and to hear good news of all our old friends…. Joe says he wishes
someone would pay him to come over for some of you. He is going
sixty miles in a steamboat today, up the country, shearing. I shall feel
very lonely while he is away, but I do not mind if he gets along well; he
has plenty of work. The land is dear here. He will see the country by
going. He earned £2 15s. last week, and said he had worked harder in
the old country for 15s. If you want to come out of bondage into
liberty come out here. I was out waiting on a poor woman last week,
and she gave me 30s…. I have done some sewing and always got
twice what I charged for it. I made a plain skirt and charged 1s for it,
and they sent 2s. You would get 10s for making a dress…. I wish a
lot from Grandborough would come. Joe says he would get you all
such a meal as you never had at home. Come and try him…. If you
ever come, start about the time that we started, as it is still then. We
never had a storm all the voyage. We should have come over beautifully
if it had not been for the fever. You would never think you were in a
foreign country if you were here…. We have not received any papers.
We felt sadly disappointed, as we wanted to know how the Union was
going on…. I am so pleased to hear you are so strong in Union. Joe
thinks of sending £1 to the Union, but he wanted to see the Chronicle
first, as you said the lock-out was to be settled. We have Reynolds paper
sometimes and see a little news from home….70
Joseph's shepherd skills were an asset in a land whose staple export at this
time was wool. Assisted by his industrious wife he was able to save the
money to take up bush land near Ngaere in Taranaki, and carve out a
successful small farm for himself. The other members of Holloway's party
on the Mongol named in this chapter also made good in New Zealand.
Arthur Hitchcock, an Oxfordshire man who settled in 71
Before we leave the Mongol's emigrants, two men in her Labourers' Union
Chronicle of 72
We now turn briefly to the voyage of the Scimitar, bringing the rest of
Holloway's party. She too made a record passage, arriving at Port
Chalmers on 73 She was in every way ideal for
immigration service, being 8 feet 6 inches between decks and well fitted.
She was also well run, with a considerate captain and an efficient
surgeon-superintendent. Yet there were twenty-six deaths on the voyage,
mainly from measles and scarlet fever. Except for a girl of 17, all were
children. In all other respects the Scimitar seems to have been a happy ship.
A good account of the voyage was sent home to his grandmother by
George Philpott, the 23-year-old son of William Philpott of Tysoe. The
‘Mark’ referred to in the following extract is probably Mark Fessey, a
29-year-old farm labourer, the ‘Alfred is William's 3-year-old brother.
… We have one of the best captains that ever crossed the ocean. I have
not heard a bad word from him all the voyage. The first mate is a
particularly pleasant man, and all the sailors, too; they often come down
and join us in a spree at night, when they are not on watch. We have
had several concerts while on board, at night…. Charles Fox is our
captain's name, and a good man he is; it grieves him very much to lose
so many children, all small ones; he has got no children himself, his wife
is a nice woman, too. The captain has given the children tea and cakes a
time or two, and brought plums and nuts out to scatter among them.
Anybody who thinks of coming out here need not be afraid of having a
short allowance of grub, for there is plenty of victuals, quite as much as
you can eat; there is pudding three times and rice twice a week…. I
had a good ducking one morning before breakfast; it swilled me nearly
all across the deck, and you would have laughed to have seen me hold
on by the things on deck; the sea comes over, when the wind is
sideways to the vessel, in tons, so that it swilled the children from one
side to the other, and back. Oh, what a laugh. And then there is the
George's letter was published in the Labourers' Union Chronicle of 16 May
‘P.S. — I have seen the whales and sharks having their larks across the mighty deep’.
William Philpott settled with his family at Waikiwi, near 74 With his boys he cleared the bush, by
cutting it up for firewood for sale in
The voyages of both the Mongol and the Scimitar were the subjects of
Royal Commission enquiries, because of the number of deaths. The
reports of these commissions guided the New Zealand authorities in
improving their immigration arrangements.
AFTER A WEEK in quarantine, Christopher Holloway landed in Labourers' Union
Chronicle. Together with the increasing flow of optimistic letters from the
growing number of newly arrived English rural labourers in New Zealand,
they must have helped to persuade many a family to take up the colony's
offer of free passages. As he travelled from place to place, Holloway not
only met old friends who had preceded him to New Zealand, but also
individuals and parties who had emigrated in the months after he sailed. We
will therefore return to England, and follow the continuing fortunes of the
New Zealand emigration drive to the end of
No sooner were Holloway's party away than another officer of the
1
Before he returned to Oxfordshire, however, Carter had begun his 2
The rural labourers of Kent were among the first of this period to turn
their attention to unionism. In Kent Messenger and
Maidstone Telegraph, published in
Information on Simmons's background is difficult to find, but fortunately in 6 Having
first posed the question as to why he, who was not a labourer, should have
devoted years of his life to the cause, he proceeded to tell the story of a poor
woman, the mother of five or six children, who twenty-five years before
had been left an almost penniless widow at the age of 33. She had applied to
her husband's creditors, but they had proceeded to strip her house bare,
leaving her and her children to live or die as the case might be. She then
applied to the guardians of the poor for out-door relief, but was refused.
She declared that before she would go into the workhouse, she would fight
This disclosure makes evident the origins of Simmons's radicalism, and
of his deep sympathy for the poor. He must have drawn on the emotions
aroused by his childhood, in developing the considerable powers of
oratory which he displayed in the village labourers' cause. One infers that
he was probably about 30 when he emerged as the main leader of the Revolt
in Kent. He was married, as some reports of union occasions mention his
wife. Whatever his education and early career had been, they had enabled
him to develop organising abilities and qualities of leadership which proved
invaluable assets to the Kent Union. Under his guidance the union
developed policies and tactics which differed in significant ways from those
of the other unions of the Revolt, and the Kent Union's emergence as
markedly the most successful of the whole movement must be largely
credited to his wisdom. Unlike Arch, Simmons was not suspicious of
‘outsiders’ and ‘professional Trades Union men’, but rather drew on the
experience of the urban unions. Simmons probably had a major part in the
forming of an interim committee of 7 It was certainly he who early in 8 Roots is
recorded in the 9. In its early years Roots gave good service to the union as a
spokesman, but does not seem to have contributed much to union policy or
administration.
Following the example of the urban unions, Simmons guided the Kent
Union in such policies as a conservative attitude towards strikes; a
preference for conciliation and arbitration; a prudent building up of
finances, so that if a fight was forced, it should be undertaken from a
position of strength; and, in due course, the fostering of union benefit
schemes.10 To succeed, this more conservative approach required a large
membership firmly under the control of a strong central executive. By the
end of 11 and a firmly established constitution,
of which the central feature was a strong executive in 12 In 13
Nevertheless the Kent Union's story had not been all success. In West
Kent it had lost some ground to the National Union. Simmons told a
delegate meeting on 14 Thenceforward a deep rift developed between the two
unions. The National executive's determination that control of the
movement should be firmly in the hands of agricultural labourers probably
accounts for the spurning of Simmons. For its part, the Kent Union was
strong in local county loyalty, and therefore unwilling to forward the bulk
of its fund to 15 From be something other than ‘Hodge’, and in this respect his influence went
beyond the bounds of the National Union. He also developed effective
protest tactics which appear to have deeply influenced Simmons's leadership of the Kent Union.
In reviewing its first year, the Kent Union's executive discussed requests
which had come from several districts for permission to ask for a wage
increase. The executive's decision was that as ‘many of the employers were
meeting the members of the Union in a very fair manner’ it would be best to
16 Yet clearly some action was needed to
maintain the union's morale and momentum of growth. Drawing on a
variety of tactics, for some of which he was clearly indebted to Arch and
the National Union, Simmons succeeded in projecting an image of his
union as a successful and spirited movement, while delaying a direct wages
approach for a further year. One tactic was the adaptation of a technique
developed by the mining unions – the anniversary ‘Demonstration’. On 14
17 This occasion doubtless
strengthened the courage and purpose of the union, by making its members
aware of their own collective strength. It also provoked immediate and
widespread retaliation by the farmers, and over fifty men were dismissed,
and many of these evicted, for their attendance. The union responded by
paying all the men full wages, in some cases publicly, at well attended
‘indignation’ meetings, and several of the men were assisted to emigrate to
English Labourer. It tells how a union delegate travelling
by train from
As time went on, however, it became clear that these tactics were not
achieving any considerable advance in wages. The union's large membership and growing funds suggested that the time had come for more direct
action. The strategy which the union now developed under Simmons's
guidance consisted of a strong emigration drive over the
In its first eighteen months the Kent Union had not been able to make a
strong feature of emigration. The best available proposition had been free
passages to Queensland, but a charge of one pound per head for ship's
furniture, and the expense of necessary clothing, was beyond many village
labourers, even with the union's emigration allowance. The union
despatched a party of nearly 100 at Christmas 19
Three evenings later, at a union meeting in the White Lion Inn,
Canterbury, Simmons revealed that the South Australian offer had been
withdrawn after the despatch of the one party; but he already had
something just as good to take its place. The Agent-General for New
Zealand had offered to provide a ship with free passages for a party of 350
to go out to 20 During
Apparently the party was originally scheduled to leave around Christmas 21 but their departure was postponed, probably as a result of the
upsurge in recruitment throughout 22 During
23 When
this was completed, 1200 members of the public were admitted by means of
complimentary tickets – probably this method was adopted after the
experience of the suffocating attendance at the farewell to the South
24
At nine o'clock the next morning the emigrants assembled at the Corn
Exchange, and headed by a band and a large union flag, marched down
High Street to the railway station, where they were farewelled by a large
crowd. They travelled by train to Gravesend, but as their ship had not
arrived there, they were taken by steamer to William Davie, which was finally farewelled from
Gravesend by Simmons and Roots on 14 January, bound for Bluff, Otago,
with 287 emigrants.25 About eighty of the party were allotted to the
Wennington, which sailed on 21 January with 294 emigrants for Wellington. Thus none of this Kentish party were sent to
By the time the winter was over the Kent Union had despatched about a
thousand emigrants to New Zealand. A party of about 125 sailed on the
steamship Atrato on 10 February. They included sixteen families from the
parish of Burham near Rochester. From the address which Simmons gave
at a farewell meeting held in the Walnut Tree Inn, Burham, it appears that
the Burham emigrants were largely brickmakers, and their families. The
closing of Kent's widely-scattered brickfields each winter aggravated the
26 Following the Atrato party, two further
parties totalling 170, mainly agricultural labourers sailed from J. N. Fleming and the Rooparell. The
Kent Union's next large party was one of 200 which sailed from Waikato on 24 March. They were in charge of John Venner, a
41-year-old engine driver, leaving the employ of the South-Eastern
Railway after twenty-three years service. The party assembled in
We must now return to the National Union, following first the
recruitment of Joseph Leggett's party. The campaign was given an
enthusiastic launching by Henry Taylor, whose initial announcement in
the Labourers' Union Chronicle began, ‘New Zealand! New Zealand!!
New Zealand!! Off we go; now's your time, my boys.’ Leggett was
described as ‘the valuable and zealous district secretary of 29 The
strong links developing between the union and the New Zealand emigration drive are well illustrated by the largest emigration advertisement
appearing in the Labourers' Union Chronicle of Ballochmyle, and announces that ‘Mr Leggett, Secretary
to the “30 He appears on the Ballochmyle's passenger list as a
37-year-old carpenter, accompanied by his 38-year-old wife Ann, and
seven children, aged ten months to 14 years.
The Ballochmyle sailed on Chronicle31. The recruiting for these various union parties helped to fill
other ships, besides those they travelled on. The chartering and despatch of
the emigrant ships to match the flow of recruitment was inevitably a rather
improvised business, and there had to be a good deal of give and take in the
arrangements. The personal circumstances of emigrants also came into play
either to hasten or delay their departure. Thus Leggett had originally begun
recruiting for a party to go on the Atrato,32 which was at first scheduled to
leave late in January. Some of his recruits went by her, rather than wait for
the main party.33 Others who at first planned to go with Leggett will have
been delayed. This was probably the case with the Harris family of eight,
and the Beckley family of seven, from Islip. They may well have given in
their names at Carter's meeting there, but sailed by the Stonchouse, which
left five weeks later than the Ballochmyle. It would, of course, be
impossible to apportion credit for the recruitment of the emigrants
between the various influences and agencies at work persuading them to
come forward. The rural unions were undoubtedly a major force, but the
Agent-General ran an extensive advertising campaign which must have
brought in many rural recruits unconnected with the unions, as also must
the free nomination scheme which Vogel launched in New Zealand in
One example of such enterprise is described in a letter written from
One was an agricultural labourer at home in England with his smock
frock and heavy boots (10 or 12 lbs weight); another was navvies in
New Zealand at work in a cutting – those were the fellows we wanted,
and what we wanted them to work at; another was a pay table and big
piles of money ready for the men; another was a fellow ‘pocketing’ his
£8 11s … with his face beaming with delight; another was the smoking
meal of joints of mutton waiting for the New Zealand workman,
enough to make him dance after a hard day's work; another showed his
progress as a small sub-contractor, giving his directions to his gang of
men; another his new home, built after 10 years of steady industry and
perseverance – a nice comfortable looking homestead; another shows
him riding on a handsome steed to the House as M.H.R. or M.L.C.34
Applications were not taken in the excitement following a meeting, but on a further visit to the towns, after which the recruits were examined, and were ‘finally approved by Mr Carter’. Because those interested were not immediately rushed into signing up, some were ‘picked up by the National Agricultural Labourers' Union, or applied direct to the Agent-General.’ There had been farmers' opposition to contend with, and New Zealand had been held up as ‘a land of cannibals, earthquakes, murders, poverty, wretchedness, disaffection, etc.’ Despite this, the methods used were so effective that the writer had been told at the Agent-General's office that they could always tell where meetings had been held by the flood of letters of enquiry.
Canterbury's agent, Andrew Duncan, had decided to make Glasgow his
headquarters for his first five months, concentrating on recruitment from
Scotland and Northern Ireland, and then move to England for the
remainder of his twelve months' term of appointment. However, he
proposed while based on Glasgow to make short forays into England as
opportunities presented themselves.35 The first such journey resulted from
36 Duncan had to contend with the caution created by the
sufferings of the hundreds who had emigrated from the county to Atrato
and the Ballochmyle37
Although winter was the least favoured season for emigration, the
diverse forces working in favour of emigration to New Zealand were so
powerful that all records were broken in the January-March quarter of
The coincidence of the peak of English emigration to New Zealand with the
great lock-out is noteworthy. The lock-out was made possible by the
The New Zealand agents were not slow to take their opportunity. On 7
38
This was, in effect, a considerable New Zealand contribution to the
lock-out fund. For about three weeks, from late March to mid April,
Duncan campaigned vigorously in the main lock-out counties. He gave
lectures in three centres in Suffolk, four in Essex, two in Norfolk, four in
Bedfordshire and two in Oxfordshire. He reported that at most of these
places he held two meetings a day, some of them out of doors and to
audiences of over 2,000.39
In a report home, dated 40 This visit, and others by C. R. Carter at about the same time,41
marked the beginning of the development of close links between the
Lincolnshire Labour League and the New Zealand immigration movement. The village labourers of Lincolnshire had begun to stir during the
Labour League Examiner. As in Kent, not all the
Lincolnshire unionists joined the county union. Arch's National Union
formed two Lincolnshire Districts, Market Rasen and South Lincolnshire,
which by 42 The
first evidence of the League's association with New Zealand emigration
appears in the Stamford Mercury of 43 White lived in the village of Laceby,
on the edge of the wolds, four miles inland from Grimsby. As a result of
this experience White became deeply interested in New Zealand immigration, and, on Duncan's recommendation he had, by 44
Throughout the summer he campaigned to make New Zealand known in
his area, and although at first only a few recruits came forward, he
persisted, to become one of
The emigrant flood of the April-June quarter of Peeress on 5 April. The Labourers' Union Chronicle of 4 April
described this as ‘a large party of Union emigrants’ from Essex, Adamant on 7
May.45 The Kent Union's recruits included a party of ninety by the
Adamant sailing on 7 May. They left just as several farmers in East Kent
endeavoured to spread the lock-out movement to their county. They
ordered their men to hand over union cards to be destroyed, or face
dismissal. Simmons warned that the union had 2,000 members in East
Kent, and gave the locked-out men the usual strong support, with the
result that the union enrolled many new members.46 Further dismissals
followed the union's second annual demonstration on 20 May, but most of
the farmers of Kent were not in the mood for a fight, and the union coped
with the situation without difficulty. A donation of £20 for the ‘Kent
Lock-out Fund’ from the Agent-General for New Zealand, acknowledged
in the union's paper of 9 May, was welcomed, but obviously not really
needed. In mid-April the union began its wages movement with direct
approaches to farmers by four union branches in West Kent. By the end of
June the approach was judged to have succeeded, and the procedure was
then successfully repeated with ten further branches.47 The Kent Union
throve on these successes, over the very months in which the National
Union was beginning its decline following the lock-out defeat.
By Carnatic
in September, 170 by the Berar and 180 by the Avalanche in October, and
100 by the Gareloch in November.48 The Lincolnshire Labour League's
first large party, of about 200, left Grimsby railway station on 15
September to join the Geraldine Paget, sailing for 49 Smaller
parties of League emigrants sailed in at least eight further ships before the
year's end. The National Union also sent further parties, including 200 by
the Crusader in September, led by George Allington, a Lady Jocelyn in November, led by
Thomas Osborne, another union leader from 50
Throughout the year the union papers had stimulated the emigration
movement with optimistic letters from immigrants in New Zealand. By
now they were able to place alongside the first flush of enthusiasm of recent
arrivals, the solid reports of progress towards prosperity sent by those who
had been in the colony for a year or two. But there was another side to the
story, which may not have been altogether fairly presented by the union.
Chronicle for
This country is not what the agents represented it to be; they are
sending out thousands into a country where there is no work. Every
step you take you sink up to the waist in mud or sand. There are no
bridges, so you have to swim across the river. I went twenty miles to
get work, and then they would not employ me unless I took a contract,
so I undertook to dig a cutting for the railway, at 10 ½d per square
yard. I shall never make my fortune at that if I were to work like a
horse…. If you know anyone that is coming out here warn them of
what they will have to go through….51
And to give would-be emigrants further cause for thought, the same issue
carried the first report of the loss of the Cospatrick by fire in the south
ON THE FINE morning of Mongol and boarded the small steamer
Peninsula for the journey via 1 but before he reached 2 The conversation on ‘the
great and important object’ of Holloway's visit was continued in Macandrew's room in the government offices. It was arranged that Holloway
should stay at one of the city's best hotels, as the guest of the government,
and that he should have all possible assistance in planning and carrying out
his tour of the province. The pattern which Holloway worked out in
consultation with Macandrew and other Otago leaders was followed
3
At the end of his first day in Mongol
for his last night on board. In his journal for the following day he
endeavoured to sum up his first impressions of the people of
Everything here betokens prosperity, the inhabitants are well dressed,
thoroughly respectable. The children with their shining rosy cheeks are
the very picture of health. — A man's a man here, as you see them
walking along the streets, their head erect, and their whole bearing
impresses one with the idea ‘that Jack is as good as his master’. No
cringing here, — yet there is no rudeness — but everything around
betokens comfort, respectability, and happiness.4
The gold rushes of the 1860s had made Mongol's immigrants. Holloway's first
impression that New Zealand was something of a workingman's paradise
was repeatedly confirmed by what he saw and heard.
On 2 March, accompanied by an officer of the province's survey
department, Holloway began an extended tour of Otago and Southland.
He travelled by coach through Milton, Balclutha and Zealandia on 5 From Palmer, Holloway had good news of
William Terry, a union man from Kirtlington, who had also come out on
the Zealandia for Brogdens. In a letter printed in the Labourers' Union
Chronicle of Chronicle also printed a letter, dated from
… My dear father and mother, Mr Holloway was here yesterday
(Sunday), and he came to see me in the afternoon, but I was not at
home. He told Tilly that we looked very comfortable and happy …
Wages here are now ten shillings per day; but I have not been working
for wages now for this last six months, for there is me and three more
of my ship mates together; we have been taking contracts of the
Corporation — making roads and ditches or anything … Harry and
two more men are working for us … we are paying ten shillings per
day for eight hours' work … Dear father and mother, Tilly has bought
her a sewing machine, and she is very busy learning to work it …
Charley is a big boy now, and he has got a pig and three goats and a lot
of fowl …6
From Scimitar's party and heard news of their voyage. Taking
He left
The scenery from the top of this mountain is magnificent. At its foot
lies the pretty little town of Palmerston. Then you have a beautiful view
of Shag Valley well studded with smiling homesteads and flocks of
sheep, and other cattle. Then you behold the River Shag winding its
serpentine course through the valley till it empties itself into the sea. —
In the distance you behold the wild mountain range — while on the
eastern side of the mountain you have a splendid view of the ocean for
many miles.7
Having descended from Puketapu, Holloway came upon four men stone breaking by the road side. He questioned one of them, and found that they were paid three shillings a yard for the work, and that a good hand could break three yards a day. The man assured him that New Zealand was a fine country for working men. Leaving the stone breakers, Holloway next fell in with a Mr J. Keen. Keen told him that ten years before he had had scarcely a shilling in his pocket, but now by industry and perseverance he was in an independent position. Keen showed him the Town Hall and the new English Church, for the erection of which he had collected £700, and next door to which he was erecting a new house for himself. Leaving Keen, Holloway reached his hotel in time for dinner at 6 p.m. He had just dined when Mr Young walked in. Young introduced him to Mr Main ‘a large squatter’, Mr Gilligan, mayor of the town, and a number of others. From their conversation, Holloway gained an insight into squatter life. In his diary he remarked that some persons were very bitter against the squatters, but his own view was that they should receive fair consideration for having opened up the country when population was scarce, though they should not be allowed to stand in the way of progress when the land was required for closer settlement. In the course of time the group turned to a good deal of grumbling about ‘the government — the brokenness of the land, etc.’, but Holloway was amused to notice that when someone asked about the time, these gentlemen all pulled out valuable gold watches. Having listened to the opinions freely expressed and the advice very generously given, Holloway records that ‘I very quietly resolve to think for myself and draw my own conclusions’.
Next day Holloway travelled by coach to
… I entered the room as desired, and saw some 40 men set down to as
good substantial dinner as one could desire. There was roast beef,
vegetables, and plum duff. I was told that the men get beef or mutton 3
times a day, and plum duff 4 times a week, — the employers here say
that if a man is to work well, he must live well.8
Holloway took up with Menlove the question of accommodation for married men, and suggested that he should erect a number of decent cottages.
On 8 April Holloway returned to
Holloway travelled at a leisurely pace through South
At Labourers' Union Chronicle of
… I came across a Mr Joseph Hunt, formerly of Great Rollright, in
my own county of Oxfordshire. He told me that he was working in that
village for 8s a week — house rent to pay, and a wife and three children
to support out of that. He had heard of New Zealand, and Joe thought
On 25 April Holloway was driven the eighteen miles to the railhead at
Rakaia, to catch the train to 9
During Holloway's visit to Christehurch, four emigrant ships arrived at
Port Rakaia from Varuna from Glasgow. On 1 June he had the great pleasure of
accompanying Rolleston to board the newly-arrived Ballochmyle, and
meet his friend Joseph Leggett and many other Oxfordshire acquaintances
in his party. He was able to arrange for Leggett to be allowed ashore to
spend his first night in the new country with him, and they spent a very
pleasant evening together chatting over old times. Within a couple of days
Holloway had found Leggett a situation at his trade, working at twelve
shillings for an eight hour day on the building of a new school in the city.
He left Leggett well pleased with his first impressions of New Zealand, and
with his own prospects.
On 5 June Holloway set out by coach to cross the Southern Alps and
The last twenty miles by coach from Foxhill to Nelson provided a strong
contrast to the rugged interior. On each side of the road were well tended
farms with neat wooden houses and well kept garden plots. In Nelson the
Superintendent welcomed him and conducted him to a comfortable
boarding house. During the next ten days he had a good look around
Nelson and its vicinity, and went by sea for a two day visit to Collingwood,
on the shores of Golden Bay. He liked the district and its pleasant climate,
but decided that with its limited area of agricultural land, it was hardly
the place for a person who still had his way to make. On 7 July he left by sea for
Picton, and spent a little over a week in
On 16 July, after a very rough crossing of Cook Strait, Holloway
reached
On 27 July Holloway travelled by coach over the hills to the
Horowhenua Coast, and began a five weeks' tour of the coastal lowlands of
western
After a day or two looking around Mongol, now recently installed as
incumbent of the frontier parochial district of Patea. Holloway would not
have been displeased to find that on the New Zealand bush frontier the
Anglican church limped in poverty behind more vigorous rivals.
On 13 August Holloway left
Three months earlier, on 10 In appointing Burton he had
brushed aside suggestions that he should wait for Holloway's visit before
doing anything. While waiting for the fruits of Burton's mission, Atkinson
pressed Taranaki's claims for some of the free immigrants already on the
way. Vogel offered him 100 immigrants from the Waikato, and when she
reached
Holloway's journal records a variety of experiences which left him with
a favourable impression of the
… the larks singing joyously over head, the sheep and cattle quietly grazing in the well fenced paddocks, and the jolly settler whistling behind his plough as he turned over the fertile soil …
His main criticism of the settlement concerned the uncertainty of its link
with the outside world, as a result of its dependence on an open roadstead.
Towards the end of his stay a party of seventy German and Scandinavian
immigrants being forwarded from
Holloway finally left
With his time now rapidly running out, Holloway left immediately for a
quick look at the Halcione on 24 November. In his diary he had kept a careful
record of his journeys and when he added them up, found he had covered
6,430 miles in the colony. Few colonists could have claimed to have seen as
much of their country as he had.
Holloway arrived back in Labourers' Union Chronicle shifted from
being the organ of Arch's union to being one of its most bitter opponents.
Arch and his executive were able to launch a fresh newspaper, the English
Labourer, on 13
Holloway went on to tell how the farmers had forced the union to turn to
emigration, with Arch going to
The Labourers' Union Chronicle's report of this address was reprinted in
full in the New Zealand parliamentary papers, as also was the full and
carefully written report Holloway prepared for the union. In this he
remarked that ‘perhaps no one individual had ever before had afforded to
him such rare opportunities for acquiring a general knowledge of the
colony’, and he told of the excellent facilities provided for him by both the
general and provincial governments. Yet he had been left quite free to draw
his own conclusions:
I mixed pretty freely with all classes of the community — from the Hon.
J. Vogel (Premier) down to the lowest settler … I have associated with
the great landed proprietor, and with the less affluent settler, who is
steadily advancing upward to a more prosperous position. I have met
with the employer of labour and the employed, with the prosperous and
the unsuccessful, and I have come to the conclusion that any of our
labourers, gifted with temperate habits, such as sobriety, industry,
frugality, and perseverance, may, in the course of a few years, become
occupiers of land themselves, and have placed to their account at the
bankers a considerable sum for times of sickness and old age. Indeed,
gentlemen, I feel convinced that New Zealand, with its fine, healthy
climate, its salubrious air, its fertile soil, its mild winter, its temperate
summers, its liberal land laws, its fine educational system, its freedom
from State-Churchism, and its civil and religious privileges, is secondary
to no other colony in point of the advantages and privileges it has to
offer to intending emigrants of the proper class.14
In expanding in detail on these various advantages, Holloway referred, as
supporting evidence, to ‘the immense number of letters which reach our
shores by every mail’ with glowing and encouraging accounts of the
success of new colonists.15 Running through the report are Holloway's
views on the best approach to colonial life for the English farm labourer
immigrant. He should not stay in a town, where house-rent was higher
than at home, but push up into the interior of the country, where it would
be much easier to secure a piece of freehold and run up ‘a neat wooden cot’
of his own. In most parts of New Zealand he would find wood for firing
abundant and easy of access — a great attraction to a man who may have
shivered through every winter of his life before emigrating. While there
were special settlement and deferred payment systems which made it
In view of Holloway's excellent first hand knowledge of New Zealand,
and his enthusiasm for emigration to the colony, it comes as no surprise
that 16 C. R. Carter was wanting to resign his
appointment, and was apparently only continuing out of a strong personal
loyalty to 17 To replace him, 18 From this time until
Holloway joined the Agent-General's staff at a time when rural
emigration to New Zealand had lost a good deal of the impetus that had
carried it to such heights in 19 No doubt there were
several reasons for this — including the effect of the earlier exodus on local
wage rates, and the fact that those best fitted for emigration by personal
temperament and circumstances had already gone. The tragic loss of the
Cospatrick, which became known in England right at the end of 20 At a public meeting
sponsored by the 21
When Holloway joined 22
Burton began his Lincolnshire campaign with a public meeting in Laceby
on 23 and was soon having increasingly encouraging
results. A firm friendship seems to have been quickly established between
the Burtons and White, and together they made a good working team.
Their first party, of ninety-two emigrants, sailed by the Collingwood on 13
April, and larger parties sailed by the Halcione on 27 May, the Chile on 11
June and the
Holloway's work as a New Zealand agent began with meetings at
Twyford and Castle Thorpe in Buckinghamshire on 17 and 18 May 1875.
He attended the National Union's Annual Council at the end of May, and
then gave further lectures in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.25 He
apparently gave his audiences good measure, as the correspondent who
reported his lecture in the Oxfordshire village of Minster Lovell on 4 June
noted that his address lasted one hour and three-quarters.26 It seems that
Holloway took some time to adapt his methods to the needs of his new
task. His experience as a union delegate, organising and encouraging union
branches across the English countryside, and surveying the scattered
settlements of New Zealand, had made him too disposed to travel rapidly
from district to district. In emigration work this produced little in the way
of demonstrable results. Thus during 27
His work must have had some influence on many more emigrants than this,
but the completion of the process of recruitment had been left to local
agents, or the 28 When
Holloway began work for the 29
Even the Burtons'
These vacillations in New Zealand government policy and public
opinion began to appear during 30 By the time 31 Because of this
the campaign was not very much affected by discouraging news arriving
from the colony at the turn of the year. On The
Times of Liverpool Albion. A
letter from The
Times the following day.32 33
On 34 As it was, the mid-winter
labour reports from local immigration officers showed that there was a
good demand for rural workers in most districts. A ‘great scarcity of
labour’ was reported from Hawke's Bay, with wages higher than for years,
so the assessment cable to 35 The abolition of the provinces meant that local needs were
not now assessed by provincial executives with some power to control
labour demand, but by purely administrative local immigration officers,
who naturally tended to play safe. On occasions they apparently underestimated the labour demand which the opening of new country was to
create, as the public works policy began to bear its delayed fruits. Despite
the reduced order from the colony, in the northern summer and autumn of
36 In the midst of these difficulties the ailing
To bring his agency's expenditure within the reduced budget, Vogel had
to dispense with the Burtons, who returned to Taranaki later in 37 In 38 In the face of renewed instructions to reduce expenditure, Vogel decided in August to give Holloway
notice that he would not be required after 1 December, but he later
reconsidered the matter, and decided to once more give him leave of
absence until the spring, with a thirty-five shilling a week retainer.39
Holloway's background made him invaluable in selecting farm labourers,
as well as in drawing applicants. He must have travelled extensively over
these years, interviewing applicants as directed by the 40
Early in 41 The demands of the colony's labour market were at
odds with the government's financial position, which called for retrenchment. When the shortened emigration season began in the northern spring,
Vogel reported that agricultural labourers did not seem disposed to come
forward in good numbers, as they were obtaining better wages than in
former years.42 The shortened recruitment period was arranged so that
ships did not arrive in the colony until October, to coincide with the rising
labour demand of the southern spring. This meant that emigrants were
being sought only during the northern busy season, and put New Zealand
at a disadvantage in competition with the Australian colonies which
maintained a fairly steady flow throughout the year. While recruitment
was thus proceeding haltingly in the English countryside, an unusually
strong winter demand for labour was becoming apparent in many New
Zealand districts. From Lawrence in Otago the chairman of the Tuapeka
County Council telegraphed the Minister for Public Works on 15 June to
inform him that ‘never in any period of the history of the colony have the
requirements for immigration been so great as at present’.43 He advised
that although contractors were offering up to eleven shillings a day for
labourers, they were still in some cases being forced to throw up contracts
and forfeit their deposits. The Mayor of 44 The minister responded by
cabling Vogel to send 600 agricultural labourers to Southland. The
mid-year survey of the labour market brought further reports of strong
demand from 45 Orders for
additional immigrants were accordingly sent to Vogel. A cable of 9
August asked for 1,000, chiefly for 46 Yet a hint of warning of
things to come had been provided by the experience of the Nelson
district. All immigration to Nelson had been suspended on 17 May,
following a petition from labourers and others advising of hard times in
the district.47
The interaction between the New Zealand immigration drive and the
Revolt of the Field which began in
Vogel had already despatched his year's quota of emigrants when the
Kentish lock-out began towards the end of 48 Well before this letter reached Vogel, he must have been
approached by Simmons, who told his executive on 13 November of
interviews with various emigration authorities.49 On 21 November Vogel
cabled Grey, ‘Kent and 50 The
completion of a direct cable link between 51 In the colony the government proceeded to negotiate with
the New Zealand Shipping Company for a large steamer, while in England
Vogel opened negotiations with Simmons. On 13 December his government cabled Vogel that a steamer for 600 emigrants had been arranged to
sail in January, and on 16 December Simmons told a mass meeting of
53 Vogel promptly despatched Holloway to Kent, where he
spoke at a large union meeting at Faversham on 20 December, and
thereafter addressed union branches in all parts of Kent. He was shortly
joined by the Revd Joseph Berry, recently arrived from New Zealand, with
a contract from the government to give eighty lectures, as mutually
arranged by him and the Agent-General. Vogel had offered Simmons a
first-class passage to accompany the party, provided a reasonable number
were recruited, and on 28 December he was able to announce that he was
going. He sailed with a party of about 400 on the steamer Stad Haarlem
from 54
As Simmons's party set out for New Zealand, reports of widespread
distress in the mother country moved Grey to a further initiative. On 15
February he cabled the colonial secretary offering to find employment for
six thousand able-bodied emigrants, in addition to those whose passages
were being paid by the colony, should the Imperial Government be
prepared to forward them to the colony, and Vogel was instructed to assist
by indicating the classes of labour in demand.55 The Imperial Government
declined the offer, but it was passed on to the Local Government Board,
who in turn circulated it to the Boards of Guardians.56 This, of course, was
not the type of immigrant that Grey had intended in his offer, and the New
Zealand community was strongly opposed to the recruitment of poor
house inmates. It was as well that the offer came to nothing, as the labour
market had begun to deteriorate by the time the Stad Haarlem arrived, and
those of her immigrants who landed at 57 on his return, but he had
apparently correctly assessed the country's economic future. He revealed
five years later that he had sought an interview with Grey and urgently
advised the discontinuance of free passages for a few seasons.58 He gave no
hint of this on his return to Kent, as he obviously wished the farmers to
believe that there was a danger of further parties being sent. However,
neither such subterfuge, nor the strength of the Kent union, was able to
protect the wages of the farm labourers of the county from the effects of
the prevailing depression.
New Zealand also was moving erratically towards depression during
59 The
government now endeavoured to shift the emphasis of its immigration
policy to the recruitment of farmers with capital, who would pay their own
way out, and assist in employing the colony's surplus labour. Several
lecturers were engaged especially to appeal to this class, among them
Arthur Clayden, the Berkshire supporter of the Revolt of the Field, who
Stad Haarlem's return voyage, to begin his lecturing
engagement.60 The Grey ministry fell in 61
On 6 November he was instructed that apart from single women the government wanted no immigrants to arrive during the following winter.62 On
63
On 64 Finally, on 65
Ironically, just as New Zealand was finding that it could absorb no more
immigrants, applicants began to come forward spontaneously in unprecedented numbers in 66 and on 67 He had also by 68 But with neither
advertisements nor agents to encourage them, the enquiries kept flooding
in. Thus, on 69
The 70 His departure thus coincided with the end of an
era in the peopling of New Zealand. He settled back into his home village
of Wootton, as a shopkeeper, of apparently moderately prosperous
circumstances. He lived to see both the sons of his second marriage
established as clergymen in Anglican orders.71 Certainly, in terms of his
origins, he had ‘made good’. So also had a large proportion of those whom
he had launched on a new life in the antipodes.
UP TO THIS point we have been concerned with giving a broad view of the
course of the New Zealand immigration drive of the 1870s, and with
relating this drive to the changing fortunes of the English agricultural
labourer, and more particularly to his Revolt of the Field. We will now
undertake a study in greater depth of some of the districts of England
which provided strong contingents for the immigrant ships. The rural
world of Victorian England was rich in its variety, and our closer study will
illustrate the diversity of circumstances that led to emigration, and indicate
the variety of traditions and skills which the villagers brought to the task of
shaping a new life in a new land. But while providing examples of this
diversity and variety we will also be searching for underlying patterns
which may give unity and significance to the flow of emigration. Did the
villages that the New Zealand agents found most fruitful possess certain
common features? Is it possible to discern the profile of a typical emigrant,
by discovering circumstances, qualities and attitudes in which he differed
from those who stayed? And what was the significance of the movement in
the continuing history of those villages which lost large numbers to the
colony? How were they affected both by the exodus, and by the reports
which were sent back from the antipodes? The history of rural life in both
England and New Zealand poses questions to which our closer enquiry
may suggest some answers.
New Zealand's 1 These record
counties of origin for all males and unmarried females of 12 years and over.
Unfortunately there is a certain ambiguity about these county entries.
The question posed to applicants for passages was, ‘County, where born,
and where living lately’.2 Presumably applicants were supposed to treat
this as a double question. The passenger lists, however, have only a single
county entry, and it is not clear on what principles it was selected from the
application forms. The failure to allocate wives and children to counties is a
further defect.3 Despite these deficiencies, the records do enable one to
discern the broader patterns of emigration. Our map is designed to show
these broad patterns. By relating emigration to each county's population,
the varying impact of the New Zealand recruitment drive is shown.
Clearly, the great majority of the emigrants came from a wide stretch of
southern England, with almost all counties south of a line from Herefordshire to the Wash feeling the pull fairly strongly. North of this line, only
Lincolnshire was much affected, and the industrial north was little
influenced. The most fruitful counties were all rural counties, such as
4
The county unit is, however, in general too large for the close study
which we are about to undertake. Fortunately, a detailed study of
individual villages is made possible by the good coverage of local union
branches provided by the newspapers of the Revolt, and the information
which can be derived from collating New Zealand immigrant passenger
lists with the enumerators' schedules of the
Oxfordshire occupies the central portion of a strip of still largely rural
country that stretches diagonally across England, separating the two
industrial realms of 5 Prior to
the 6 He also remarked that
nearly one-sixth of the county's rents and tithes belonged to 7 Half a century later the
Victoria County History gave the same picture of a rural world relatively
unaffected by the intellectual stimulus of its county town:
The flood of modern progress has overwhelmed the city of 8
We must now examine this rural world with its hundreds of villages, and
endeavour to discern any significant patterns which underlay the emigration movement that stirred some areas of its peaceful seclusion’ in the
1870s. We have already noted that two of the county's union leaders,
Holloway and Leggett, led parties of emigrants to New Zealand. It is of
significance that both these men came from open villages, and that both
were able to recruit numbers of emigrants from their own village. From the
nature of the case, it would not be surprising if the majority of the recruits
for New Zealand came from open villages. As we proceed we will test this
as one possible pattern. Another is suggested by the fact that there were
two districts in the county where the interest in emigration was such that
the union arranged for C. R. Carter to pay special visits to address mass
rallies. One was the Wychwood area of Oxfordshire's western margin,
which, as we have seen,9 Carter visited twice in 10 A search of the 11 he addressed a large meeting on
While reading J. N. Brewer's Topographical and Historical Description
of Oxfordshire, published in
Except the dreary district termed Otmoor, and the extensive wilds appertaining to the forest of Whichwood, the waste land of Oxfordshire is comparatively small. The common of Otmoor is situate near Islip, and contains about 4000 acres, the whole of which lie nearly on a level, and are completely inundated in wet seasons.
Eight adjoining townships possess a right of commonage on this
without stint, the abuses are
very great, and many cattle are placed there, to feed which really belong
to persons who have no privilege to reap benefit from the waste … the
cottager appears to reap the greatest benefit from Otmoor. He turns out
little except geese; and the coarse, aquatic, sward of this waste is well
suited to the wants and constitution of his flock …
In the purlieus of Whichwood Forest there are extensive tracts of
waste ground, the commonage of which is confined, by right, to horses
and sheep; but the instances of illegal assumption are numerous, and
cattle of almost every description may be seen nearly in every part …12
Both these extensive wastes had been enclosed by the 1870s - Otmoor by
an enclosure award of 13 When troops were called out,
they refused to disperse on the reading of the Riot Act. Numbers of them
were thereupon seized and sent off to
The enclosure and clearance of Wychwood Forest in the late 1850s did
not cause resentment among the common people, for such rights as they
possessed were treated with due respect. There is, however, copious
evidence that in villages neighbouring the forest there was a long tradition
of independence of spirit, and of lawlessness. Arthur Young, in his View of
the Agriculture of Oxfordshire, published in
… the morals of the whole surrounding country demand it
imperiously. The vicinity is filled with poachers deer-stealers, thieves,
and pilferers of every kind; offences of almost every description abound
so much, that the offenders are a terror to all quiet and well-disposed
persons; and 14
And writing about the same time, on the same subject, J. N. Brewer commented on
the dangerous species of semi-barbarous freedom produced by large
15
Clearly servility would not come easily to these villagers, and it is not surprising that so many of them opted for colonial freedom.
These two districts, then make a special claim for our detailed study.
Our choice between them is aided by comments from the English
Labourer of
The area with which we will principally concern ourselves lies on the
western borders of the county, where two tributaries of the 16
In the early 1870s the town's labourers were experiencing hard times. The
district's relieving officer reported low wages of from eight to eleven
shillings a week, and numbers unemployed for much of their time.17 In
summer many migrated in search of work, though the best workers
managed to find work in their home district.
The traveller going north to the Wychwood villages crossed the
Windrush by a narrow three-arched bridge. To his right the river flowed
on down through the little villages of Fulbrook, Swinbrook, Asthall and
Minster Lovell, to the larger town of Witney, where blanket-making
continues as a survival of the old Cotswold wool trade. But Witney lies
outside our district, and contributed little to New Zealand immigration.
More important for our story was the little village of Taynton (
The traveller leaving Taynton to take the road to Charlbury had to climb
the slopes of the downs. Here grazed the sheep whose fine wool had
contributed so much to Burford's medieval prosperity. By the 1870s
farming had become more mixed.18 Since early in the century the farmers
had begun to rear cattle in a district where it had formerly been considered
impossible to do so. They were mainly Herefords, raised to be sold as store
beef cattle, chiefly to the Buckinghamshire graziers. Some of these beasts
were broken in at two years old and worked till five years old, when they
were disposed of in store order. Three or four made up a plough team, and
in this district a typical 400 acre farm would keep two teams of working
bullocks. Proficiency in breaking and working these animals would be one
useful skill taken from these hills to far-off New Zealand. The cultivation
was clearly for large fields of both root and grain crops, the roots being
used as stock food.
Reaching the ridge of the downs, the traveller would see stretched before
him one of the finest pieces of scenery in Oxfordshire.19 The Evenlode
comes down from the north-west to Shipton, where it swings to the
north-east past Ascot. The ridge on which he stood parallels the course of
the river, as also does the sweep of the hills on the far side of the broad
valley. From these heights he would see that the villages along the Evenlode
are set in a vast amphitheatre, almost too grand for the little Evenlode. At
closer quarters he would find that the river has a more humble intimacy,
well caught in Hilaire Belloc's lines:
But there is more to be seen before leaving this vantage point. In the distance, between himself and Charlbury, the traveller would have made out the remaining remnant of Wychwood Forest, preserved as part of Cornbury Park, the seat of the Churchill family. Nearer at hand were the seven farms created following the enclosure and clearance of the forest. There are few cottages on these new farms, for most of their labour was drawn from the villages in the valleys below. But not all who climb the slopes each day were farm labourers. As he passed the road leading from the ridge down to Milton-under-Wychwood, the traveller could glimpse George Groves's Milton Quarries, just below the summit, where a score of stone masons earned their livelihood.
Moving northwards we would have been able to chose a route that passed through the remnant of Wychwood Forest. From the local villagers we could, in the 1870s, have gathered many memories of its broader reaches before the clearance. Some might have told us of spring days when with the village children they had wandered abroad like Matthew Arnold's Scholar Gipsy to gather a
For many, the highlights of their youth would have been the revelry of the annual Forest Fair. The Fair was held late in September, when the forest was in the full beauty of autumn, and even the small forest remnant would have been at its most glorious at this season.
There are parts in it where the hoary and heavily ancient thorn trees are
almost primeval in aspect, yet even their lichened and wizard-like age is
magically kindled in autumn. Then the scarlet and crimson of holly and
spindle berries turn the sky over them to aquamarine; the Old Man's
Beard streams in silver cascades; and the colour of the beach leaves runs
through lemon and orange to flame. The bracken everywhere has been
breast high and overhead in a great many places; its height is shrinking a
little in September, but it spreads everywhere tawny and golden.20
Moving onwards past Rangers Lodge one would soon have reached the
northern edge of the forest remnant, and found Charlbury just ahead, on
the opposite bank of the Evenlode. Approaching the town on a fine
summer's day in the 1870s the traveller would have had another feature of
life in the Wychwood villages brought forcefully to his notice. Here and
there the hedges would be covered with sheepskins and goatskins bleaching
in the sun. These were the raw materials of the flourishing gloving industry
that employed so many of the women of the region. Small groups of
women were to be seen gossiping in the cottage doorways, enjoying the
sun as they plied their needles. Charlbury (
From our survey of the district in the early 1870s, we now turn to some
aspects of its social history. The royal forest was undoubtedly the most
important general influence down the centuries.21 In medieval times it
provided the crown with both a hunting preserve and a source of income.
The king had, for feudal times, a singularly direct control over such a
district, exercised through special forest laws and forest officers. When the
Crown was strong, the forest bounds were enlarged, when it was weak,
feudal nobility and common people worked together to have the forest area
reduced. In the course of time the kings ceased to use the forest for the
royal chase, and there was a gradual breakdown of crown rights in the
forest. In 22 The rejuvenation of the forest was further hindered by the fact
that it was over-run with swine, for which there were no common rights.
And there was also, of course, poaching. Not surprisingly, the forest was
of little use for naval timber. The advocates of complete clearance and
enclosure had a strong case.
The Forest Fair originated at about the same time as serious official
thought was first being given to the forest's future.23 It apparently began
about
From two days before the Fair every available nook and cranny in
Charlbury was filled. An army of entertainers, as well as those to be
entertained, had to be housed; for there were ‘Wild West Shows’,
‘travelling theatres’, ‘Atkins and Womwell Menageries’, ‘Monsieur
Columbier and his French Company with Fireworks’, and last, but not
least, ‘the Vauxhall dancing saloon, with harps and violins, lit up at
night with hundreds of lamps’…. Music of kinds must have been
plentiful; for almost all the shows and booths had their gangs: many
local fiddlers and one or two clarionet players were present; and the
Charlbury Yeomanry Band performed from Lord Churchill's boat on
the lake.24
Although year by year Lord Churchill, as forest ranger, drove his carriage with coachmen and footmen in full glory, down the broad streets of booths, he was not really in favour of the occasion. The fair had developed something of a name for petty crime and debauchery. In the early 1830s Lord Churchill endeavoured to have it discontinued, but failed. Finally, at the time of enclosure, he succeeded in suppressing it - but only after he had had great trenches dug to make it impossible for the vans and shows to reach the plain.
The enclosure and clearance of such an extensive area of forest land
aroused considerable interest, and it was described at length in a prize essay
by Journal of the Royal Agricultural
Society.25 The area was first opened up by public roads. The greater part
was allotted to the Crown, and the work of clearance was carried through
in sixteen months, beginning in
The gloving industry of Oxfordshire dates back to remote times.26 Its
long history owes a great deal to the deer of Wychwood Forest, and to the
Cotswold sheep, whose skins have provided much of its raw material.
Various centres have from time to time been associated with the industry,
including 27 In
28 The industry continued to
flourish throughout the century. Thus in the census return of 29 The gloving industry must undoubtedly
have had an influence on the outlook of the women, and also on the home
life of the Wychwood villages. George Hambidge, born in 30 In 31 In various ways, the
industry would seem to have worked to enhance the independent spirit of
the cottagers. It must have encouraged them to keep their daughters at
school until they reached their ‘teens. They could then begin work in their
own homes, without experiencing the subservience of ‘service’. Their craft
was a skilled one, in which they could take a justified pride. By keeping the
older women away from field service, it would have served to encourage
good house-keeping and the creation of comfortable homes, and this
would have had its effects on the morale and ambitions of their menfolk.32
The social intercourse which it encouraged among the village women must
also have had a considerable influence on the spirit and outlook of the
women themselves. All this helps to explain the forthright involvement of
the women of Ascott in their men's union conflict, with which we shall be
dealing shortly. Over these years English cottage women seem often to
have been opposed to their menfolk's interest in the union and in
emigration. It seems likely that in the Wychwood villages it was more
common for them to share their men's outlook.
In the Wychwood area of Oxfordshire, the village of Milton was
apparently the first to raise the banner of the Revolt, and it continued to be
the organising centre after the movement had been spread to neighbouring
villages.33 As Milton was also to be very deeply affected by emigration to
New Zealand, it will repay our closer study. The 34 Milton, it seems, shared in the general
unruliness of the Wychwood area. Many of those who followed more
‘godly’ ways, did not support the Established Church. An earlier Quaker
movement in the village had apparently died out,35 but as the century
progressed three other forms of dissent became firmly established. First
came the Strict Baptists, who initially suffered considerable opposition
from the village roughs. The house in which they met was stoned, and
more than once a stream was diverted to run through it ‘to give the dippers
plenty of water’.36 Primitive Methodism came next, with ‘glorious camp
meetings’ held on the village green.37 Among its staunchest supporters was
a more well-to-do villager, Isaac Castle, who was to give valuable
assistance to the union movement. In the interests of temperance he built a
house with a room for a coffee tavern, and he invested in a large tent for use
in religious and other causes. In due course Wesleyan Methodism also
became established in the village, and by the mid-century all three groups
had built themselves chapels.
Stirred, no doubt, by the news from 38
A committee of six labourers from the villages of Lyneham, Shipton and
Milton was set up, with Joseph Leggett as secretary. Leggett is listed in the
Milton 39 Under Leggett's guidance the union spread
rapidly. As in 40 These Oxfordshire developments
became known to the 41 At this meeting a 42 The Milton Union
sent Leggett and two other delegates to the conference at 43
Meanwhile, on 44 In less
than a month its membership grew to about 185, and the men decided to
take action to get their basic wage raised from eleven shillings to sixteen
shillings a week. A respectful letter, dated 45 On 13 July, at a meeting after market in 46
Richard Heath, a contemporary journalist who sympathised with the labourers, wrote perceptively of this particular conflict and its setting:
In passing rapidly through the villages which lie under the
But look deeper. Talk with the peasantry, and you will find discontent everywhere. Not a grumbling, unreasonable discontent, but a deep sense that things are very far from what they should be.
… in the Duke's manifesto the reason avowed for putting both
cottages and allotment-grounds into the hands of the farmers is the
attitude of labourers in forming a Union. Moreover, these cottages are
mainly in villages, so that the result is to place one class of the
47
Commenting on the illegal use of the military, Heath reported that the
soldiers were ‘somewhat disconcerted at the sight of groups of sad-eyed
men standing about in enforced idleness …’ and he considered that their
employment ‘envenomed a dispute hitherto carried on by the men without
the least desire or sign of violence’.48
Through his resolute leadership of the struggle at Wootton, Holloway
was emerging as the main leader of the Oxfordshire movement. Goaded by
the tactics of the opposition, he spoke out in strong terms at a meeting in
49 Meanwhile the unionists of the Wychwood villages were not
only assisting their brethren at Wootton, but also facing some local
opposition. At a meeting of the Oxfordshire Farmers' Association late in
July, Mr J. Maddox of Shipton-under-Wychwood remarked that he had
dismissed six out of his twenty-five labourers for having joined the
union.50 The ground was obviously well prepared for an emigration agent.
It was probably through the union that arrangements were now made for
C. R. Carter to hold a meeting in the interests of John Brogden and Sons.
‘At Shipton, in Oxfordshire,’ Carter reported, ‘the agricultural labourers
mostly came from the harvest fields to meet me. At this place I selected ten
married men, who, with their wives and children, embarked in the Chile
for
The close links between the Oxfordshire rural unionists and the New
Zealand emigration drive date from the recruitment of this party, and it is
therefore unfortunate that New Zealand's Brogden immigrants are very
poorly recorded. There is, however, good evidence that the letters written
home by members of the Chile party did much to stimulate the flow of
emigration to New Zealand of the following years. The fortuitous
circumstance that Brogdens sent this shipload to their contract in Hawke's
Bay led to strong links between the Wychwood villages, and the new bush
settlements of southern Hawke's Bay. The
The interplay between the members of the Chile party and the villagers
back in Oxfordshire can be well illustrated by the case of George Smith,
who appears on the
… If any of you are willing to come out to this sunny land you don't
need to fear the sea; if you have a passage like ours it will be quite a
pleasure trip … The day we arrived in the port of Hawke's Bay we
had a first rate dinner on board - fresh beef, young potatoes and
carrots…. I had no difficulty in getting work. I was employed soon
after I got here. I am now working on the road for the Government. I
have 6s. a day from eight o'clock in the morning to five in the evening.
If I had been in Bourford [sic] I should have worked three days for that.
Working men in this country don't believe in much walking; I have a
horse and new saddle and bridle to go to my work on. I bought the
horse for £4, and saddle and bridle for about £3, so you see I got rigged
out very soon; and now I am about getting a cow; my wife has got her
fowls. The house we are living in is a two roomed cottage with a
garden. I give 5s. per week, and I have firewood and the food for my
cow for that. You must understand that we burn nothing but wood.
Most provisions are cheap. Flour is about the same as at home; beef is
threepence or fourpence per pound, and mutton, 21/2d. We used to be
told that the beef and mutton of this country were not so good as at
home; come and try them, and I assure you you will find out your
mistake. We thought it a fine thing to get a pig's cheek or three or four
pounds of bacon in old England; but now I can have half a sheep at a
time, and sometimes a whole one, and about 80 or 90 pounds of beef.
We can sometimes get a leg of mutton for sixpence. This is really the
land of Goshen, and if you acted wisely you would come; there is
plenty of work for you. Shearing is a fine trade in its season; a good
shearer will get £1 a day. A shepherd with not more than one or two
children will get from £60 to £70 a year, and all found. Clothing is a
little dearer here, but not a great deal. If you come, provide yourselves
with a good supply, but if you cannot, still come, and you will soon get
clothes when you get here. I will send you a newspaper, and enclose
two papers showing you how you can come. Read the papers well and
lend them about, and please send me a newspaper sometimes; you can
send one for a penny stamp. George has been to school, but he has now
gone to work. He has 6s per week and his food. I am very glad I came
here, I wish I had come years ago. I have no anxiety now about how I
am to get food and clothing for myself and children … I have not been
to class yet out here, but as I am now living within five miles of
Waipawa, where the class is held, I intend to go and give my name as a
member with the United Methodist Free Churches. The minister comes
to Kaikora to preach every fortnight, and at Waipawa every Sunday
night. Be sure to write and tell me how the Union is getting on, and
how you are getting on with your chapel affairs …62
Smith listed eleven folk to whom he wished his letter shown, ‘and as many
more as you think proper’. There is a footnote by the Revd George Taylor
of Waipawa, who had written the letter for Smith, which indicates that
although Smith was a local preacher and therefore undoubtedly literate, he
was not a confident writer. Taylor endorsed all that Smith had written
about the colony, remarking that, ‘It is a fine country for working men. I
wonder that more don't come.’ The repeated persuasions of this letter are
obviously well supported by its content. With copious down-to-earth
detail, New Zealand is depicted as a land of plenty, where the hard-pressed
English labourer is freed from want. In place of a hopeless future, he is
While the Chile party were establishing themselves in Hawke's Bay and
their letters were creating a growing interest in New Zealand among their
friends and relatives back in Oxfordshire, developments in one of the
Wychwood villages led to a clash which caused a widespread stir
throughout England. This was the notorious ‘Chipping
Immediately after the Chipping
Imagine a narrow place, like a coal cellar, down which you go two or
three steps, no flooring except broken stones, no ceiling, no grate,
rough walls, a bare ladder leading to the one narrow bedroom about 6ft.
wide, containing two bedsteads for a man, his wife, and three young
children, the whole place as wretchedly bad and miserable as
imagination can conceive, and only divided by a rough wooden partition
not reaching to the roof, but over which you may look into the
bedroom of the next adjoining house, equally wretched and miserable,
and with the additional evil that the only way to the bedroom of a third
house is through the bedroom of No. 2 house, and that in No. 2 live a
man, his wife, and six children, and till recently the third house (one
room down, one up) was occupied by a man, his wife, and also six
children …63
The farmers wrote in reply to Holloway, contending that in Ascott the
64 In an earlier letter the farmers had complained
of the effect the unionists were having on ‘the peaceful and orderly
condition of the village’. No one who was not favourable to union
principles could appear in the village without being annoyed and assailed
with ‘Ba, Ba, Black legs; old black legs, Ba, Ba, Ba,’.65
In 66 When presented with the union's demand for a
wage of fourteen shillings a week, he agreed to pay this amount to his most
efficient labourers, but not to those whose work was affected by age or
infirmity. This offer was refused, and his men left him in the middle of a
backward barley sowing with twelve agricultural horses, four working
bullocks, a flock of 500 sheep at turnips, milking cows, bullocks and young
stock, and only two yearly servants, a shepherd and a youth to man the
establishment. Hambidge's neighbours rallied to his support, a parish
meeting was convened, and it was agreed that none would pay their
labourers more than twelve shillings a week. The following Monday
morning, 21 April, the union retaliated by calling out all its members in the
village, paying them an allowance of nine shillings a week. After a
fortnight, work was found for about twenty of them, felling and barking
timber about five miles away. The farmers meanwhile sought out what
non-union labour they could find, and Hambidge was able to engage two
young men from another village.67
The strike was three weeks old when the village women took the action
which brought them before the court. Their unusual display of spirit was
commented upon by contemporaries, and probably owed a good deal to
the social effects of their working together at gloving.68 A special
correspondent of the Daily News who visited the district at the time,
commented on this aspect of the affair, and remarked that:
Not long since I sailed down the river with a party of emigrants,
selected partly from this and partly from the Buckinghamshire District,
and I could not fail to perceive that the women were in many, if not
69
The Ascott women chose Monday, 12 May, for their intervention, as all
the farmers of the village had left at an early hour to attend the large annual
horse fair at Stow-on-the-Wold in Gloucestershire. The women assembled
at about half-past-six and waited in the turnpike road for labourers coming
to Ascott. According to the union they had no sticks or weapons of any
kind with them.70 When Hambidge's two young labourers appeared, the
women asked them if they thought they were doing right in taking the
Ascott men's places, and offered to buy the two youths a drink if they
would leave the work. The young men refused this offer, but when they
went off, the women thought they had gone to collect their wages.
However, someone in the village had sent for the neighbouring policeman,
and he shortly appeared with the two labourers, who went to work under
what The Times ironically described as his ‘powerful protection’. The
women were in due course summoned to appear at Chipping
The case was brought to trial on 71 But the union, being, like the women, unaware of the
danger they were in, had failed to see that they were adequately defended in
court. The labourers who attended the case were not as sweeping as Taylor
in their condemnation of the bench. They even had some sympathy for
magistrate Carter, who must have been known to many of them, as he lived
at Sarsden, only a mile or two from Ascott. They noticed that he shifted
uneasily on his seat during the magisterial investigation, and more than
once requested to be informed whether Hambidge really wished to press
the case.72 But Hambidge was determined, and magistrate Harris was
adamant that a real example must be made of the accused. Of the seventeen
women charged, sixteen were sentenced to imprisonment - seven to ten
days' hard labour, and nine to seven days' hard labour.
Both the wealth and the calling of the two magistrates added to the
notoriety of the case. The Revd Carter was a wealthy landowner, and the
Labourers' Union Chronicle commented bitterly:
Parson Carter's living is worth £439 per annum, besides perquisites. He
has only 808 souls to ‘cure’. He has also a farm which he lets out at a
rent, as well as being an employer of labour, direct. He is an M.A.,
Surrogate rural dean, rector of Sarsden, and a vicar of Churchill. Parson
Harris, his fellow magistrate, is a B.D., rector of Swerford, has the cure
or keeping in fettle of 402 souls; his living brings him in £496 per
annum, besides perquisites. This is the ‘craft’ which points at the
‘agitator’ and cautions the labourers against paying them, and tells them
to trust their friends who have always kept a paternal eye over them.
Yes, truly, like a vulture!73
The union had already suffered repeatedly from clerical opposition, arising
from the close links between the clergy and the social hierarchy which
ruled rural England. In the Chipping
The heavy sentences on their womenfolk shocked and angered the
labourers. After the woman had been removed from the court, the
husbands present were allowed to see their wives before they were taken to
74
Reinforced by a large number of inhabitants of Chipping
As darkness fell, the crowd grew. Amid repeated cheers for the ‘Union’
and ‘the women’, the 75 Mary
Pratley, who had a ten-weeks-old child at breast, claimed that she had not
even been allowed to dress the infant before being hustled into the open
van, and that although she wrapped the child as best she could, it caught a
severe cold. Although she had ‘as good a breast of milk as any woman in
England’, she found that she was unable to suckle the child on the poor
prison fare of bread and skilly. Elizabeth Pratley claimed that she caught a
very bad cold on the night journey, and that her seven-months-old baby
was so poorly fed in prison that it could not sleep at night for hunger.
The sudden removal of so many wives and mothers presented the village
of Ascott with various problems, including the feeding of many motherless
children. The village women tackled this task, at first on the village green,
and later in a suitable cottage. Meanwhile the press blazoned the case
throughout the land. Both The Times and the
The leaders of the National Union had obviously decided that their
opponents had played into their hands, and they proceeded to make the
maximum capital out of the case.77 When the last seven women were
released on Saturday morning,
Here, by the side of the road, for a long distance is a good wide strip of
land, immediately outside the park wall, with another outer fence by the
roadside. Only a few years since the whole of this land was used as chain
land - garden ground - by the cottagers of Woodstock; but now the
good old paternal and parental paw of the duke has grasped it from
78
Not long after the brake had left posse of
police from 79 This was a more local affair, attended by unionists
from the Wychwood villages. On 80 Joseph Arch was accompanied on this occasion by some
notable friends of the union, including Jesse Collings and the Revd
Frederick S. Attenborough. The proceedings began with a procession
headed by the women ‘martyrs’, and a demonstration in front of
Hambidge's house, but the crowd then proceeded to the green for the main
business of the evening. One of the women was still too ill to attend, and
her infant was also reported to be ‘in a poor way’.
There were various other repercussions of the Chipping 81 and an urgent enquiry addressed by the
Secretary of State to the Oxfordshire Quarter Sessions.82 After due
investigation the justices reported that all had been carried out in due
conformity with the rules, and with the dictates of humanity. The Lord
Chancellor wrote to the Duke of Marlborough, who was Lord Lieutenant
of Oxfordshire, remarking that he was ‘unable to conceive any state of
circumstances which would make it necessary or calculated to promote the
real ends of justice, to send so large a number of persons simultaneously to
prison in a case of this nature’,83 and asking for the observations of the
Duke and the two magistrates, on the subject. The Duke replied that he
considered that the magistrates had exercised their discretion ‘not unwisely’,
and enclosed a testimonial to the magistrates from the inhabitants of the
neighbourhood.84 To this the Lord Chancellor replied that he was still
unconvinced that a mistake had not been made, and that the very fact that
occasion had been given for so unusual a step as the presentation of an
address to the convicting magistrates seemed to support his opinion. He
desired his views to be given more serious consideration if similar
85 Farmer Hambidge saw to it that the
magistrates should have an opportunity to exercise greater restraint. On 24
86 The programme included entertainment by the Chipping
87 This time the union had engaged a
88
By the time New Zealand introduced free immigration late in 89 The meeting was held in
Isaac Castle's large new marquee, pitched for the occasion in a field near the
village. In the dim light of a few tallow candles, some 500 to 600 persons
‘from villages far and near’ listened to a lecture that lasted for an hour and
forty minutes. Carter first discussed the farm labourers' prospects in
England, likening them to ‘one continued march down a hill with the
workhouse at the bottom’. He then described his own experience of
twenty years of colonial life. With the help of a large map he presented
New Zealand as ‘offering advantages superior to any other colony in the
world’, and described its climate and beauty by saying that ‘if we threw
Mongol party were also begun
The Hawke's Bay party of about eighty souls sailed from Invererne on 90 From Fulbrook came George and Mary Millin with four
children, and from Charlbury John Maycock, a 44-year-old glover, and
William Hope, a 42-year-old farm labourer, with his wife Sarah and six
children. The Invererne reached
… I must tell you the children are all getting quite fat, and so is Ted;
as for myself, I can't remember the time when I felt so strong and well;
I suppose it is having plenty to eat of good substantial food, for we do
have plenty of good food - beef, mutton and pork. You know we did
not have enough in the old country, we could not have it and pay for it,
but there is no fear of that here, if a man will keep himself steady and
will work, and you know there is no fear of Ted working, if God spares
his health and strength…. We were put down free of charge; you
know we expected to have £14 to pay, but we were quite free. Ours
was the first free emigrant ship that had arrived in New Zealand … I
think it was the best thing we ever done for ourselves and children …
Ted is at work on the line and Frank with him. The price of wages out
here is seven and eight shillings per day (chiefly eight) from eight o'clock
in the morning till five at night. If it keeps fine this month Ted's wages
will be about £13. Don't you think that is better than working at
home for two pounds sixteen shillings? … I suppose John Pinfold is still at
Taynton…. Is he still working for Mr Lousley? Tell him there is no
sitting under the hedge knawing [sic] a piece of bread and an onion, and
talking over the bad times…. I wrote to John Pinfold as soon as we
arrived; did they receive it? Ted has not got a horse yet but thinks of
getting one soon. I have been on Mr Smith's pony; they say I am a
good jockey, better than Mrs Smith. Ted thinks of getting some land
before the summer is over.91
Sarah Harding proceeded to explain the time payment terms on which land
could be acquired. She asked after friends in Taynton, and wanted her
letter shown to friends who were ‘too many to mention their names’. She
concluded her letter by listing the price of provisions in Hawke's Bay. John
Pinfold, the Taynton branch secretary, forwarded this letter for publication in the Chronicle. His employment by the Mr Lousley92 whom Sarah
mentions must have come to an end about the time the letter was received,
as it was resolved at a meeting of the committee of the 93 He sailed for Hawke's Bay on
In her letter Sarah Harding mentions that: ‘Our Fanny and Harry live on a
station; they get £75 a year and all found. They have three children’. This
family can be identified on the Invererne's passenger list as Henry Cox, a
30-year-old miller, his wife Frances J., and their three children aged three
months to 4 years. On
… I have been working on the line, making a new railway. It is a very
good job. We do it by piece-work; it averages from 8 shillings to 10
shillings per day of eight hours only we have had a good drop of wet.
We had to lose a good bit of time, as it was all flooded. We have been
living in a tent put up in a large shed. There are four families beside us;
we each have a tent to ourselves. It is very comfortable and we like it
very much. We have had a good deal of sport since we have been out
here with our guns. We find them very useful. We often shoot a pig and
94
Cox then tells of the voyage out on the Invererne, on which his three
children were ‘poorly’, but now ‘the two youngest are getting as fat as
pigs’.
Although he does not mention the fact, Cox must, like the Hardings.
have had ambitions of owning land. The Return of Freeholders shows him
with 58 acres freehold at Woodville in Invererne, seven owned
freehold land by that date, in amounts ranging from 55 acres to 314, the
total owned by the seven being 805 acres. Members of the party may also
have been purchasing land on deferred payment, for which they did not
hold the freehold in
The next party to leave Oxfordshire was that recruited to sail with
Holloway. We have already followed their train journey to Mongol and Scimitar, but we must here
note that a significant number of them came from the Wychwood villages.
C. R. Carter made a further contribution to Wychwood recruitment with
his meeting in a tent at Charlbury on Mongol's party
included two families from Charlbury: Thomas Morris, a farm labourer in
his early fifties, with his wife Eliza and four children; and Edwin Gardener,
a young carpenter, with his wife Jane and their infant daughter. Gardener
appears in the 95 a
widowed farm labourer emigrating with six children. Also from Lyneham
came Frederick Tripp, 38, farm labourer, with his wife Leah, 36, and
Charles and Ann Jeffrey with their four children. From Ascott-under-Wychwood came Phillip Pratley, 25, farm labourer, his wife Jane and three
young children. The Pratleys had probably been deeply affected by the
Chipping 96
A study of New Zealand Immigration Department passenger lists shows
that approximately two-thirds of the assisted immigrants who left
97
Recruitment in Oxfordshire for the Ballochmyle party.98 The work was
obviously helped by the fact that he was travelling in the combined
capacities of emigration agent and union organiser. Thus, after a good
meeting on 99 Although it was
mid-winter, Leggett was daily receiving applications for New Zealand.100
He was now widely known in the county, and emigrants were coming
forward from many parts. The party of forty-one which joined the Atrato,
on which Leggett had originally been intending to sail, seems to have been
drawn from the south and east of the county. However, the 111 who sailed
with Leggett on the Ballochmyle included three large families from his old
home village of Milton-under-Wychwood. Alfred Groves appears on the
passenger list as a 44-year-old quarryman, accompanied by his wife and
five children. Edwin Stringer is entered as a 36-year-old farm labourer,
emigrating with his wife Ann, and seven children. The 101 The third Milton family in
Leggett's party was that of Daniel Wilks, a 43-year-old farm labourer,
emigrating with his wife and five children. Another family from the
Ballochmyle party also
included the first fruits of C.R. Carter's very successful meeting at Islip on
102
The next union party from the Midlands, sailing by the Peeress on 5
April, had thirty-four Oxfordshire emigrants, but none appear to have
been from the Wychwood area. On 26 September 101 Oxfordshire
emigrants sailed from Crusader, as members of a party led
by George Allington, and several families from Ascott-under-Wychwood
were among them. They included Frederick Pratley, a 31-year-old farm
labourer, his wife Mary Ann aged 31, and their six children. This is almost
certainly the Mary Pratley who was imprisoned with her ten-weeks-old
child in Crusader's party, as the
oldest of the family of eight travelling with Edwin Smith, 43-year-old farm labourer,
and his wife Harriet. Mary was not at home the night of the 103 Two other small Ascott families were in the
party, headed by younger farm labourers, Peter Honeybone, 30 and Eli
Pratley, 28. Possibly all of these families had been represented at the
meeting held in the Ascott Baptist chapel on 104
The last union party of the year was that led by Thomas Osborne, sailing
by the Lady Jocelyn on 3 November. Among her seventy-two Oxfordshire
emigrants were at least nineteen from the Wychwood villages of Milton
and Lyneham. They included four married farm labourers; from Milton,
William Gardner, 52; and from Lyneham, Henry James, 43, Henry
Rooke, 30, and George Watts, 22.
The ships despatched to Hawke's Bay during Hudson
on 20 November, and the two autumn parties to 105 By the northern
It is rather strange to find that the village of Shipton-under-Wychwood,
lying between the two radical villages of Milton and Ascott, was slow to
follow their lead in unionism and emigration. After a meeting in the village
on Chronicle that
though Shipton was surrounded by union influence, it was so cold that
unionism had not yet permeated it. He described it as ‘a large, respectable
village, with only about 14 or 16 in Union’.106 Apart from the possibility
that there were Shipton folk among those recruited by Carter for Brogdens
after his meeting in the village in the Ballochmyle. Early in Cospatrick, which sailed for New Zealand on the 11th
of the month. The party was made up of members of the Hedges and
Townsend families. Richard Hedges, 56, was accompanied by his wife
Sarah, and four sons. Two of the sons, Henry, 30 and John, 24, were
accompanied by their wives. Henry had married Mary Townsend, a
daughter of the second family in the party, and Henry and Mary took their
three young children with them. Henry Townsend, 62, was accompanied
by his wife Ann, and his two married daughters. The second of these was
Jane, 35, who had married George Charter, 31, a Cambridgeshire man.
They had two young children.107 All the men were agricultural labourers.
Around midnight on Cospatrick was in the
South 108 News of the disaster reached England in the closing days of
After Cospatrick disaster dampened interest, but there are
also other likely factors. The emigration policy of the Oxfordshire
unionists was doubtless by now paying off, giving them a stronger
bargaining position in the labour market. Most of the rural labourers
therefore turned a deaf ear to the urgings of friends and relatives in the
antipodes, and settled down to enjoy the improved conditions at home.
Thus, on 109 Probably, as they warmed
themselves by the inn fireside that winter, their conversation often turned
to the pros and cons of emigrating when the better weather came, and
letters spelling out the attractions of New Zealand must have been read out
from the original scripts or from the pages of the Chronicle.
In the issue of the Chronicle for Alumbagh on 9 May, he had only succeeded in
recruiting thirty-two emigrants from Oxfordshire, and none of them
appear to have been from the Wychwood area. A week or two earlier, the
Milton branch had celebrated its third anniversary, packing Isaac Castle's
marquee to overflowing. The Chronicle's account of the occasion reported
that ‘Upwards of two hundred souls have left the village since the
formation of the branch. Most of them have gone to New Zealand’, but
there was no mention of current interest in emigration.110 On 111 He may well
have had a son in New Zealand, for a Jesse Clifford, who appears in the
Assaye. But Holloway apparently found no new takers
for New Zealand. Nor can this lack of interest be put down to any decline
in local unionism. Union leaders who visited the area at this period found
the branches in good heart. Even laggard Shipton was coming to life. When
Thomas Bayliss, who succeeded Leggett as district secretary, held a
meeting in the village on 112
With the union thus riding high, and looking as if it might even revive the
vanished glories of the Wychwood forest fair, there was little drawing
power in the pioneering privations of the New Zealand frontier, half a
world away. A letter which Thomas Rathbone wrote home to Lyneham,
from Westport, on English Labourer of 113
But in Milton of
TO THE EYES of a rural New Zealander the wolds of northeast Lincolnshire
seem at once familiar and different. This rolling chalk upland has an
appearance of emptiness and openness to the sky that is reminiscent of
many landscapes in his own country. From vantage points on the wolds
one can see, in any direction, great fields sweeping across the slopes, with
seldom a copse, hamlet or village to break their flow. When Tennyson,
who grew up in the wold village of Somersby, wrote of
he captured this feeling of uncluttered space. Yet the New Zealander does not feel altogether at home, for there is something unfamiliar in the gentle swell of the soft rounded contours, and in the well-cared-for neatness of the trim low hedges and narrow road side verges. Most of the more than two thousand emigrants recruited by the Laceby local agent, John H. White, between 1874 and 1879, had spent their working lives on these northern wolds and on the coastal marshlands between them and the North Sea. Many of them came from open villages such as Keelby, Laceby, Caistor and Grasby, built around springs emerging at the edge of the wolds, which provided much of the labour for these thinly populated uplands. In this chapter, while we will give some attention to emigration from all parts of Lincolnshire, and more special attention to White's recruits from various parishes in the Parts of Lindsey, our main concern will be with the area which he worked most assiduously - the wolds from Binbrook to the Humber, and the adjoining coastal marshlands. Possibly for no other district in England is there a better coverage of first-hand reports on the human experience of the 1870s emigration movement. Before we turn to this, however, we must first sketch in the relevant background of agrarian and social history.
Two facts of Lincolnshire agrarian history are of particular significance
1 The first is that the county had a deeply rooted tradition of
peasant farming, and strong peasant communities survived into times when
the general trend was towards a more hierarchical class structure. The
second significant fact is that the northern wolds had been largely a waste of
furze and rabbit warrens until an era of improvement, beginning in the late
eighteenth century, and largely completed in the early decades of the
nineteenth century, transformed them into profitable farmlands, with a
landscape altered out of recognition. The peasant tradition, persisting
throughout the nineteenth century, especially on the marshlands and fens,
may well have been one of the influences that caused many Lincolnshire
farm labourers to opt for rural New Zealand rather than urban
The Lincolnshire wolds are a belt of upland, some forty-five miles long, and from five to eight miles wide. The northern wolds, extending from the Humber to just north of Caistor, have at their western edge a marked escarpment rising in places to 300 feet. They are simple in relief, with few streams and valleys, a few villages, but the soils are relatively deep and fertile. The central wolds, from near Caistor to a few miles south of Binbrook, are wider and considerably higher, with a more complicated relief. The western escarpment is less steep, but the countryside is more broken, by comparatively deep valleys, some of which contain streams, flowing out to the east. Villages are more numerous, nestling unobtrusively in the valleys. From the higher points one gets far-stretching views over the wolds, and across the marsh to the North Sea. The southern wolds are more varied again. Much of the chalk has been washed from the hillsides, exposing clay and sandstone. This part of the wolds is a gently undulating country, and from early times its sheltered valleys attracted settlement, so that villages are more numerous again than in the central wolds.
The marshland is a belt of clay and saltmarsh, up to ten miles wide, paralleling the wolds from the Humber Estuary to Wainfleet. If we begin our survey of the agrarian past with the sixteenth century, we find that this coastal strip was then a region of large villages, in which the wealth was fairly evenly distributed, and the average farmer was comparatively well off. In a mixed farming economy the rearing and fattening of cattle and sheep was the most important element. A good deal of improvement had been carried out in the way of drainage, protection of the coastal lands by sea walls, and recovery of land from the sea. In contrast, the northern wolds had a great deal of waste, small villages, a small minority of fairly well-to-do farmers, and a majority who were considerably poorer than the average marshland peasant. The mainstay of wold husbandry was sheep, producing a highly prized fine wool. Barley was the main crop.
Until late in the eighteenth century farming in north-east Lincolnshire
2 As the lead in the adoption of improved methods of husbandry
usually came from resident gentry, it is not surprising that it was on the
wolds, where their numbers increased, that an agricultural revolution got
under way. By the end of the eighteenth century the wold farmers had
virtually annexed the marsh.
The revolution on the wolds is believed to have begun some time shortly
after
In the course of time the method of bringing the waste into cultivation had developed into a fairly standard system. Gorse and bracken was ‘stubbed’ or grubbed, and the old grazing herbage pared. All this rubbish was then burned, and the land heavily dressed with chalk and bones. After ploughing the land was first sown with barley and seeds and the seeds grazed for two years by sheep fed on oil cake. Crops of wheat and turnips followed, and a husbandry based on variations from the Norfolk rotation then became established.
This transformation of the wolds involved a tremendous expenditure of
labour and capital, and it is not surprising that it took some decades to
4 Near
Brocklesby and at Cabourne and Swallow, he found that there were ‘large
tracts of excellent land under gorse’. Half a century later J. A. Clarke's
essay on ‘The Farming of Lincolnshire’ depicts the transformation
virtually completed:
… the whole length of the Wolds is intersected by neat white-thorn hedges, the solitary furze-bush appearing only where a roadside or plantation border offers an uncultivated space. And the whole of the improvements have been accomplished on a grand scale; the holdings are large, there being scarcely a single farm under the size of 300 acres; many contain 800, 1000, 1500 and more acres.
… the fields are all of a proportionate magnitude, varying generally
from 30 to 100 acres, presenting to the eye of a stranger the aspect of
open-field lands, the fences being often concealed by the surface swelling
into hills or descending steeply into deep hollows. There is only a
trifling proportion of grass-land, which is found beside the rivulets in
the valleys, and is mostly mown for hay.5
In keeping with the scale of farming, and the size of the farms, the
farmhouses and buildings erected during this agricultural revolution were
well-built and commodious. Even after several decades of depression they
could be described in
The houses, generally well situated, with good gardens and pretty
surroundings, are most commodious and well appointed, some of them
containing three reception and a dozen bedrooms; while there is often
stabling for half a score of hunters and carriage horses. The farm
buildings are all exceedingly well built and up-to-date, and great
neatness and tidiness is observed in the roomy, well-filled stackyards.6
Clearly the wold farmers aspired to a gentry style of living. While the
landlords did their tenants proud, however, there was no corresponding
provision made for the labourers. The transformation of the countryside
created an unprecedented labour demand, and when the new level of
farming was established, the small villages of the wolds were quite unable
to supply the needed large increase in labour. But the landlords were
extremely reluctant to build more labourers' cottages, lest their occupants
The growth of marshland villages to supply labour for the wolds was one
aspect of the change which made the marsh an adjunct of the wolds.
Another was the continuing amalgamation of marshland with upland
farms, so that the rich marsh pastures could be used for the fattening of
sheep bred on the wolds. This came about partly by the migration of
marshland landholders to the wolds, and partly by the acquisition of marsh
pasture by wold farmers. Despite this trend, the marshland continued to
support an extremely high number of smallholders. In
Between 1801 and 1871 the marshland experienced the most remarkable
population growth of all Lincolnshire's regions, with 40 per cent of the
villages more than doubling their population. This was only partly due to
the transformation of the wolds, for the marshlanders had also turned to
the sea. The port of Grimsby, after a long decline since the Middle Ages,
caused by silting, was given new life by dredging and dock constructions,
and in
We must now move from our general survey for a more close-up look at particular villages and individual persons from our chosen area of north-east Lincolnshire. Some we will choose for their particular importance in the region, others because they were typical of their class, and yet others for the part they were to play in the Revolt of the Field and emigration to New Zealand. Our examples will illustrate the range of social class in the rural hierarchy and the inter-action between the various ranks. They will also introduce two important influences on the lives of the village labourers — philanthropy and Methodism. We will look first at the Earls of Yarborough and their Brocklesby estate.
The 7 The dean of Westminster, visiting at Brocklesby, is
reported to have remarked to the first earl, ‘Your tenants are of a very high
character; where do you get them from?’ ‘Get them!’, replied his host
proudly, ‘get them! I don't get them, I breed them.’8 What, in fact, the earl
was concerned with breeding was a class of men with whom he could mix
on easy social terms at fox hunting and other gentlemanly sports. These
easy relations between landlord and tenant, and the tradition of family
succession to the tenancy, were facilitated by the ‘custom of Lincolnshire,’
dating from early in the nineteenth century, whereby the tenant was
guaranteed compensation for his improvements if he had to leave his farm.
By mid-century there are said to have been over seventy of these
fox-hunting farmers in Lord Yarborough's country, driving to market in
carriages, dining every evening, and hunting in scarlet.9
The broad fields and low hedges of the improved wolds made them ideal
hunting country, and their attractiveness was enhanced by the Brocklesby
Woods, whose planting was begun in
This affluent sporting life style of the upper ranks of rural society, led by
the Pelhams, must have stirred in diverse ways those villagers who were
later to become New Zealand immigrants. Some must have resented the
lavish expenditure on luxuries and amusements, and have contrasted it
with the miserable wages they were offered. This gulf between aristocratic
extravagance and labouring penury is neatly illustrated by an incident of
10 Something of the
flavour and appeal of nonconformity in the region can surely be inferred
from the fact that in this nineteenth century hey-day of field sports, ‘most
of the clergy were hunting men’.11 But there must also have been many
labourers who derived vicarious enjoyment from the exploits of their
The lives of New Zealand's north Lincolnshire immigrants would also
have been influenced by the philanthropy of the Pelham family. In the
1840s the second Earl of Yarborough began a policy of building schools for
the children of the labourers on his estates. Among the first was Brocklesby
Park School, erected to serve the parishes of Great Limber, Brocklesby,
Keelby, Kirmington and Habrough.12 A number of New Zealand settlers
must have attended this school, and enjoyed treats in the Earl's 1,000 acre
park, and conducted tours of the palatial Brocklesby Hall. A newspaper
report of 13
However, one had only to cross the wolds to the little market town of
Caistor to discover that educational philanthropy could not do more than
tinker with the deep social problems of this agrarian world. Caistor was
once a walled Roman camp which succeeded to a British hill-fort, and its
streets climb the steep slopes of the western escarpment. ‘Down this hill I
see hundreds of labouring people pass at night, coming back from
Swallow, Thoresway, Cuxwold, and so on’, J. Kirman, the Caistor
relieving officer told Edward Stanhope, assistant commissioner to the 14 To meet the labour
demand of the close parishes on the neighbouring wolds, the population of
Caistor had grown from 861 in 15
Some idea of what work with these gangs involved for young children
can be gathered from the evidence of other witnesses. James Harrison, a
Caistor labourer who had given up the job of gangmaster six years
previously, told Stanhope that private gangs were little better than public
ones.16 ‘… the man who is put over them has no reason for caring at all
about them,’ he explained, ‘and the farmers are very negligent as to the sort
of man they choose…. Plenty of them go four miles from here; some are
only 6 or 7 years old, and they are quite tired before the day's half over.’
Harrison was quite firm in his views on the evils of the gang system. ‘I say
put all ganging down…. I say the lasses ought not to go. It's in the fields
and nowhere else they learn what's bad. Children ought not to work till
they're 10; there are plenty of men out of work, who can do any work that
must be done’.17 One Caistor gangmaster whom Stanhope interviewed
was ‘a swearing blustering fellow’ named Colbeck. His gang was
composed of ‘women, men, boys and girls’ and Stanhope described him as
‘going on in too indecent a sort of way with them, swearing and using bad
language’. Colbeck took his gang as far away as Stainton Top, high on the
wolds, five miles from Caistor, but when their day's work was done he
‘gallops home on a galloway, and leaves them to come by degree’.18
Colbeck also gave evidence and described the kind of work his gang was
put to. ‘I only do stone picking by ta'en [contract] work. That lasts all the
winter. But weeding, pulling swedes, and so on, I do by the day. The
farmers pay me by the day, and I take the children. I give the farmer a book
with the price in it which each boy has cost me, and he pays it.’ Colbeck
was opposed to the idea of prohibiting mixed gangs — ‘I don't know how
it's to pay me without mixing them. I can't get boys enough.’19 John
Taylor of Caistor, described by one of his boys as a kind ganger who ‘don't
beat us’, told of the hours worked by his 10 and 11 year old boys. ‘They go
at 6 and come back at 6. They have a good hour for dinner, but no
“andrew” (time for lunch).’20
While there were turnips to be singled, weeded, and later pulled, couch
grass to be gathered up from the fallows, and stones to be picked, the
farmers of the northern wolds wished to be left free to use this, the simplest
and cheapest method of arranging for the work. The Gangs Act of 21 Many who later
… The children were brought in waggons from the surrounding
villages. Stalls of toys and sweetmeats were set out in the streets, and
eagerly patronised. After the procession of schools, each carrying its
distinctive flag, had paraded the town, headed by the Royal North
Lincoln Militia band, and followed by the Caistor Juvenile Drum and
Fife band, the rewards were distributed in the Market Place and tea
served to about 850 children…. The numbers of assembled children
amounted to 900, exceeding by 100 those of former years …22
The State came to the aid of private philanthropy in 23 In the 1860s the Wesleyans
began to aspire to the provision of something more than Sunday schools. A
new schoolroom was built in 24
The rift between churchman and nonconformist is clearly illustrated in a
poem by Charles Tennyson-Turner, the Poet Laureate's brother, who was
vicar of Grasby, the parish which bordered Caistor to the north-west.
Entitled ‘Fanaticism, a Night-Scene in the Open Air’, the poem was
published in Turner's Small Tableaux in
With relief the poet turns his attention heavenwards, where Orion appears
to mount above a flying cloud, and draws the contrast between the purity
of the heavenly scene, and the ranting of the ‘hot fanatic’, unable to
comprehend the majestic scene above him. But Turner had his own lack of
comprehension, for his bucolics lack any glimmer of insight into the lives
and feelings of the cottagers among whom he lived as a vicar and
landowner. The Wesleyans had built a chapel in Grasby in 26 To Turner, for
example, the advent of the steam threshing machine was purely a matter for
exultation, and an opportunity to display his classical learning in a poem
which raises the question:
For the cottager it raised a question much nearer to home, ‘Will there be
work enough for me to feed my family this winter?’ Probably the Grasby
cottagers could have explained more succinctly than their vicar the
connection between the mechanisation of agriculture and entries in the log
book of his 28 Yet Turner was a generous vicar maintaining the village school
solely at his own expense until 29
As an example of the close villages of the wolds that were affected by
emigration to New Zealand we will choose Rothwell. The 30
Overton himself had a commodious rectory built in 31 One might expect that all would
have been contentment and harmony in such a well-provided village. Yet
Rothwell appears to have experienced the same social rifts as Grasby.
Among those who took the initiative in forming a union branch at Caistor,
early in 32 The village had had a Wesleyan Chapel since 33 Much of the work of building
up this congregation must have been carried out by lay preachers from the
adjacent open villages of Caistor and Nettleton. Five laymen (probably lay
preachers) contributed ‘earnest and stirring addresses’ at the opening of the
chapel. Two of them emigrated to Taranaki the following year; J. Borman,
a lay preacher from Nettleton, and F. Bell. From Rothwell itself Annie
Swaby, 20, housemaid, left for New Zealand in 34
The favourable physical conditions of these close wold villages apparently
did not, with some of their labourers, compensate for the defects in their
social climate and accordingly they joined with the larger contingents from
the open villages, to emigrate to New Zealand.
From the wolds we now turn to the coastal marshlands, where we will
look first at the parish of Aylesby, lying a few miles inland from Grimsby.
The village of Aylesby seems to have decayed during the seventeenth
century, and Aylesby of the nineteenth century was a close parish, drawing
much of its labour from the nearby village of Laceby, situated on the
eastern edge of the wolds, on the banks of the Freshney, a stream flowing
down from the wolds and meandering to reach the sea at Grimsby. At the
beginning of the 1870s almost all the land of Aylesby parish was owned by
the lord of the manor, the Revd T. T. Drake, and leased by three farmers,
Theophilas Clark, Francis Sowerby and William Torr. William Torr, who
rented the manor farm which extended onto the wolds, also rented wold
land in other parishes, farming nearly 3,000 acres, as one of the leading
agriculturists of his day. He was famous as a stock breeder, and everything
on his land had to be pure-bred, from the Shorthorn cattle and 35 It is Francis Sowerby, however, who will enter more fully
into our story, and whose farm was to be even more deeply affected by
New Zealand.
The 36 Besides his
generosity in Laceby, Sowerby's benevolence found expression elsewhere,
37 This picture of amity between a benevolent master
and dutiful labourers, under the umbrella of village Methodism, was to be
rudely shattered when the Revolt of the Field reached Laceby and Aylesby.
Among those whose convictions led them to openly challenge the rural
social order, of which the godly rectitude and ample benevolence of
Francis Sowerby were among the finer fruits, was John H. White, the local
New Zealand emigration agent at Laceby. White came from a family of the
rural middle class, with several generations of experience in village
shopkeeping. Village shopkeepers were prominent among the outside
helpers upon whom the unions of the Revolt depended so heavily for
leadership,38 and, as we have already noted, supplied many of the local
emigration agents for New Zealand. In the 1870s village retailers still
enjoyed an importance which was soon to be whittled away by improved
communications to market towns, the growth of chain stores, and village
depopulation. Their literacy and relatively wide social contacts added to
their influence among a population whose literacy was still limited.39 Quite
apart from John H. White's emigration work, the family will repay our
study as an example of an important element in English rural society.
John H. White was born in 40
The place was a typical moderate-sized Lincolnshire village, with a village
green, a smithy, a grocery and drapery store and a cobbler's shop. Its
population at the
A fairly heavy two-wheeler made the round, one day of the week in one
direction and another day to a different village. The goods ordered one
week would be delivered the next and a new order taken. In this
method of business no hawker's licence was needed. We would start off
with a heavy load, including bags of flour, sharps, pollard, bran etc.,
and the usual run of household groceries, and sometimes on the return
journey I should be allowed to drive a very quiet horse. I remember
encouraging it, but not disturbing it, by singing lustily that touching
song, very popular at the time, ‘My Grandather's clock was too tall for
the shelf’.41
This Ludborough business was brought to an abrupt end, sometime in the late 1870s, when the agent for the absentee landlord, probably disapproving of the family's radical views, terminated their tenancy. An apparently satisfactory visit by some of the White family to see the landlord in Bath, and a telegram from him saying that they could stay, were brushed aside by the agent. As he administered almost the whole village for this same landlord, it was impossible to find other premises there. The family managed to find two cottages in another village, in which to store their stock, and somehow worked the old ‘rounds’ for a time. They received no compensation for brick warehouses that they had added to the Ludborough shop.
Besides the broadening experience given by the family business, John H.
White enjoyed the benefits of a secondary education, something at that
time still unusual for people of his class. He was sent to Samuel Cresswell's
Northgate Academy at Louth. Later he became a clerk in an ironworks in
Before the birth of their first child, George, in
As he settled into the Laceby community, John H. White became
increasingly involved in activities concerned with the social welfare of his
neighbours. As a village grocer and draper he would have had abundant
evidence of the effects of poverty on the rural labourer. As an active
member of the Wesleyan congregation, with a particular concern for the
welfare of the young men of the circuit, he must have been moved by the
hopelessness of the prospects facing so many of them. When in the 42 As he became aware of various local needs, White
became active in associations formed to meet them. He was an early
member, probably a foundation member, of the Laceby Interment
Society, a primitive type of friendly society whose members helped to pay
the funeral expenses when a fellow member died. The society purchased a
supply of crockery, which it hired out, and at many Methodist tea meetings
there would be china boldly labelled ‘LACEBY INTERMENT SOCIETY’. White became a temperance supporter, joining the Good Templars
who had a strong lodge at Laceby. He took a leading part in the ambitious
Temperance Hall project. The aim was to provide an unsectarian centre,
apart from the public houses, where labourers could meet for recreation,
lectures, entertainments, and so forth. The building, opened in 43
Given White's deep social concern, he can have had little difficulty in
deciding where his sympathies lay when the Revolt of the Field spread to
Laceby. It is clear that the Laceby Wesleyan congregation must have been
deeply divided by the Revolt. At a meeting in the Yarborough Hotel,
Grimsby, on 44 Sowerby and Coates were both class leaders of the Laceby
circuit, while Henry Tomlinson, the first secretary of the Labour League's
Laceby branch, was a teacher in the Sunday School; and his brother,
George Cartwright, who succeeded Tomlinson as branch secretary when
the latter emigrated to New Zealand in 45 John Tomlinson, aged 64, the father of Henry, joined the
46
White's openly expressed sympathy for the union, and his collaboration in
its emigration work, was carried through at the cost of unpopularity
among many of the leading local Wesleyans. Despite his gifts as a public
speaker, for several years White received no further appointments as a local
preacher in the three largest chapels in the circuit.
White's appointment as a New Zealand local emigration agent was made
early in 47 Some idea
of the spirit and determination of the labourers of the district, and of the
angry opposition they were meeting from many of their employers, is
given by a case which came before the Grimsby magristrates on 5 May
48 On Saturday afternoon, 25 April, John Cook, labourer, was
returning from market in Caistor to his home in the wold village of
Swallow. He was a member of the Labour League, and while passing
through the village of Cabourne he met, and stood talking with, a fellow
unionist, Edwards. Charles Henry Brown, a farmer from Cook's own
village of Swallow, rode up, probably also on his way home from the
weekly market. He joined in the conversation, and soon high words were
flying. Farmer Brown said he would ride over a laneful of men such as
Edwards and Cook. He rode up to Cook, who backed away a pace at a
time, until he was driven against a hedge. To protect himself he then struck
Brown's stick out of his hand, and fended off the horse by striking it over
the head. If Brown was surprised at this display of spirit, he had more in
store for him, for Cook, doubtless aided by his union, proceeded to have
him charged with assault. The magistrates' bench of five squires and
parsons were obviously embarrassed by the case, which they must have
known was being followed with widespread interest. Cook's evidence was
supported by his companion, Edwards and by Richard Towers, wheelwright of Cabourne, and was not denied by Brown. Brown's lawyer made
offers to Cook, and the magistrates suggested that the matter be settled
without their help, but Cook pressed for them to dispose of the case.
Finally Brown was convicted and fined one shilling plus costs. The case
was reported and commented upon by an anonymous correspondent of the
Labour League Examiner. He suggested that if John Cook, unionist and
labourer, had tried to ride down Charles Henry Brown, he would have
received three months' imprisonment with hard labour. Then naming the
five magistrates, he suggested that if John Cook had tried to ride any one of
them down, a bench of their peers would have awarded him five years'
penal servitude. What is striking in this incident is not only the pride of
class, good living and fine horseflesh of a wold farmer of the closing days of
the Golden Age, or the resolute defence of his rights and human dignity by
a rural labourer, but also the willingness of a village craftsman, Richard
49
John H. White, it is clear, was also prepared to put business prosperity at
risk in order to follow his convictions. In the Labour League Examiner of
50 This policy of selective strikes was particularly
objectionable to the farmers, and led directly to their decision to lock out
all union members while any were on strike. The published lists of
contributors to the lock-out fund do not include any members of the White
family. But while White may not have approved of the union's industrial
policy, he made no secret of his sympathy for its main objectives. He
considered the rural labourer to be grossly underpaid for his toil. He was
also disturbed that the only way a man could be assured of regular
employment, was to bind himself to a master each year at the May statutes.
These statute fairs, once widespread, persisted in the north of England, and
in north Lincolnshire were held each May in rural centres such as Laceby,
Caistor and Binbrook. White described the confined labourer as ‘a slave by
yearly agreement’.51 He would also have disapproved of the intemperance
associated with this annual holiday. He soon learnt that the statutes also
hampered emigration, for the confined man could only come forward in
spring, where he was likely to be hampered by debts incurred during the
winter. It was White's conviction that emigration would both benefit those
who went, and bring about a new order in the home labour market. As a
tradesman, the view of the problem as one of supply and demand must have
had a natural appeal to him. His own family's experience of emigration to
I met a poor old man in a village in the Wolds, doubled and bent with
years and toil, and he told me he had nothing in prospect but the parish;
and fifty years ago he went to his first day's work with an uncle of
mine, and each of them had twopence a day! Now, my uncle emigrated
years ago. He has land, cattle, home; his photograph shows a round,
full, happy face. This old man was pinched, wrinkled, and
poverty-stricken.52
By mid-53 He believed that ‘in a natural
state of society’, an industrious frugal man should earn enough to be able to
give at least a tithe ‘to God's cause and the need of his brother man’, to
make provision for a family, so that an annual increase in the home should
be a cause for gladness, not anxiety, and to provide for his children's
education, for the special needs of sickness, and for old age. If society were
run as God intended, all these needs would be met. White did not see how a
man could do with less than thirty shillings a week. (Only a few days later,
in reaching its agreement with the farmers, the Labour League had to
cancel three objectionable rules from its constitution. One of these set the
minimum rate of wages for its members at not less than eighteen shillings
per week.54 According to White's calculations the League's target was
hopelessly inadequate.) White was driven by the low wages and unemployment which he saw about him, to conclude that labourers were too
many. He saw the hand of divine providence in the coincidence of labour
unrest at home with an urgent need for labour in the colonies. He therefore
proposed emigration as a Christian duty, whereby a man might meet his
various obligations, fulfil the divine command to subdue the earth, and
hasten the coming of Christ's kingdom. He envisaged that wholesale
emigration would raise rural wages, and lower the rents paid to those who
had more than enough. White's combination of Christian and economic
arguments made him a convinced and convincing advocate of emigration.
Having expounded his philosophy of emigration, he proceeded to explain
the practical details. He pointed out the advantages of proceeding together
with old neighbours and friends, explained that the planned ship would get
them to the colony in time first for the hay, then the grain harvest, and told
of the excellent opportunities for land purchase in New Zealand. At the
close of this, his first meeting, White took some fifty names of those
wishing to join the party.
At this Laceby meeting brief speeches were given by three heads of
families who were to emigrate within the next week or two. One of these
was Michael Cook, 37 years of age, who had for several years been foreman
on Francis Sowerby's farm at Aylesby. He sailed for Canterbury with his
wife Ellen and five children, on the Carisbrook Castle on 55 White was fortunate in having Cook as one of his first
recruits, for Cook sent home a flow of lucid letters which served as
admirable emigration propaganda. From the 56 He kept a diary of the voyage for his old friends at Pyewipe Farm,
Aylesby, and this found its way to the union newspaper, which published
57 In March the paper published a letter he
had written to John H. White.58 This frankly admitted that his Ellen
wished they had never come, on account of their losing their two little
children on the voyage, but having since been confined with a son, she had
been overwhelmed with the kindness of folk for miles around, who sent
her fowls, eggs, milk and mutton. In later letters he told of the acre of land
‘better land than any in Aylesby’ which he soon had freeholded. On this he
built himself a comfortable house and planted a vegetable garden. By April
59 When he wrote on 60 He was also pleased that the
Primitives had begun to hold services at the schoolroom, and at his own
house. The last letter in the published sequence is dated
You said I was to send you word if we kept Christmas up. Of course
we do, and we had green peas, new potatoes, and roast beef for dinner,
and that will puzzle you at Pyewipe; and on New Year's day, no one
here will work. There was some races on our park ground … My wife
says, if you don't like dressing poultry she does not wonder, she could
not come back again to do it if the money was sent to fetch her - what
she dresses now she helps to eat.61
White's Laceby meeting was followed by others in various villages
within easy reach of Laceby, from Ulceby to the north, to Binbrook to the
south.62 Among those who decided to emigrate was Henry Tomlinson,
secretary of the League's Laceby branch, who had worked for five years for
Mr Clark (probably Theophilas Clark, the Aylesby farmer), but was
refused re-employment at the close of the lock-out, and ‘spotted’ by the
other farmers of the district.63 The Labour League Executive proceeded to
appoint him as delegate in charge of the September party, and no doubt he
assisted White with the recruitment campaign. By mid-August Tomlinson
was able to report that 50 souls had been enlisted from Laceby, 20 or 30
from Keelby, 20 or 30 from Ulceby, 20 or 30 from Binbrook, and about
100 from the district around Caistor.64 Andrew Duncan had paid a visit to
the area 10 assist with the recruiting, holding meetings at Laceby, Caistor,
Binbrook, Waltham and Keelby between 27 June and 2 July, and he had
returned at the end of August to make a final selection from among the
applicants.65 White believed for a time that 250 to 300 would be going, but
the number who finally left Grimsby railway station on 15 September was
66 A number had been dissuaded or delayed by false
rumours or difficulties arising from poverty, and some had had second
thoughts about emigrating. Nevertheless the party was large enough to
create quite a stir. It led the Caistor correspondent of the Stamford
Mercury to comment that, ‘The emigration mania continues to grow and
spread in this neighbourhood.’67 He reported eleven adults and three
children leaving the village of Nettleton to join Tomlinson's party,68 and
noted that others from this village had already written back. One of these
was probably Dixon Catley, a 20-year-old shoemaker, who sailed for
Otago by the J.N. Fleming on Stamford Mercury of
Something of their background and the circumstances of their going can
be discovered for a number of the members of Tomlinson's party. From
Laceby came Charles Allenby, 25, farm labourer, and James Allenby, 24,
navvy. At the 69 Also from Laceby
came George Hill, 37, farm labourer, his wife and 15-year-old daughter.
On arrival in 70 Joseph Handleby, 21, shepherd, and Charles Ingham, 19,
ploughman, emigrated together from Bilsby, near Alford. They were
apparently looking for better working hours and conditions. Writing on 12
71 A letter which vividly expresses some of
the grievances which contributed to the decision to emigrate, was written
early in
We are busy getting the harvest in; we turn out at about 9 o'clock in the
morning, and home again at 7 in the evening. That's not like your old
grumps. The ‘boss’ is with us working, and sits down and smokes his
pipe and chats like yourself. There is no bowing and scraping here to
Mr Woolley, as you do, and then you are worn out from old age, sent
72
The Geraldine Paget, with Henry Tomlinson and his party, arrived
safely at 73 The
only announcement had been that made by crier, giving only 24 hours
notice, but the word spread as by magic, and people came from miles in all
directions. It was the largest League meeting ever held in Laceby, with the
hall crammed and numbers unable to get in. William Burton, recently
arrived from New Zealand, took the chair, and for two hours White read
letter after letter, all confirming the version he had given of the colony.
White himself wrote to the Labourer that the letters had caused ‘such a
commotion as was never known in this corner of North Lincolnshire
before’. Tomlinson's company were better received, better paid, and better
in every way, than they had expected when they left. Among the letters
which White read out must have been one from James Rickell, a
33-year-old Laceby Labourer, who had gone out with his wife Emma, and
14-year-old daughter Bessy:
We have got hired; myself and Emma have got 70 pounds a year and all
found; Betsy £20, and she is only five miles from us. My master and hers
are brothers…. You can tell John Barr that I have not seen thousands of
people crying to come back; and he said that my nearest neighbours
would be sixty miles off; there are scores of bigger, and ten times finer
shops than his in New Zealand….74
White maintained that the farmers had committed a blunder as well as a
crime in keeping Harry Tomlinson out of work for months ‘just because
he stuck firm and true - back and edge - to the interests of his own class’.
When he left, they had rejoiced, and said his evil influence, was well rid
of, but they would find that his influence, through his letters, was more
widespread than ever. White promptly had Tomlinson's diary of the
voyage, and letters, published as a two penny pamphlet, and he was soon
reporting that the printer could not get them out fast enough, a thousand
having been disposed of in four days. He declared that the diary had ‘shut
many a mouth in its career of mis-statement and falsehood’.75 Further
letters from Tomlinson were printed in the Labourer, and in January
A Farm Labourer's Report of New Zealand. Tomlinson
prospered in Canterbury, working for about twenty years as a farm
manager, and then acquiring his own farm and an accommodation house,
at Hawarden.76
For a short time, beginning in 77 It
is nevertheless surprising that no more than two families seem to have been
drawn by his advertising of the Corporation's terms. Possibly its
aristocratic patronage rendered the Corporation suspect to members of the
Labour League, and White's sensing of this may have contributed to his
decision to drop the agency. Both the families he did send seem to have
been well pleased with their venture. The first consisted of William Barker,
39, farm labourer, his wife, and four children, who sailed by the Hindostan
on 78 Helena-Barker, aged 10 when the family
emigrated, wrote home to her old Sunday School teachers. A letter written
a month after landing was printed by White as recruitment material.
Another, written after thirteen months in Feilding, was printed in the
Labourer of
Father has never worked for less than 9 shillings per day since he has been here. Our section is all under cultivation now, that is the one acre. We have apples, plums, black currants bushes, and strawberries planted, and the remaining part will be potatoes and corn, and mother is cultivating a small flower garden in front. Father has a nice black horse, and we have killed one little pig about 10 stone…. Father has taken up his 40 acres of bush ground but he has not got any of it felled yet …. I do not think we have more than one Lincolnshire family in Feilding, that is Mr Oliver, Mr Kemp's foreman of Elkington…. Mr Oliver is our Wesleyan Class Leader, and we have got a nice new chapel…
The Oliver family, consisting of George, 43, his wife, and a grown-up son
and daughter, sailed two months later than the Barkers. As Elkington is
also within a few miles of Ludborough, they too were probably recruited
through the White family connection. George Oliver wrote home in
79 The North
Lincolnshire recruitment campaign entered a new phase with William
Burton's arrival in 80 They set up home in an apartment attached to the Laceby
Temperance Hall. Burton's first meeting was at Laceby on 14 January, and
thereafter he systematically visited the surrounding parishes. For a time he
met with only a limited response. Winter was, of course, an unseasonable
time both for meetings and emigration, those most free and willing to
emigrate had already gone, and the farmers, frightened by the exodus, had
raised wages. But, in Burton's opinion, the greatest difficulties stemmed
from rural ignorance and poverty, and from the active opposition of the
rural ruling class. Writing from Laceby on
Scarcely ever out of the sound of their own church bells, they can
hardly realise the existence of any larger place than the village they were
born in, even in England; and very much more difficult is it to make
them believe in the existence of another land as large as England. Their
perceptive and comprehensive powers are dormant, or move so slowly
that it takes line upon line to renew the impression made, and confirm
the faith just beginning to be exercised; and when at last, with
half-uplifted eyes, they venture to tell the farmer, squire or clergyman
that they have made up their minds to go to New Zealand, it takes very
little from those whom all their lives they have been accustomed to
regard as the repositories of learning and truth, to induce them to
abandon the idea.81
In nineteen cases out of twenty, Burton reported, chapels and
schoolhouses of all denominations were closed against them. Sometimes
they could get a large room in a public house, though farmers might
prevent even this, but where they had asked for a temperance hall they had
never been refused. Often they had no option but the open air, even in
freezing weather. Having been forced into the open air on one occasion,
they asked a wheelwright to move a cart from his shed to give shelter for the
speaker and women among the listeners. He refused for fear of the
consequences. This was probably a meeting at Hatcliffe on 9 February, of
which John H. White wrote to the Labourer, 82 Hatcliffe was a small village
on the wolds about four miles south of Laceby, with a population of 181 in
83 When John H. White visited it for the
After a few weeks the persistent campaigning began to bear fruit. By
March, when the letters from Tomlinson's party were beginning to take
effect, White was reporting that he had never been so full of work, and by
the beginning of April he was receiving twenty or thirty letters a day on
emigration.84 For the first large Taranaki party, sailing from Collingwood on 13 April, the Labour League appointed George
Cartwright, the Laceby branch's second secretary, as their delegate in
charge. His wife and three children went with him, and the members of his
class at the Wesleyan chapel were transferred to White's class.85 Meanwhile
a much larger party was forming to leave in May, when the confined men
would once again be free. White reported that the villagers of Laceby were
amazed at the steady flow of fine strong healthy strangers coming to see
him about emigrating. Some who would not be free till May Day were
making application early in February to go on the May ship, for fear that
the New Zealand government might stop its free passages.86 This party
became so large that a special train was arranged for 25 May to take them to
Halcione. It left Grimsby with 140 emigrants aboard,
and stopped at six stations before it reached Alford, so that the total
reached 242. An emigrants' special was something new to the Great
Northern Railway, and the great weight of baggage had not been allowed
for. Two luggage vans had to be left behind at Alford, to follow by a later
train.87
A number of the members of this Halcione party will repay brief notice.
From Grasby came George Mumby, 30, farm labourer, with his wife and
four children. When Burton and White had visited Grasby, the Revd
Charles Tennyson-Turner had made the schoolroom available to them. It
was crowded to the door, and before the year was out George Mumby was
writing from Taranaki to his father-in-law, Francis Wilson of Grasby, and
other relatives and friends, to confirm what he heard that night. ‘Tell all
enquirers’, he wrote, ‘they may depend upon all Mr Burton said at the
lecture in the school room; I have found every word correct that he said
about the soil, the bush, the climate, the fruit and everything else that he
mentioned.’88 From Nettleton came John Borman, the Primitive
Methodist lay preacher, and his wife, and another Primitive Methodist
family, Francis Lacey, 35, farm labourer, with his wife and six children.89
From the little wold village of Cuxwold came Benjamin Urry, 38, farm
labourer, with his wife and five children. This family's birthplaces, as listed
in the 90 it was more common for the
wives to be reluctant to agree with their husbands' desire to emigrate.
Among those who joined the special train at Alford must have been Frank
Clough with his wife and seven children, from Willoughby. This will have
been the family which John H. White quoted in the Labourer of 24 April,
as an example of the incentive to emigration which miserble housing
conditions provided. ‘… father, 48, mother, 42, six sons,
18,16,14,12,7,4, and a daughter 10. Of course at May-day all these coming
home, and they write “be sure and get us off by the May ship - we have
only one bedroom.”’91 Also joining the train at Alford would have been
two related families from South Ormsby parish, on the eastern edge of the
wolds. From South Ormsby village came 42-year-old farm labourer
Richard Langley, his wife and seven children. At the Halcione party two further
daughters had been born. The emigration of agricultural foremen such as
Edward Wright, Michael Cook of Aylesby and George Oliver of
Elkington, gives support to White's contention that ‘nearly all the men
with brains’ were deciding to go.92
The steady work of White and Burton produced a flow of emigrants
during the remainder of at once’. As the audience were squatting on the bank on one
side of the roadway, and the chairman and speakers were on the other, they
were causing no obstruction so, after exchanging words with the farmer,
Burton resumed his address. The intruder thereupon laid hands on Burton,
and dragged him off towards the village. Burton insisted that he be taken to
the lock-up and the man, having got as far as the centre of the village, lost
his nerve and plunged into the public house. The disturbance had doubled
the crowd, so Burton seized the opportunity and once more addressed
them. The local clergyman, the Revd Andrew Veitch, then came forward
to speak. He said he had a son in New Zealand, and could confirm all that
Burton had said. White concluded the meeting by urging his listeners to
emigrate to a land where the rights of public assembly and free speech were
treated with more respect. The sequel to this affair was that the farmer, to
avoid a prosecution for assault, apologised to Burton, and paid him £2 10,
which he used to help some needy families to emigrate to New Zealand.
Our second example concerns a visit to the marsh village of Immingham
on 22 July. Here there was no overt opposition, but the meeting well
illustrates the humble nature of much of the emigration work. There was
no Labour League branch in the parish, so the meeting was announced by
means of a poster, which created a great stir in a village unused to labourers'
meetings. When Burton and White drove in, their first problem was to
accommodate their horse, as there was no public house in the place.
Having got over that difficulty they gave a lad sixpence to take a handbill to
each house, advising that the meeting was about to begin. The crowd
consisting of all the men of the village, and a few women, gathered on the
village green. It was decided that the ground there was too damp owing to
recent heavy rain, so the meeting adjourned to the parish pound, with the
poundkeeper's permission. A plank across one corner provided a platform,
and the men sat around in a square on the pound rails ‘like so many fowls
on their perches’, while the women stood outside, peering between the
rails. A local worthy took the chair, a hymn was sung, White asked for
three cheers, to show that they were ‘no-wise ashamed of what they were
doing’, and the two agents proceeded to tell their story.94 By such
primitive means was the future of many a north Lincolnshire labourer
transformed and the wilderness of the Taranaki bush peopled.
The rulers of rural society in north Lincolnshire did not let so many good
men leave them without considerable opposition. Among ‘all sorts of
influence’ which White found being used to dissuade intending emigrants,
a very common form was the spreading of falsehoods concerning New
Zealand, and the voyage thither.95 By the end of 98 One line of attack was to point out the
inconsistencies between the accounts Burton and White gave of the land,
climate and life of Taranaki, and the accounts sent home by the 97 The emigration meetings seem generally to
have proceeded without disturbance, but Burton and White seem to have
had a lively time in the marsh village of Hogsthorpe, on Labourer claimed that the working men of the village were kept in such
a state of slavish terror that they dared not speak their own thoughts.98 It
says much for the character, persistence and persuasiveness of White and
the Burtons that in the interests of New Zealand they succeeded in
extricating some two thousand emigrants from this rural world.
OUR STUDY OF the emigration movement in the Wychwood Forest area of
Oxfordshire's Cotswold hills, and in the northern wolds of Lincolnshire,
suggests some tentative conclusions as to the factors responsible for the
varying response to the emigration campaign. It would seem that New
Zealand agents could expect their best results in parishes where, for one
reason or another, the grip of the ruling rural hierarchy was weak.
Conversely, the kind of parish that would least repay their attention, and
probably refuse them even a hearing, would be one where control by the
traditional hierarchy was well established. Drawing on studies of rural
society in Victorian England it is not difficult to suggest a profile for a most
unresponsive parish. It would be a close parish, with one compact village,
dominated by the great house of a resident squire and by the parish church,
served by a resident clergyman. There would be no wastes in the vicinity to
tempt cottagers into wayward habits, or thoughts of independence. Village
life would be marked by strong traditions of deference, there would be no
nonconformity, and even the labourers' efforts for their own welfare
would be under the patronage of their employers. On the other hand, the
nature of the case suggests that there should be a marked correlation
between positive responses to the emigration appeal, and the distribution
of nonconformity - with both emigration and dissent making headway
where hierarchical social control was weakest. Professor Everitt's perceptive study, The Pattern of Rural Dissent:the Nineteenth Century, is
therefore very germane to our purposes.
Basing his findings on a close examination of four counties, Professor
Everitt has characterised several types of rural parish and of rural economy
in which the New Dissent arising from the eighteenth century Evangelical
Awakening, had taken root by the mid-nineteenth century. One of these
was the freeholders' parish. Everitt reports how in glancing through the
Imperial Gazetteer, published in 2 The gazetteer draws on the
Return of
We must now also give further attention to our suggestion that access to
wasteland was another significant factor in fostering independence and
predisposing villagers to undertake the enterprise of emigrating. An article
on ‘Labour Productivity in English Agriculture, 1850–1914’ by E. H.
Hunt, 3throws much light on this matter. After a careful examination of a
variety of evidence, Hunt concludes that the agricultural labourers of the
south and east of England were caught in a vicious circle of low wages, poor
nutrition, and low productivity, which was thus both a cause and a
consequence of low wage-rates. He quotes, for example, the conclusion
reached by Dr Edward Smith, after a very comprehensive survey
conducted in
… although the health and strength of the people may be moderately
well maintained on the existing dietary, it is more probable that mental
vigour and activity, as well as moral courage and enterprise are less
where the diet is low. There can be no doubt that the mental and
physical condition of the farm labourer and his family is much better in
those localities, where remunerative labour other than farm labour can
be obtained, than in purely agricultural districts.4
Hunt shows that Dr. Smith's conclusions were strongly supported by
5 This
greatly improved the labourers' lot, providing hot meals, a more comfortable home, and a means of drying wet clothes, invaluable when the
working man often had no change of clothing. The rural labourer's typical
physical circumstance in the low-wage areas from which the majority of
New Zealand's assisted immigrants of the 1870s were drawn, was that he
subsisted on a diet providing insufficient protein to ensure continuous
health and vigour, his clothes were frequently damp for days on end, and
his home was cold and comfortless. Few men in such conditions could be
expected to develop the energy and initiative required to face the process of
emigrating. Access, whether legal or illegal, to wood and game from the
waste, was not therefore a matter of minor significance. Rather, it must
often have made a crucial contribution to the acceptance of the physical and
psychological challenge which emigration represented.
The two regions that we have already examined have provided clear
illustrations of most of the aspects we have been discussing. It might be
argued, however, that their villages were scarcely typical of those which
provided the majority of the New Zealand immigrants, particularly on
account of the economic and social consequences of the recent large-scale
clearance and occupation of new farming land. Will the patterns we have
been discussing still hold when we move from these hills, with their
recently reclaimed farmlands, to the long-tilled lowland vales? For our
answer we turn to a selection of villages in lowland districts of Warwickshire, Berkshire and Bedfordshire. We will look first at a number of
parishes in the Feldon of east 6 Rider
Haggard, viewing this region from the verge of Edgehill one spring evening
in
… the view was truly magnificent. Three or four hundred feet below,
from the base of a steep wooded bank, stretched a gigantic plain
comprising tens of thousands of acres of land, so gigantic indeed, that
on the night of the Diamond Jubilee two hundred bonfires could be
counted from this spot …. in the far, far distance the horizon melted
into the pink evening sky. In the middle distance were clumps of
sombre woodland, and to the north-east, crested by a windmill, the
swelling hills, while nearer - their expanse broken only by the village of
Kineton and a few homesteads - numberless irregularly-shaped and
fenced meadows dotted with hedgerow timber, and here and there with
herds of cattle, lay beneath us like a map bounded by the mighty wall of
Edgehill.7
Long Itchington is a large parish a few miles east of 8 It comes as no surprise that among the fifty-two adults
selected in Halcione in 9 He appears in the
If my brothers and sisters come out here, tell them to bring a good ham
with them, and a cheese, and some onions, and a pot or two of jam for
they will find them useful on the voyage. Tell my brother John that the
rabbits are so thick in this country, in some parts, they give 5s. per
dozen for anyone that likes to go to destroy them. Dear sister, give my
love to mother, and brothers and sisters, and all enquiring friends; and
be sure to come here, and tell my neighbours not to be humbugged
about on 2s. per day in the old country, but to come to the land of
plenty, where they will get 9s. for eight hours work. There is no
starving here; it is a very fine country, and provisions are very cheap.10
When William Hitchcox wrote this letter another Long Itchington man,
Thomas Green, 35, quarryman, was already on the water, bound for New
Zealand with his wife and daughter on the Punjaub. Probably Thomas
Hitchcox, 28, farm labourer, of Long Itchington, who sailed on the
Wennington in
Don't be afraid of the seas, my fellow working men. I would cross them
a thousand times, if God spared me, if it was to my advantage. You can
sit down and smoke your pipe and the wind will blow you along. I
must tell you that I brought a good double-barrel gun with me, and am
not afraid to use it in this country. I can go out and shoot pigs, and all
kinds of wild fowls …. Don't be afraid to leave England, Tom, my
lad, for a worse country you will never find, and yet fathers and
mothers will persuade their children not to go abroad ….11
William Hitchcox's brother John may also have emigrated, for a John
Hitchcox, 35, farm labourer, sailed with his wife and five children on the
Lady Jocelyn in
The parish of Stretton-on-Dunsmore, lying a mile or two to the north of
Long Itchington, looks at least as promising as a source of emigrants. Like
Princethorpe, its neighbour to the south, it grew up as a hamlet of
Wolston, which borders it to the north. Stretton parish is elongated in
shape, extending about four miles from east to west, but measuring only
about a mile from north to south. The villagers of Stretton had had ample
experience of the benefits of the waste. The long eastward extension of
their parish embraced a substantial portion of Dunsmore Heath. To their
west lay extensive woods, both in their own parish, and over the borders of
the neighbouring parishes of Princethorpe and Wappenbury. Wappenbury
Wood was a large one of from 300 to 400 acres. The villagers had also
benefited from a Gardeners' Allotment Association, established in 12 A Stretton man, George
Allington, was one of the twelve agricultural labourers who were
foundation members of the executive committee of Arch's National
Union. In the 13
A few weeks later, on 29 October, a larger party of ninety-six emigrants
was farewelled from 14 Their leader was Thomas
Osborne, 50, farm labourer, of the village of Marton, which lies midway
between Stretton and Long Itchington. Marton provided forty-one of the
members of Osborne's party and at least two further Marton families left
for New Zealand the following year. Marton was an open freeholders'
parish in which the property was ‘much subdivided’.15
To strengthen our case as to the characteristics of parishes providing
emigrants, we will now examine several parishes in this part of Warwickshire which did not respond to the recruiting campaign. No New Zealand
assisted immigrants were found in a careful check of the 16 It had suffered at the hands of a ruthless
depopulator in the mid sixteenth century, and the results were still
apparent in the early nineteenth century. By the 1840s, however, a marked
growth in population was under way, leading to an increase of about two
and a half times in the course of the nineteenth century. This increase, most
17 Thus, until recent times, the village
had been of a closed, estate character, and the industrial development was
probably too recent to have deeply affected the temperament of its farm
labourers. The parish was virtually without woods, and its wasteland had
disappeared at enclosure following an Act of 18
in Priors Hardwick the property was ‘subdivided’.19 No assisted immigrant families were found in the Berar in
At the extreme south-east of 20 It is therefore fortunate for our purposes that the parish provided
a goodly number of emigrants for New Zealand. In the 1870s Týsoe was a
large, open, freeholder's parish. Most of its population of 1,112 was
concentrated in the three hamlets of Lower, or Temple Tysoe, Middle, or
Church Tysoe, and Upper Tysoe. This division of the village into three
distinct hamlets had been brought about by its water-supply. Each hamlet
extends along a brook arising in the hills above. A road runs through the
village, parallel to Edgehill, and there is a mile between the hamlets from
extreme north to south. The parish has a long history of settlement and
The Red Horse represented the oldest strand of village tradition,
providing a link with Saxon times. Until the last horse was ploughed out by
the landlord of Sunrising Inn, following the enclosure award of 21 If the
traditions about the Red Horse were vague and contradictory, the village
memories of the Battle of Edgehill of
heard of the very words men had spoken on the day of the battle.
‘Which side be you on, fellow?’ cavaliers riding from Compton
Wynyates had called out to a youth leaning on a gate. ‘Parlyment!
Parlyment!’, he answered witlessly. Instantly one of the riders fired his
musket in the air and off rushed the terrified lad up to the hills among
the gorse and hawthorn bushes, and there stayed two days. There were
lots of little stories: he even knew that Dame Wells had got up earlier
that day than Dame Colcott, and that the riders from Compton had
come in and seized her fragrant hot bread.22
But the village history more directly relevant to our story concerns the
more recent fortunes of the land and its labourers. In her biography of her
father, who was born in 23 The first major fruit of this family enterprise
appeared in
From their documents the Ashby family built up a picture of eighteenth
century Tysoe as a happy and united community, ‘a village of yeoman,
craftsmen, tradesmen, and a few labourers - not separate classes, but
intermarrying, interapprenticed sections of the community, unified by
farming in cooperation, and by as great mutual dependence in other
ways’.24 Village affairs were administered through town meetings held in
the church vestry, and the villagers conducted themselves not as ‘electors’
nor as ‘parishioners’ but as ‘neighbours’. The Overseers of the Poor
conducted themselves as servants of the meeting, supplying the modest
needs of those who came to them for aid with kindness and neighbourly
consideration. Thus in 25 It almost seemed as if the Vicars were leading the way in the
degradation of the labourers, planting high hedges to separate themselves
from the ‘parishioners’ whom they no longer considered as ‘neighbours’,
and turning the Town Land money, which the villagers considered to be
theirs as of right, into a ‘charity’ of unbleached calico and scarlet flannel.26
Such was the world into which were born Joseph Ashby, and the two
score or more villagers who emigrated to New Zealand. The Industrial
Revolution had influenced it little; the canals and railways, passing at a
distance, had only a limited effect, and the price of coal was almost doubled
in being transported the nine miles over the hills from the 27 Thus, in the 1870s, most of the villagers
earned their living labouring in the fields of the parish, and in neighbouring
depopulated Compton Wynyates. In their ‘street-and-smithy parliament’
they somehow kept alive something of the spirit of the more communal,
egalitarian past. The round of the chapel year and the annual gaiety of
Banbury Fair, helped the poor to keep their spirits up. Tysoe was clearly a
community where both Arch's union and the emigration agents could
expect to reap a harvest.
Miss Ashby gives us a vivid account, based on her father's memories, of
Arch's visit to Tysoe in the 29
The flow of emigration from Tysoe to New Zealand began only a month
or two after Arch's meeting. George Hancox, 33, farm labourer, joined the
Brogden party sailing by the Forfarshire from
… We went to work on Monday morning and we have been working
all the week eight hours a day, no longer. The second day, when we
came home from work, there were two legs of mutton in the boiler for
our supper, this seems enough to make a man dance after a hard day's
work…. There is plenty of chance in this country. Farmers are
advertising for farm labourers from 60 to 100 pounds a year and their
living for man and wife to do the cooking. We are not obliged to work
for Brogden at all at railway making; we can go where we like; he only
wants us to pay 5s. per week, and that is not much in this country. We
30
This letter was forwarded to the Labourers' Union Chronicle by the Tysoe
branch secretary, Thomas Hancox, to whom George had sent greetings.
As with many union leaders, Thomas Hancox was not a farm labourer; the
31 The
branch set itself the aim of getting the whole place ‘in union’, and another
large open air meeting was organised in November, to hear several visiting
union speakers.31
On 33 All three hamlets of Tysoe were
represented. From Upper Tysoe came William Philpott, 51, farm labourer,
with his wife and eight children; a young married couple, John and Mary
Philpott, with their two-year-old daughter, and Cyrus Winter, 22, farm
labourer, probably brother to Mary Philpott. From Church Tysoe came
Ann Fessy, 23, servant, who accompanied William Philpott's family, and
was probably a sister of his wife. From Lower Tysoe came two farm
labourers, Matthew Townsend and Alfred Styles, each accompanied by a
wife and four children. The members of this first party all landed at Bluff,
and seem to have settled in Southland. Several cheerful, newsy letters from
them were printed in the union newspaper. One, written to her grandmother in Tyson on
… We were delighted to get such a number of letters, especially so
many from your dear self. We have often felt sorry for you to think of
the long cold winter you were getting, and many a poor old woman at
Tysoe could not afford a good fire to warm her. I have often thought
how I would like to give them a seat near our large fire of pine logs,
and a meal of beef or mutton, but it is too far away.34
By 35
Once the Tysoe folk had shown the way, three families from Oxhill,
Tysoe's neighbouring parish to the west, left for New Zealand in 36 It had also
experienced the same pressure of population for a generation or two. It
differed from Tysoe in being smaller (a population of 376 in
From the Vale of the Red Horse we shift our attention something more
than thirty miles to the south, to the Vale of the White Horse in
Berkshire.37 As we have already noted, emigration to New Zealand from
this district resulted from the initiative of Arthur Clayden, a strong
supporter of Arch and the National Union. Clayden's home was in
Faringdon, and his recruits came mainly from this small market town and
the surrounding parishes. Faringdon lies on the low hills of the Corallian
Ridge, which separates the valley of the
Much of this western stretch of the Vale was in permanent grass, as the
land is low-lying and poorly drained. The soils, of clay and silt, were
fertile, and almost all farmers managed a little cropping, mainly of fodder
crops. The region had formerly been famous for its cheeses, which were
shipped down the 38 In 39 There was, in fact, much about the parish to suggest
that it should prove fruitful ground for union and emigration agents.
Between 1801 and 1861 the population of Stanford parish grew steadily
from 746 to 1,277. Though the 40 and in the enumerators' schedules of the
When the Forfarshire sailed from 41
telling something of this period in her father's life. The three young men
were with the party which Brogdens sent south from 42 Henry Simpson is probably the man of that name who owned
£70 worth of freehold at Palmerston in Otago in Forfarshire were the two Keen brothers,
Henry, 20, and James, 18, both labourers.43 They must also have gone to
the Forfarshire party a Faringdon man, Henry Cox, 21, labourer, sailed under
contract to Brogdens on the Lutterworth. In his first letter to his parents
after arriving at
I have got a good master and mistress and am getting £40 a year….
You can go out pig-hunting or bull-hunting… We kill for the ship's
company at 44
The fact that Henry Cox had served part of an apprenticeship to a butcher
in 45
Encouraged by good reports from these earlier emigrants, a party of
twenty-six left Stanford for New Zealand, sailing on the ship Sussex from
This is after dinner, Sunday. We have just had a beautiful shoulder of
mutton and potatoes; it's what I have not had for years before, but now
we can have it any time we choose. This is a capital country for a
working man to come to; there is no fear about living here, as you can
get plenty of beef and mutton at 3d. a pound, and as good as any you
can get in Stanford…. we are in view of a house now. House rent is
very high now, so many coming in at once; we have to pay 12s. a week
for the house, but Enoch and Louisa are going to live with us, so that
will be only 6s. a week each.46
Enoch and Louisa appear in the passenger list of the Sussex as a married
couple surnamed Willis, both aged 26, with a year-old daughter, Martha.
An unmarried sister, Ann Willis, 25, general servant, also accompanied
Enoch. Enoch wrote home to his parents on the same date (23 August
When the letters from Enoch Willis and William Keen appeared in the
Labourers' Union Chronicle, there was a footnote to William Keen's,
supplied by Henry Cox, Stanford, and dated Wild Deer, sailing from Sussex party had left in
On Labourers' Union
Chronicle to express his deep satisfaction with the results of the emigration
movement he had initiated a little more than two years earlier. He
estimated that some five hundred persons had left the district for New
Zealand. He reported that:
Every letter that has come has been full of the most conclusive proof of
the emigrants' welfare. The last letter I read was from the daughter of a
large family man, who left this town about a year ago. He had been
receiving here what Sir William Harcourt designated at 50
For our final examples of the effects of emigration movement on the
long-tilled lowland vales of the Midlands, we will turn to the Vale of
Bedford, to examine the results of Andrew Duncan's brief visit of April
Pilgrim's Progress draws heavily
on the landscape of the region, and its lowlying nature and stretches of
heavy soil have been given universal currency as the Slough of Despond.
The Continental refugees who contributed to Bedfordshire's nonconformity also left their mark on its industrial history, in the domestic
manufacture of pillow lace. Although the industry was depressed by the
competition of machine-made lace from the 1840s onward, there was no
marked decrease in the number of lacemakers in Bedfordshire until after
the
Duncan's meeting at Cople was probably occasioned by the parish
having a sympathetic clergyman, the Revd Havergal, who also accompanied Duncan to his meeting at Cardington.51 There appear to be no
published reports of the Cople meeting, or of emigration from the parish.
The characteristics of the parish do not suggest that it would have proved
fruitful soil - it was a close, estate parish, with no history of nonconformity. At Wilshamstead the meeting was held in a barn lent for the occasion,
and at the close several gave in their names for New Zealand.52 This parish
had more than doubled in population between 1801 and 1871. Its village
straggled for almost three miles across nearly the whole width of the parish,
and there were also the hamlets of Chapel End and Littleworth.
Wilshamstead possessed several other of the features that tended to foster
the pirit of independence and enterprise associated with emigration. It
contained a number of small freeholders, there was a Wesleyan chapel, and
where the Chilterns flanked the parish to the south there were extensive
woods. The story must also have been current of the local grocer's boy,
William Morgan (1829–1883) who had emigrated to 53 Duncan's other two
meetings, at Cardington and Lidlington, led to the emigration of several
Cardington of the 1870s was a large parish of 5,170 acres. In 54 Close studies of the population and
social structure of this parish in 1782 and 1851 have been made by N. L.
Tranter55, and these show it as an agricultural parish in which an
overwhelming proportion of the females aged over five years were
occupied in domestic handicraft industries, the principal one being
lacemaking. From an estimated 810 in 56 On 57 This
party sailed from Cathcart on 11 June, bound for
Canterbury. One of the Cardington families consisted of Joseph Fuller,
35, farm labourer, his wife Sarah, 31, lacemaker and their four children,
and another consisted of George Addington, 38, farm labourer, his wife
and six children. On 58
Andrew Duncan's Lidlington meeting was perhaps his most successful
in Bedfordshire. Lidlington of the 1870s was an open parish of 2,250 acres
with a population of 827 in 59 The village lies at the foot of a
steep hill, part of the ridge of greensand which runs along the northern edge
of the Chilterns. This hill is widely accepted as the original of Bunyan's
Hill Difficulty. There was an outlying hamlet, Boughton End, and there
were Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels, just to the east of
Lidlington, on the hill slopes of the neighbouring parish of Millbrook,
were extensive woodlands and further to the east below Millbrook parish
church, was a tree-clad valley, traditionally regarded as the original of
Bunyan's Valley of the Shadow of Death.60 Lidlington had been deeply
affected by the Revolt of the Field and the Great Lock-out. Arch had held a
great meeting in the large sand-pit to the south of the village, and it was here
that Duncan gave his address on the evening of 61 It is not
surprising that he should have met with a ready response, for the
Lidlington labourers had been locked out since early March.62 It seems that
the local branch of the union had asked the farmers to raise the men's wages
from thirteen shillings to fifteen shillings a week, and had been met with a
prompt lock-out of all union members. They had stood firm, even though
their employers had succeeded in recruiting men from a neighbouring
village. When a union delegate from 63
The first of the recruits from Duncan's Lidlington meeting sailed on the
Adamant from
KENT IS A county with a richly varied terrain, rolling downs and broad
plains, rich marshlands and fertile valleys. Probably few parts of England
had a more versatile rural labour force, as the Kentish labourers tended to
range widely, tackling the various tasks created by this diverse countryside. There was much seasonal migration to meet the labour demands of the
county's varied crops, and from the birthplaces recorded in the 1 the
Kent and
It has been well said that within the million acres of the county there are
six Kents: the Marshland from the 2 Within these six Kents there is
further rich variety. Thus Edward Hasted, surveying his native county in
the late eighteenth century, could write that the soil of Kent ‘is so different
in almost every parish that it is not possible to give any regular description
of it’: the variety of ground ‘is so great that it may almost be called from
thence an epitome of the whole kingdom.’3 This rich variety has helped to
make Kent a world of little worlds. ‘Kent has always been a large county on
a small scale; large in acreage, but possessed of small fields, farms, parishes,
hundreds, and gentry.’4 Bearing this underlying diversity in mind, we will
proceed with a broad general survey of the county.
Kent is a peninsula, with a hundred miles of sea coast. Its boundaries
form an irregular parallelogram, extending some 64 miles from east to
west, and with a breadth of 38 miles. Although it borders
From the physical geography of Kent we must turn to a brief survey of its equally varied human geography. In a survey of the four counties of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Lindsey, and Kent, as they were in the 1860s, Professor Everitt has found striking local and regional differences in the number and distribution of ‘freeholders’ parishes' (in which the land was divided amongst many small independent owners) and ‘estate parishes’ (in which virtually all the land was in the hands of a single magnate or a few wealthy squires). In Kent nearly two-thirds of the county consisted in the 1860s of freeholders' parishes, whereas in the three Midland counties the estate parish was the predominant form. But Everitt comments that within Kent the contrast between various regions was as striking as the contrast with the Midland area:
On the chalk Downlands as many as seventy per cent of all parishes
were estate parishes, whereas in the Weald and the Forest of Blean they
amounted to no more than nineteen per cent of the total. In other words
the downland areas of Kent were, in general, even more dominated by
the squirearchy than Northamptonshire or Lindsey: whereas the Weald
was still in 5
Until recent times, there were contrasts in the character of the
people of the different regions not much less striking than the contrasts in landholding.
The Weald, shut off in earlier times by its forests, and in later times
comparatively inaccessible on account of atrocious roads, had developed a
particularly marked local type. Thus Furley wrote in his History of the
Weald of Kent published in
… until the formation of our iron roads and the consequent increase of
intercourse, there was a marked difference between the inhabitants of the
Weald and the rest of the county. In dress, habits, and religious
opinions they appear a distinct and independent race. They were frugal,
long lived, hard working and resolute, and I may say, a God fearing and
God loving people.6
To enliven our account of the diversity of Kentish rural society, we cannot
do better than turn to the pages of William Cobbett's Rural Rides. In the
7 He had had to make a great stir at the inn, and leave behind
him the name of ‘ad___d noisy troublesome fellow’ in order to ‘get clear of
“the Wells”, and out of the contagion of its Wen-engendered inhabitants’
before sunrise. Cobbett described his journey towards a breakfast at
Goudhurst, thus:
The country from Frant to Lamberhurst is very woody. I should think five-tenths wood and three grass. The corn what there is of it, is about the same as farther back. I saw a hop-garden just before I got to Lamberhurst, which will have about two or three hundred weight to the acre.
This Lamberhurst is a very pretty place. It lies in a valley with beautiful hills round it. The pastures about here are very fine; and the roads are as smooth and as handsome as those in Windsor Park.
From the last-mentioned place I had three miles to come to
Goudhurst, the tower of the church of which is pretty lofty of itself,
and the church stands upon the very summit of one of the steepest and
highest hills in this part of the country. The church-yard has a view of
about twenty-five miles in diameter; and the whole is over a very fine
country, though the character of the country differs little from that
which I have before described.8
Repeatedly, as he journeyed across the Weald on this Sunday, Cobbett
came across gatherings of
… the Schoolmaster was reading to the children out of a tract-book,
and shaking the brimstone bag at them most furiously. This
schoolmaster was a sleek-looking young fellow; his skin perfectly tight;
well fed I'll warrant him: and he has discovered the way of living,
without work, on the labour of those that do work. There were 36 little
fellows in smock-frocks, and about as many girls listening to him; and I
dare say he eats as much meat as any ten of them ….9
Jogging on his way, Cobbett came to the village of Benenden, and as he
passed down the street he heard a man ‘talking, very loud about houses!
houses! houses!’
It was a Methodist parson, in a house, close by the roadside. I pulled
up, and stood still, in the middle of the road, but looking in silent
soberness, into the window (which was open) of the room in which the
preacher was at work. I believe my stopping rather disconcerted him;
for he got into shocking repetition …10
Cobbett soon left the preacher to his discourse on heavenly mansions for
the saved, and an awful fate for the damned. A hundred yards further on he
noticed the village stocks, which he decided the bawling fellow ought to
have occupied. Ending his day's journey at Tenterden, Cobbett attended
singing’, but from the preacher he
suffered a long prayer of ‘whining cant and of foppish affectation’ and a
sermon which was ‘as neat a dish of nonsense and of impertinences as one
could wish to have served up’.11
Cobbett's day's journey had, in fact, taken him through a district with a
long history of nonconformity. As early as 12 The Weald is noted for its large parishes; country
folk had often to walk miles to reach a church, and this fact, together with
the predominance of freeholders' parishes, goes far to explain the strength
which the Old Dissent gained in the region. In due course the 13
On Monday, 1 September, Cobbett passed through Appledore, and entered Romney Marsh:
This was grass-land on both sides of me to a great distance. The flocks
and herds immense. The sheep are of a breed that takes its name from
the marsh … Very pretty and large. The wethers, when fat, weigh
about twelve stone; or, one hundred pounds.
… The cattle appear to be all of Sussex breed.
Rider Haggard informs us that up to
From Romney Marsh, Cobbett rode over the downs, to reach
From the hill, you keep descending all the way to eighteeen square miles of corn. It is a patch such
as you very seldom see, and especially of corn so good as it is here….15
From
… All was corn around me. Barns, I should think, two hundred feet
long; ricks of enormous size and most numerous; crops of wheat, five
quarters to an acre, on the average; and a public-house without either
bacon or corn! The labourers' houses, all along through this island,
beggarly in the extreme. The people dirty, poor-looking; ragged, but
particularly dirty. The men and boys with dirty faces, and dirty
smock-frocks, and dirty shirts; and, good God! what a difference
between the wife of a labouring man here, and the wife of a labouring
man in the forest and woodlands of Hampshire and rake the
ground! they rake up the straggling straws and ears; so that they do the
whole, except the reaping and the mowing. It is impossible to have an
idea of any thing more miserable than the state of the labourers in this
part of the country.
After coming by seventeen men working on the roads, though the
harvest was not quite in, and though, of course, it had all to be threshed
out; but, at Monckton, they had four threshing machines; and they have
three threshing machines at Sarr, though there, also, they have several
men upon the roads! This is a shocking state of things …16
Cobbett travelled on to Canterbury, and then turned north, to reach Faversham for the night. From a vantage point on the way, he describes the northern borders of the downs, and the coastal marshland:
… In coming from Canterbury, you come to the top of a hill, called
Baughton Hill, at four miles from Canterbury on the 17
Next morning Cobbett struck west from Faversham, crossing the breadth of the North Downs. In our final description from his narrative he has reached the edge of the scarp above Hollingbourne:
… Upon the top of this hill, I saw the finest field of beans that I have
seen this year, and by very far, indeed, the finest piece of hops. A
beautiful piece of hops, surrounded by beautiful plantations of young
ash, producing poles for hop-gardens. My road here pointed towards
the West. It soon wheeled round towards the South; and, all of a
sudden, I found myself upon the edge of a hill, as lofty and as steep as
that at Garden
of Eden. It is a district of meadows, corn field, hop-gardens, and
orchards of apples, pears, cherries and filberts, with very little if any
land which cannot, with propriety, be called good. There are plantations
of Chestnut and of Ash frequently occurring; and as these are cut when
long enough to make poles for hops, they are at all times objects of
great beauty.18
We must supplement our brief survey based on Cobbett's tour with
reference to some developments of the following decades. The coming of
the railways was of major importance. In the 1840s the Weald and much of
East Kent were opened up. For centuries the marshlands and North
Downs had benefited from their easy access by water to the 19 Hop-farming had become an
immensely lucrative business with the growing demand for beer created by
England's rapidly increasing population. By the middle of the nineteenth
century hops were being grown in more than 300 of the 400 rural parishes
of Kent, and there had been widespread building of hop-kilns.20 Hop
cultivation had a profound effect upon rural social and economic
structures. The hop garden tended to dominate the farm as, owing to the
hop's heavy manure requirements, the bulk of the farm was often treated as
a fertiliser factory for this one demanding crop.21 It also required more
labourers per acre than other forms of cultivation, and to recruit and hold
them higher wages were paid. In hop districts the best labourers were
invariably drawn into hop cultivation, but the general level of farm wages
was also raised.22
It was generally accepted that in Kent the rural labourer tended to be
better off than in the neighbouring counties. Not only were his wages
usually a little higher, but field work was also more readily available for his
wife and children.23 Cottages appear to have been rather better than the
country's average standard.24 Schools were universal, and also tended to be
above the general level in quality.25 Yet despite marginal advantages over
many of his contemporaries, the Kentish labourer did not lack for
grievances. All the grounds for resentment and complaint that we have
noted elsewhere can be amply documented from Kent. At the commencement
of the Revolt in Kent, Alfred Simmons maintained that the standard
wage of the county's farm labourers was nominally thirteen shillings, but
that time lost through inclement weather and other influences brought the
year's average down to about ten shillings a week.26 For the full wage the
labourer had to work a 63 hour week.27 A typical working day was from 6
a.m. to 6 p.m. There was often a walk of several miles before the 6 a.m.
start, with no break from then till noon. When these hours are related to
the meagre diet which the labourers' wages afforded, their miserable level
of living can be imagined. Simmons quoted as typical the case of a
I get 12s per week standard wages, and have been obliged to go out to
work during the day with nothing but a bit of bread to eat. I have
sometimes knocked down a rabbit, and I am sorry to say that I have
sometimes been obliged to steal turnips in order to support myself and
five children.28
It was not at all uncommon for a man to go out to do a hard day's work,
taking nothing but a piece of dry bread and an onion to sustain him.29 A
Many of the old fashioned houses are more like barns, and will scarcely
keep out the wind and rain, whilst some of the new ones are so small
that both sexes are huddled together indiscriminately…. As I write
this the pictures of several country homes in this locality seem to rise
before me. There is the brick floored kitchen, with a small piece of
matting for a hearth rug; in one corner stands a crazy table, with a few
old chairs, some of which are minus the bottoms. The walls are damp,
and the kitchen reeks with the odour and soap suds, cabbage water,
&c., from the washhouse adjoining. The wife, perhaps takes in a little
washing, that is when she is not on the farm, and the youngest are left
with a neighbour, or the eldest girls ‘minds them’.30
Their growing knowledge of better labouring conditions elsewhere was
making the rural workers of Kent less willing to be humbly content with
their lot. Other changes arousing their resentment were a steady loss of
perquisites, and a growing extravagance in the style of living of many
farmers. The change in the labourers' general position can be well
illustrated by comparing descriptions supplied to the union by two
workers. The first had a master who as late as
… I must tell you how my master uses me. He is not one of your
black cloth gentlemen, but wears a smock frock and goes into the fields
to work with us. He has not reduced the wages, as many others seem to
have done; he is not a grumbler; he allows me straw for a pig, turnips
and green peas in the summer, and a piece of field ground to grow
potatoes. He also lets me have a sack of wheat at a reasonable price. So
you see there are a few good masters left. He gave me 5s. for a
Christmas box, and my mistress gave me a joint of pork.31
The other account, signed ‘A Poor Locked-Out Woman’, written in
… I read Mr Stunt's letter in the Standard, but he is quite wrong when
he says that farmers allow straw for a pig. They used to do so, and let
their men have a pig out of the yard at a reasonable price; but go and
ask them now, and the answer you get is, ‘Oh, I can't sell one; Mr
So-and-so takes all mine.’ Then you must buy of Mr So-and-so, and
give his price. I have been on the same farm for 45 years, and have seen
the death of lots of their privileges; they go off one by one. A man used
to be allowed all his chips when sharpening old poles, and roots when
grubbing; in fact, a man got half his firing. He may knock two or three
shillings worth of tools out a week now; but let him dare to carry any
wood home. At one time we could go out into the turnip field, and get
a few turnips or turnip-greens, but that is dead … We could also buy
windfall apples for about 1s a bushel, and gathered fruit for about 2s,
but now they must all go to 32
When he appeared before the 33
Yet the farmers persisted in the blind belief that the traditional ‘good
feelings’ still continued between them and their men, while they thus
whittled away customary privileges, and indulged in new luxuries
themselves. ‘We can look any day from our work,’ complained one
labourer in the first days of the Revolt, ‘and see them dash by with their
carriage and pair and servants in livery’.34 Some years later, when the
Reynolds' Newspaper wrote of
the farmers of Kent as ‘men who say they cannot pay wages, and then
appear in the hunting field mounted on the best horse in the meet’.35 The
periodical Light remarked of Kent that ‘her lands are fat; her yeomen live in
small palaces; her farmers are men with “fair round bellies” of content and
comfort; her hop-growers drink port instead of beer for dinner’. But the
poor devil of an agricultural labourer with a wife and six small children had
four-and-twenty pence a day as his taste of Paradise.36 It is little wonder
that some labourers began to ponder whether their promised land might
not lie elsewhere.
In the first quarter of 37 We must examine
the various influences which had been readying these villagers to move in
such numbers. One was the attitude of their union leader. Unlike Arch,
Simmons was sympathetic towards emigration right from the start of the
Revolt. As early as 38 At a large union meeting at Otham on 39 Over the next few months
the union had numerous enquiries regarding assistance to emigrate, to
which it was compelled to turn a deaf ear through lack of the necessary
funds. The offer of free passages by the Queensland government, and the
receipt of a £30 donation from the Amalgamated Society of Engineers,
enabled the union to announce on 28 September that it could begin
40 Simmons's experiences in gathering this party
must have greatly strengthened his support for emigration, and the letters
sent home by these emigrants, and the parties which followed them to
Light Brigade, at
Christmas 41 From his enquiries,
Simmons concluded that hundreds of labourers had worked only two or
three days a week over the last quarter of 42
This background adds force to comments in the letters from these
emigrants. ‘We have a good place, thank God,’ wrote one from a station in
Queensland, ‘plenty of meat to eat, and can run to the place where it is kept
when we like. The dogs get more, out here than we could get at home.’43
This was one of a number of letters from 44 They were sent by folk who had
left various parts of Kent - Minster on the 45 wrote an emigrant from East Kent, early in 46 ‘I get 18s. a week and my board’, reported
a man who had left Perry Wood, on the downs. ‘We live well, and the
family and servants all sit down to meals together…. We have the chance
to shoot as we like.’47 ‘This is a remarkable place for getting married’,
wrote a young woman emigrant. ‘… There are so few girls to the men,
that every girl stands a chance of getting a husband. I can tell you that I
never had any peace until I got married.’48
Kent had sent New Zealand a good number of immigrants over the years
since the founding of the colony. The county was well represented among
the Wakefield colonists of the 1840s.49 A study of immigration into
50 and other provinces must also have received their share. These
earlier emigrants must have had some influence on the movement from
51 The Kentish villagers, however, knew
little enough geography, and in any case the distinction between New
Zealand and the other Australasian colonies would have meant little to
them. The letters from Forfarshire, they transferred their applications to
New Zealand.52 This shift must have cut across various relationships and
friendships, leading to some consequent later movements across the
Tasman.
The William Davie with the Kent Union's first New Zealand party,
reached the colony's southernmost overseas port, Bluff Harbour, on 12
53
On
I very often think of the slaves in England and the empty bellies A man
is drove to be dishonest in England, but here there is no call for him to
54
The following 55
Some of the William Davie's party made strong and direct pleas for
friends and relations to follow them. Thus George Woollett, 33, farm
labourer, who had come out with his wife and five children, wrote from
George, I wish you were here as your trade is the best one out here,
and it is a job to get a carpenter. You would get from 12s. to 14s. a day
for eight hours, it is all eight hours here…. Get the horse whip at my
brother Thomas's and drive him with you to Mr Simmons at once. This
place would just suit him for there are thousands of rabbits here and
wild ducks, and swamp turkeys, and the farmers are pleased to see
anyone shoot them - any amount of rabbits. Tell all the single girls to
come here, they'll get about £40 or £50 per year.56
George Woollett himself was making a living cutting cordwood in the
bush, with the help of his 11-year-old son Lewis. Working from nine till
five, they were averaging ten shillings a day. George mentions the
abundance of wood as one of the attractions of New Zealand. ‘I go out
the back door and cut down a tree when I want it’, he reports, ‘so we don't sit
cold out here’. George sends greetings to all his friends, mentioning one,
Johnny White, by name, and concludes with the appeal to ‘come at once to
old Busser’. Whether George the carpenter responded to this appeal one
cannot say, but Thomas Woollett, a 38-year-old labourer, who sailed for
New Zealand with his wife Susan on
Throughout 57 On 20 May Simmons
could tell the union's second annual demonstration that 1,700 persons had
been assisted to emigrate in the preceding twelve months, bringing the total
to 2,200,58 and by mid-October this figure had risen to 3,000.59 Yet at the
60 He quoted no figures on emigration; a fact to
which the unsympathetic Maidstone and Kentish Journal of
The Kent union's wages movement, begun in 61 While Arch opposed a Union friendly society, Simmons
launched a Union Sick Fund towards the end of 62
The fund paid sickness benefits, funeral allowances for members and their
wives, and confinement allowances for members' wives. The annual report
to the Union Demonstration of
The Union Sick Fund was responsible for a new approach to union-church relations which began to develop in mid 63 The Union paper thenceforward assiduously reported the
parades, and from time to time printed special sermons that had been
The union launched several other programmes to foster the welfare and
independence of its members. In 64 Meanwhile the union was also alert and active in all the
usual functions of an industrial union. It protested effectively when its
members were subjected to unfair competition, as happened when soldiers
or coastguardsmen were placed at the disposal of the employers.65 It was
continuously involved in providing legal protection for the rural labourer;
Simmons informed the 66 Through its newspaper, which attained a circulation of around 10,000, and by other means, it continued the labourer's
education, and encouraged him in self-improvement. The branches
responded with a great deal of local self-help, organising bands, anniversary dinners, and rural fetes. It is clear that through these various activities,
the union succeeded in giving its members a new image of themselves.
Some of the members explained the change to a 67 It is not surprising that Simmons and many of
his followers began to feel that the Kentish rural labourer did not need to
cross the oceans in order to enjoy a new day.
Yet though the emigration flow slackened markedly after the great year
of Atrato, settled together in
… You say your mind is made up to come here. If so, you had better
come at once, but don't deceive yourself. You will have to work for your
living in a fair way, but you will get paid for it. They are giving eight
shillings a day for eight hours, that is a shilling an hour, but if you are
as I have been told you will get something better. I have blessed the day
that I came, for it is a good thing for my children, and it might be for
yours. Some day, I dare say, you father and mother will blame me, but
it will be wrong of them to do so, for they ought to have been here
years ago. When you are brought to New Zealand you will be brought
from the ship by train to 68
The hills of the western sweep of Kent's North Downs, in Wrotham and its
neighbourhood, provided a somewhat similar grouping of immigrants in
James is getting 7s. a day … working for a man that came out from
Westerham twelve months ago. He is a gardener. The two sisters who
came out with us are living in the town, and the men are working there.
Clark is working with the bricklayers and Crowson is living at a hotel,
in the stables; he gets 7s. a day and picks up besides 5s. or 6s. a day. He
has got the best place of the lot.69
Other parishes to which numbers of New Zealand immigrants can be
traced include Kemsing, in the downlands west of Wrotham, Rainham on
the northern marshlands, Willesborough, in the Homesdale near Ashford,
and several villages in the Weald, including Marden, Brenchley and
Lamberhurst. Again and again the human story of emigration was repeated
with a range of individual variations. From a farm near 70 In how many cases, one
wonders, had the energy and initiative that led to emigration found earlier
expression in poaching? Was Samuel Hinkley, 25, labourer, emigrating
with his wife and two young children on the Atrato in 71 Joseph Reader, gamekeeper, had caught
this Hinckley in a hop garden, hiding behind a hop-pole stack with a dog
and a gun. Reader had been out with the gentleman who hired the shooting
of the farm, and this gentleman corroborated his evidence, and stated that
there were rabbits in the wood adjoining the hop-pole stack. This
inevitable consequence of the juxtaposition of meat-hunger and game
preserving must have provided many a tale for the New Zealand winter
fireside - perhaps, in a different social world, placing some strain on the
credulity of the colonial-born among the listeners. Brenchley may have
been a particularly hungry place at this period, for Obed King, 35, farm
labourer, who emigrated to William Davie, wrote back to his sisters and
brothers a few months later that ‘there are as many rabbits, ducks and
turkey as we like to shoot’.72 Very few letters, though, are without some
reference to the improved diet enjoyed in the colony. When Samuel
Robins, an immigrant from Marden, a village neighbouring Brenchley,
wrote home to his parents from Otago in 73
Of the many New Zealand immigrants whose letters were printed in the
union's newspaper over these years, one especially merits our attention,
for the cycle of letters he provided over several years, together with other
information available about him, enable us to construct a much fuller
account than is generally possible of the circumstances and emotions that
led to emigration. He is John Piper, who was recorded in the 74 Nearly six years later,
I happened to be present on that first cold, rainy night that Mr Simmons
held his first meeting in the old city of 75
Our next definite glimpse of John Piper is in 76 A few
weeks later the neighbouring Perry Wood branch had a dinner for union
members at the Rose and Crown, and among those who addressed them
was ‘Mr. John Piper, who, from his earnestness in the cause rejoiced in the
cognomen of “Union Jack.”’ What had happened between 1872 and 1875,
and why had Piper moved away from Sturry? There is evidence to suggest
that this was caused by his being persecuted for his interest in the union. He
may well have been the man referred to by Simmons in his union column
on
We have received a letter from a man, known personally to us, and who
is as honest-hearted a fellow as ever breathed. He is an industrious
agricultural labourer and having taken some interest in the labourers'
movement in Kent, he was appointed local secretary to a branch of the
Union a mile or two from the wealthy city of afraid to
come to our meetings for fear of being discharged from work.’77
Simmons reported that the discharged secretary had been working for the
same employer for some years, and keeping a wife and family on a wage of
two shillings and sixpence a day, with stoppages for slackness of work and
rainy and frosty weather. That the branch referred to was Sturry seems
likely from a news item of the following year, reporting a meeting which
78
Whatever Piper may have suffered in the persecution of union members
at Sturry, it did not dampen his enthusiasm for the movement. In his new
position he actively canvassed for the union, putting himself increasingly at
odds with his new employer. Some of the stratagems and polemics of the
contest between this determined labourer and his affronted employer can
be gathered from a letter Piper wrote home to a friend on
Little did Mr Birch think, when he sent me one side of a 16 acre field
and you the other, that old ‘Union Jack’, as they called me, would be in
New Zealand in so short a time, and be the means of starting so grand a
speculation as hop growing will be here in a few years … I think it
was a good thing for Mr Birch when he gave us notice to leave, or we
should have got all the men into the Union. Mr Birch told me that
labourers were all too dainty to eat the odds and ends of the butcher's
meat; but now I can congratulate myself that I can have good butcher's
meat three times a week, being able to purchase beef or mutton at 4d.
per pound. So you see the more the employers of labour persecute their
men the more likely the Union is to prosper…. I often wonder what
Mr Birch thinks now of the Union, and the time when he used to say,
‘Your leaders will run away with all your funds’. I think Mr Birch used
to talk as he wished; he was in hopes they would run away with all the
funds, but he was afraid they would not. I say now as I said when he
gave me the half-pint of beer to drink up, ‘Success to the Labourers'
Union and all in connection with the same.’79
Piper's dismissal by Mr Birch thus led directly to his emigration to New
Zealand. In the Kent and Sussex Times of
I often wonder what Mr Birch thinks now about the men's twopences
that he used to blow about so much. I always thought the Union would
surprise him and a great many more of his class. This lock-out will pick
the skin off some of their eyes, I am thinking.81
We must now turn to Birch, and the other farmers of Kent, to see how it came about that so many of them had decided on a show-down with the union over this winter.
Over the years groups of farmers had made a number of local challenges
to the union, but had always been bested by the men. The most ambitious
efforts were probably those in the High Weald in 82Lamberhurst was the main centre of this challenge, and
the union had already held an indignation meeting of some 1,000 men there
on 7 June, to make payments to thirty dismissed men. This effort of the
farmers seems to have wilted rapidly in the face of the union's determined
response. The conflict on the Isle of Sheppey in 83 When on 10
July one of the Sheppey farmers savagely assaulted a locked-out labourer
and his wife, the union successfully prosecuted him at the Sittingbourne
Petty Sessions, though it maintained that the penalty of a small fine and 14
days' imprisonment was so inadequate as to amount to a flagrant
injustice.84 In August the union assisted a party of nineteen to emigrate
from the island to 85 and the lock-out faded away thereafter. A
feature of all these farmers' defence efforts was that they were local affairs
which the union successfully countered through its county-wide organisation. The local nature of farmer action arose from the fact that they had
no effective institution operating on a larger scale than the agricultural
district. As we have already seen,86 each agricultural district functioned as a
little kingdom whose affairs were guided by an informal farmers'
parliament, meeting in an inn in the district's market town. When Farmers'
Defence Associations appeared, they had strong links with these local
‘farmers’ parliaments'.87 The failure of the various ‘Parliaments’ of the
county to achieve any concerted action prior to
One reason why the farmers found it difficult to accede to a new
independence for their men, was that their own relationship to their
landlords remained unchanged. As one unionist put it, ‘Here a landlord
don't feel happy without he's got his farmers under his thumb’.88 In a social
system where the farmers owed deference to their ‘betters’, it meant a great
deal to their self-esteem that they should in turn receive deference from
their men. But steadily throughout the 1870s they had seen the labourers
89 Meanwhile the
farmers had other worries beside the unrest of their labourers. They had
been experiencing a succession of bad seasons, but these had not, as in the
past, led to a rise in prices. As a result of ever-growing foreign competition,
agricultural prices were steadily drifting downwards. Yet many of the
farmers faced still rising rents, for their landlords had not yet read the
economic signs of the times. Of the various sources of their troubles, only
the union offered the farmers a ready target for retaliation.
The lock-out, which was set in motion as soon as the
Facts which have come to light during this week show very clearly that
the movement to press down the agricultural labourers' wages emanated
from one or two aristocratic and wealthy sources; and if the farmers
through following the hot-headed advice of these few gentlemen, now
find themselves embroiled with their labouring men, they have no-one
but themselves and their advisers to thank for it. When such men as the
Russells and Lord Darnley, and Sir W. Hart-Dyke, in West Kent; or
such men as Mr Plumptree, and the Neames, and the Lakes, of East
Kent; when such men as these, many of them rolling in wealth, call the
smaller farmers around them, tell them they are foolish fellows, advise
them to cut down their labourers' wages, and begin by doing the same;
why who can wonder if these smaller farmers, feeling the screw thus put
down upon them, turn round and timidly follow in their leaders'
footsteps like a flock of sheep?90
Simmons's story seems a likely one, for while the farmers were not in a
position to initiate concerted county action, the landowners, through their
involvement in the traditional county institutions, could readily do so.
After a period of planning, the final signal for the lock-out was given at a
91
Forewarned by union intelligence that a crucial trial of strength was
upon him, Simmons called a meeting of union representatives to 92 But no self-respecting trade union could accept an arbitrary
reduction, imposed without discussion, and often even without the due
week's notice. The union had no option but to call out its men, which no
doubt was what the farmers had intended to bring about.
The number of unionists ‘locked out’ for refusing to accept wages
reductions rose steadily to about 900 by mid-December, and remained
around this figure to the end of January.93 As Simmons had anticipated
supporting up to 3,000 on union funds,94 the farmers had not been very
successful in rallying their forces. Apparently much of the support they
had expected, did not eventuate in the face of the obvious spirit of the
union, and widespread public sympathy for the locked-out men. Union
tactics included mass indignation meetings, such as one in 95 On Monday, 18
November, the locked-out men assembled in en route, culminating in a
procession to a mass rally in Exeter Hall on 20 November, well supported
by the city trade unions.96 Public sympathy was further stimulated when in
mid-December several farmers began eviction proceedings in the Canterbury and Faversham county courts, against labourers in tied cottages.
Engaging expert counsel, the union successfully played for time, the judge
97 However, the prospect of wholesale evictions
added urgency to Simmons's efforts to organise an emigration drive, in
accordance with a union decision made at the beginning of the fight. We
have already followed his negotiations with the New Zealand authorities,
culminating in the offer of free passeges for 700 farm labourers and their
families, which Simmons announced to a mass meeting in 98 We will here consider the recruitment and despatch of this
party from the viewpoint of the emigrants, paying particular attention to
the human experience it involved.
The depths of winter were, of course, an unpopular season for
emigration, and after several years of better times brought about by the
union, recruits did not come forward as readily as Simmons had hoped.
The best response came naturally from those districts where the farmers
were most determined, and where the villagers were under threat of being
hunted from their homes. One such area was the High Weald, where the
farmers had expressed their resentment of the union so strongly in the
99
Simmons held a great meeting of 1,200 men at Matfield Green, a hamlet in
this parish, on 6 November, and in due course several members of the
branch joined the New Zealand party.100 A Daily News correspondent
who visited 101
But it was in East Kent that the lock-out was most determinedly pressed.
‘You must get further away’, the Daily News correspondent reported,
‘towards Canterbury, Chilham, Wingham and Faversham to find yourself
in the heart of the lock-out districts’.102 Early in November Simmons
visited some of the hardest hit villages, holding meetings at Wingham,
Chilham, and Oversland, at each of which places, and the districts
surrounding them, he found large numbers of farm labourers locked-out
and under notice of eviction from their cottages. The spirit of John Piper
seems to have lived on in the Oversland - Perry Wood area. At Oversland a
large number of the wives of the locked-out men met Simmons in the
afternoon preceding his public meeting there, and expressed their strong
solidarity with their menfolk.103 Perry Wood must also have been right in
the battle, for when the emigrants organised a procession while filling in
time waiting for their ship at 104 In neighbouring Selling, the union gave a demonstration
of its strength and determination. Union members employed by Edward
Neame of Selling Court had accepted wage reductions and continued
working. According to the Canterbury Journal and Farmers' Gazette, on 9
December the central executive gave them notice that unless they joined the
strike forthwith they would be suspended from all benefits of the union.105
Perhaps nowhere was the struggle more bitter than in the two downland
parishes of Chilham and Chartham, just to the south of Selling and
Oversland. Thirteen labourers in these parishes received summonses for
eviction from their cottages from three farmers, all surnamed Marten, and
nine of these were in due course taken before the Standard. The correspondent found that he farmed about a thousand acres, most of it his own
freehold. On one of his farms 15 men had struck out of 17, on another 30
out of 50. Nevertheless he anticipated no difficulty in getting his hop
gardens dug over the winter, as the closing of the brick fields at this season
created an excess of labour.106 Chilham provided a strong contingent for
the Stad Haarlem. The branch farewelled its departing members at a
meeting at the White Horse, and somehow scraped together seventeen
shillings and sixpence to help them on their way.107 Among them, if they
had not moved elsewhere since the 108 As a result of
the compassion of the judge in delaying the enforcement of the eviction
orders, most of those affected had either emigrated or found alternative
accommodation before the orders came into force. However two large
families at Chilham, under notice from John Marten, had to be rescued by
the union and accommodated in the Sun Inn, 109
The party which finally assembled in 110 Another union leader was James Pratt who
had for some years been a member of the union's executive committee. As
chairman of the Otham branch, he had presided at a meeting there on 2
111 He appears on the Stad
Haarlem's passenger list as a 35-year-old farm labourer, accompanied by
his wife and their one-year-old daughter. He was almost certainly the man
from Otham described by a Daily News correspondent who accompanied
the emigrants when their train left
‘I have been round the world and seen, and served my time as a
short-service man. I was on her Majesty's Basilisk, under Sir William
Hewitt; and fine times we had; for the harbours of 112
James Pratt was appointed one of the constables among the Stad Haarlem
emigrants, and Reuben Baldwin became assistant to the ship's surgeon.
With their leadership talents they no doubt made their contribution to the
community life of rural New Zealand.
The emigrants began arriving in Daily News correspondent watched them
assemble, and described them thus:
It seems that the same law which I have remarked in other parts of the
country obtains in Kent; the best men, the best instructed, the most
muscular, in every sense the most valid men, emigrate, leaving the old
decrepit, and inferior behind … So far as I have seen, the emigrants
from Kent of tomorrow are composed of powerful men, great
square-shouldered fellows, some of whom were trying their hands, or at
least their feet, at skating, as if trying to be out of their troubles …
With them rejoiced their wives and neatly-dressed children … There
was no lack of flags in the handsome Skating Rink, especially of the
tricolour - the Union Jack occurring far more rarely; and there was
music enough to celebrate any march out.113
The emigrants had tea at the Rink, then their friends joined them for a
farewell evening of band music and speeches. The men of the party then
dispersed to various lodgings, and the women and children bedded down at
the Rink. All reassembled at the Rink for breakfast, and then marched
through crowded streets to the station, carrying banners, such as ‘Kentish
Peasants, Evicted and Destitute’. They were joined by those who had spent
their last night in their old homes. The Daily News reported fifty cottages
left vacant between Ashford and Faversham. Skilled hop workers in the
party were taking cases of hop sets with them.
The Daily News correspondent travelled with the party to
the depressing influence of the many who came to see them off - aged
parents left on the parish, at least until their children should have made
some progress in the new home of their adoption; brothers and sisters,
themselves ineligible for emigration by reason of their enormous
families; old friends, left behind to sink into poverty …114
The train at last moved off, to the tune of ‘The girl I left behind me’, played on the handbells by local artists. Even then the union's farewell to its departing members was not complete. As the train steamed westward that morning, below the snow-streaked scarp face of the downs, and the emigrants looked for the last time on the bare winter woods, fields and hop gardens of their native county, again and again they were cheered on their way by groups of labourers who had gathered to see them pass. The strong branch at Wrotham staged a particularly lively demonstration. Many who stood to cheer that day would have been temporarily unemployed, as the state of the ground was unfavourable to farm operations.
During the journey the Daily News reporter learnt a good deal about the
backgrounds and outlook of the emigrants. He concluded that
They wanted to ‘get on’, these gentle, civil-spoken southern
agriculturists. There is no blatant mob-oratory ring about their modest
aspirations. ‘We should like to see our children better off than we have
been.’115
He heard talk from the men of the good chances of owning land in the
colony, and found that the single young women had heard of excellent
marriage prospects there. He spent some time with members of the Sparks
family who illustrated both these ambitions, which in due course they were
to see fulfilled. George Sparks, 39, was a shepherd from the North Downs,
emigrating with his wife, and six children, including Ann, 19, Louisa, 16,
and Emma, 12. His employer had tried to reduce his wages, saying that
corn had fallen, but Sparks contested this argument as the farmer was
growing no corn, but rather buying maize as stock food. Having won his
Stad Haarlem.116
As he mixed with the emigrants on the 59 day voyage to New Zealand,
Simmons learnt a great deal about the petty persecution of unionists in the
Kentish villages. He found that union families were commonly excluded
from local charities, and from the distribution of school prizes. He heard a
great deal about the difficulties put in the way of departing emigrants, such
as refusals to give character references, and failure to pay wages due to
those leaving. He reported that he could furnish a list of a hundred farmers
who had damned his name, and expressed fervent hopes that the ship
would take him to the bottom of the sea. However, while she was making a
safe and uneventful voyage to the colony, the farmers' lock out was
collapsing back in Kent. The departure of the Stad Haarlem party took the
heart out of it. The number on union funds dropped to 750 by 15 February,
and to 300 by 8 March. Endeavours by the farmers to recruit labour from
outside the county met with little success, and they eventually began taking
union men back at the old rates. By early April the lock-out was confined
to East 117
The Stad Haarlem's immigrants were described by the Immigration
Officers in New Zealand as ‘of a very desirable class’ and were praised
because all were ‘anxious to get into the country and find work’.118 Harder
times had returned in the colony by the time the ship arrived, and some
members of the party had a considerable wait before they found positions.
It was not long, however, before many of them, like the earlier comers,
were sending enthusiastic reports back to the homeland. George Morgan,
who had left Littlebourne with his wife and three children, reported that he
had a better job on the Otago railway works ‘than digging Mr Collard's
hop-garden’. ‘You would not think we were starving if you were to look in
our kitchen now,’ he wrote on 119 In a
letter dated a month earlier Morgan reported that ‘Mr Collard would not
sign my papers for me, but that did not stop me from coming here.’120 On 5
121 George Goodwin, a late member of the union's
Cuxton Road branch, with his wife and two children, was also living at
122 With the onset of
harder times back in the homeland, these letters must have led many a
Kentish villager to enquire about emigrating, only to find that the New
Zealand government was no longer offering free passages
WITH CORNWALL AND1 We shall therefore have to
proceed without the aid of the newspapers of the rural unions which have
so far proved such invaluable sources, making possible a close touch with
the humble actors in the emigration story. Since we have already covered a
wide range of rural England, it would be tempting to ignore these less well
documented western counties, but much would be lost if we did so. The
Revolt was by no means the only factor in rural emigration, and our
account will gain in balance by going beyond its bounds. For
The land of
The modern traveller through
The story of Cornish mining begins in prehistoric times with the
working of alluvial stream tin. In the course of time tin miners who had
exhausted alluvial deposits, sought and exploited the underground lodes.
As they dug deeper they came to copper lodes, which were first exploited
in
To understand the fortunes of the New Zealand emigration drive in
The underground miners of 2 The tutman did ‘tut’ work, which was
simple excavation let out by contract to the party offering the lowest bid. A
tut party consisted of a number of men, normally divided into three gangs,
each of which would work an eight-hour shift, so that work proceeded
right round the clock. When a new mine was being opened up, tutmen
were employed to sink the shaft and run the levels in preparation for
working the lode. Once metallic ground was reached, it was common to
shift to tribute work. The work of tributers was organised at the mine's
regular ‘setting’ day. The tributers and the captains of the mine would meet
at the stipulated time and place. The captains, of whom there would be
three or more, according to the size of the mine, were invariably men who
had risen from the rank of miners. It was their duty to set and superintend
the work. The working face of the mine was divided into pitches, and on
setting day the captains became auctioneers, offering the pitches to the
tributers as bidders. Both miners and captains were supposed to know the
quality of the pitches, and each pitch was let to the party of tributers
offering the lowest bid. Thus, for a rich pitch, a party of tributers would
offer to work for five shillings in the pound - in other words their tribute
would be five shillings out of every pound's worth of ore raised to the
surface. Matters were arranged so that men already working in the mine
had preference over strangers, and where a new setting was being made for
a pitch, the captain would first offer it to the party who had already worked
it, and only put it up for auction if they refused his offer. Pitches were
normally set for two months. During this period each party of tributers
extracted as much ore as they could from their section of the lode, raised it
to the surface, and prepared it for market. For the latter task, the tributers
employed surface workers, mostly women and boys, who saw to the
stamping, cleaning and washing of the ore.
It will be apparent that in economic and social terms, the working of the
Cornish mines was very differently arranged to either the factories or farms
of contemporary England. The tutmen were in effect contractors, being
paid by piecework according to the amount of material they excavated,
while the tributers were little short of being partners in the mine, sharing its
profits and losses, investing both their judgement and their labour, and
dependent on the ruling price in the metal market for the size of their
He is engaged mostly in work requiring the exercise of the mind. He is
constantly taking a new ‘pitch’ in a new situation, where his judgment is
called into action. His wages are not the stinted recompense of
half-emancipated serfship, but they arise from contract, and they depend
upon some degree of skill and knowledge. In fact, the chances of the
lode keep alive a kind of excitement, and foster a hope of good fortune
that never altogether deserts the miner … Osler, in his life of Lord
Exmouth, observes that Cornish miners are better calculated for seamen
than any other class of men on land; and this because the discipline of
the mine is scarcely surpassed in a ship of war, and the order and
business of the mine compels even the lowest man to act continually
with judgment, so that habits are formed of ready obedience,
intelligence, promptitude, and intrepidity.3
The Cornish miner would have been less valuable as a colonist had he not
also commonly gained some experience in working the land. This arose in
part from the ebb and flow in the fortunes of mining, and of individual
mines, which both drew men from farm labour, and on occasions sent
them back into it. Even more important was the widespread holding of
land by miners. A great deal of the waste land of 4
Many a miner thus built his own home, at little cost, the main building
material being stone which could be had from the moor for the labour of
carrying it. Thus, by the mid century the Earl of Falmouth had nearly
2,000 tenements of this description, and a large proportion of his rental was
derived from land which the miners had brought under cultivation.5 The
system was as beneficial to the miners as to the landowners. As the miner
generally worked an eight-hour day, he had a good deal of spare time to
give to his holding. With the assistance of his wife and children many a
6 This type of landholding has left an enduring
impression on the landscape in a pattern of hundreds of small, squarish
fields of roughly the same sizes, which is to be found in the old mining
districts.7
Writing in the mid-1850s, J. R. Leifchild has described the daily round of a Cornish mining district, and the scenes he depicts must have been familiar to many a New Zealand immigrant family. The day dawns on a countryside scattered with cottages, ‘quiet and dull enough in the grey morning’:
Soon, however, the scene becomes very animated for this part of the
county, and, if you stand on an eminence, you see, as far as the eye can
reach, men, women, and children of all ages, beginning to creep out of
low cottage-doors. You watch their course, and observe that, after
various windings, all begin to converge towards one spot, and that one
spot is the mine and its shaft. To that entrance the old men walk direct
and grave, while the maidens and boys skip or move towards it more
indirectly. On their arrival at the mine, each set diverge to their different
tasks; the women and children to the rough sheds under which they
work at the surface-work of the mine; while the men retire into a house,
and having stripped, put on their underground clothes, composed of
coarse flannel, and generally much the worse for wear …8
The underground miners then descend, usually by a succession of ladders,
for lifts, or ‘man-machines’ as they were called, were not common in the
Cornish mines. Lighted by candles stuck to the brims of their hats the men
Throughout the day the surface works of the mine are a scene of noisy
activity. Engineers tend the machinery that drains and ventilates the mine
and raises the ore, while the majority of the surface workers are busy on the
dressing floors. Boys and ‘maidens’ first pick out the rubbish with which
the ore is intermixed. The larger ore fragments are cobbed, or broken into
smaller pieces, and then again picked. Various processes of washing and
stamping then follow. Leifchild describes the ‘grass-work’ of a large
copper mine thus:
Enormous wheels are slowly and solemnly revolving. High up in the air
there are skeleton platforms, and iron chains clanking painfully over iron
pulleys. There is a lofty engine chimney, and near it you catch a glimpse
of huge machinery, and hear puffs and pulls, and gaspings and groanings, and
all corresponding to the alternate movements of big
beams of wood starting up into the air and sinking down in dead
heaviness. Then here we are at the foot of descending and discoloured
streams, evidently polluted by metallic admixture. And somewhere near
us flows an unseen but not unheard brook, probably bent on a similar
errand, and brought from a similar source for similar work. Now let us
rest awhile here. What a congregation of women and children, all
engaged in this surface-mining work.9
The underground miner's work-day ends with what they call ‘coming to grass’, their term for coming to the surface. Leifchild describes the scene:
Observe them rising up out of different shafts, perspiring, dirty and jaded. The remainder of his bunch of candles hangs at the bottom of each miner's flannel jacket. Now they flock to the engine-house, where they leave their underground clothes to dry. They all wash themselves in the warm water of the engine-pool, and put on their decent daily ‘grass’ clothes.
About the same time the grass-workers, the maidens and boys and
women have stopped work, and washed their faces. They now join their
relatives, and all proceed homeward, past chimney, and heaps, and
mining erections, and then across fields and commons, in different
directions and different groups. The men look grave and fatigued, and
speak little and curtly. The wives want to chatter, and must therefore
chatter chiefly with one another, while the husbands are mute and
moody. The lads talk and laugh, and sometimes stop and wrestle on a
green soft spot, trying to practise the ‘Cornish hug’, a famous wrestling
manoeuvre. The maidens will either blush or bluster, smile or scream, as
circumstances render most appropriate and age inclines. The bigger boys
advance per saltum, that is, by leap-frog. Little urchins of tiny growth
stand on their heads, or tumble head over heels. Mothers scold them,
and sisters tickle them. The group now grows smaller and smaller by
diminution at every cottage passed.10
A little later, after he has supped and rested, the miner may often be seen
abroad once more, working on his farmlet, or perhaps, if he lives near the
coast, going down to the sea to fish.11
It is clear that while the mines prospered, the Cornish miners were much
better fed than the English farm labourers, and indeed the industry could
hardly have flourished if this had not been so. Beside the food which so
many produced on their small holdings, pilchards and dairy produce were
readily available and widely consumed, and Penzance was reputed to have
the cheapest pork in England.12 For firing, turf could be had from the vast
tracts of common land, for the trouble of cutting it.13 Mid-nineteenth
century observers commented on the love of fine dress found among the
mining population.14 Peripatetic dealers worked their way around the
county to meet the demand for clothing, and chapel of a Sunday wore a
decidedly prosperous air. Nevertheless, there was a darker side to mining
life. Investigators found good evidence that the miner's calling was marked
by ill-health and short lives.15 Accidents, and the occupational diseases of
phthisis and silicosis took their toll. Many a miner was already ‘worn-out’
in his forties. When selecting navvies for Brogdens, C. R. Carter instructed
the medical examiners that they must reject any man suffering from ‘what
in 16 The decline of Cornish mining
was, of course, marked by widespread distress among those connected
with the industry.
How large a proportion of New Zealand's Cornish immigrants of the
1870s had had mining experience, it is not easy to say. A count of the
immigrant passenger lists shows 134 men given as miners, 9 as mine
labourers, and several women as mine girls. There is a variety of evidence,
however, that many who are otherwise listed were experienced miners.
Several who appear as labourers or farm labourers in the immigration
records, are recorded as miners in Return of Freeholders of
New Zealand.17 Richard B. Daniel was nominated from New Zealand in
18 but the
passenger list of the Allahabad, sailing from Cyclopaedia of New
Zealand some thirty years later as mine managers: Thomas Moyle who is
said to have been brought up to mining19: and James Martin who is
recorded to have been engaged at mining for eight years in 20
Numerous similar examples could be cited, drawing on information from a
variety of sources. In some cases a man may have felt a genuine ambivalence
as to which was his predominant occupation. There are several instances of
men listing themselves as ‘agricultural labourer and miner’.21 Many,
however, will have been ‘tailoring’ their occupation to the predominant
note of the New Zealand recruitment drive, which consistently sought for
farm labourers, but only occasionally asked for miners. Probably few
Cornish miners were without some agricultural experience, and with the
decline of the mining industry many whose main working experience had
Through the centuries Cornish agriculture followed quite a different
course to that of the counties we have so far considered. Until recent times
the Cornish people tended to neglect their land in favour of seeking wealth
from the mine and the sea. However, most of the fertile land had been
enclosed long before the eighteenth century enclosure movement, which in
22 Over the same period there was also much building up of soil
fertility, largely by drawing on the resources of the coast and the sea.
Seaweed, and the waste products of the pilchard fishery, were extensively
used as fertilisers.23 Many Cornish soils are deficient in lime, and this was
widely corrected by dressing the land with sea-sand.24 W. F. Karkeek
began his essay ‘On the Farming of 25
New Zealand's Cornish immigrants will have brought to the colony
much valuable experience in the subduing of waste land, and in the
adoption of improved farming methods. Many of them must have brought
farm management skills, for in 26 This strong
competition for land must have contributed, along with other factors, to
the emigration from the county. It is of interest that sixteen of the assisted
emigrants from 27
Another notable feature of the New Zealand assisted immigrant lists of
the 1870s is that twenty-three of the Cornish women are recorded as
dairymaids. Many more must have had dairying experience, beside those
for whom it was the predominant occupation. When the assistant
commissioner to the 28 It was in this south-west extremity
of 29 The collapse of
mining will have deprived these folk of their local market, and it seems very
likely that some of them will have joined the flow to New Zealand. The
nature of the experience which they brought to the colony's rural life can be
inferred from Karkeek's description of the system in its heyday:
The larger farmers keep a number of old black dairy cows, supposed to
be the aboriginal breed of the county. Many of these are rented by
dairymen at £8 per annum per cow, for which sum they have a quarter
of an acre of potato-ground, 2 loads of turnips, 9 cwt of straw, 72
fagots of furze, 100 turf, and 1 ¼ acres of land for the keep of the cow.
A renter of five cows has a dwelling-house, pig-houses and
potato-houses provided in addition. The calves belong to the dairymen.
Numbers of these cottagers are sometimes located near or on a farm,
forming a curious scene, the homestead being crowded with cows, pigs,
men, women and children.30
The ingenuity of Cornish farmers also appeared in the introduction of
mechanical methods to agriculture, attributed by John Rowe to the
proximity of the mines, and their competition for the available labour.
Karkeek also mentions the ingenuity of Cornish farmers in contriving
agricultural implements suited to their wants.31 Rowe mentions that the
example of mining led farmers to make the utmost possible use of water
power, constructing leats to take water as far as three miles to serve a
farm.32 The 33
Having examined in a little detail several aspects of Cornish social and
economic life, let us now endeavour to sum up the value of the Cornish
background as a preparation for the colonial environment. Clearly,
Cornishmen were much better prepared than emigrants from most parts of
rural England for life in a society which depended little on class or
deference for its ordering. A. L. Rowse has noted the influence of the
extensive land holdings of the Duchy of 34 The organisation of the county's industries also served to foster a
spirit of equality. The family organisation of yeoman farming, tut and
tribute work in the mines, and the share system of the fishing industry,
must all have contributed something to the cooperative, yeoman traditions
of rural New Zealand.
We must turn now to the interaction between the decline of the Cornish
mining industry and emigration to New Zealand. Cornish farmers and
rural labourers first crossed to 35 and miners began to follow them in
considerable numbers before 36 The first organised settlement of
New Zealand coincided with a slump in the price of tin, which remained
low for several years,37 so it is not surprising that a significant number of
Cornishmen made their way to the Wakefield settlements. Over the
ensuing decades Cornishmen appear to have been well represented in every
sizable flow of English emigration to New Zealand. The Cornish mining
collapse of 38 A county Distress Fund was organised in
39
Though there was much suffering in
In 40 and a mania for starting new
mining concerns was getting under way.41 Without the superficially
attractive appearance of Brogdens' terms, New Zealand would have had
little chance of competing during this season. When 150 of Brogdens'
recruits were farewelled with considerable excitement at Truro railway
station, in Chile, the correspondent of
Throughout 44 In
the northern 45 There had been
growing resentment in the town against a police force which was accused of
victimisation and brutality. When two brothers involved in an earlier
disturbance were to be put on trial, the magistrates asked for extra police,
and the Chief Constable attended himself with thirty constables. When the
crowd became threatening following the conviction of these men, the
Chief Constable hustled them out of a side door into a van, and galloped off
with them to Truro. The angered crowd then took over the town. Four of
the five magistrates left the town, while the mob occupied and wrecked the
police station, hunted the policemen from one hiding place to another,
unmercifully beating and kicking those that they captured, and broke the
windows of a number of public buildings. Two companies of soldiers were
hurried by special train from the barracks at
Meanwhile the reports of rising production on the Australian tin fields
were causing consternation in 46 Agents from the coal districts of
Lancashire and Staffordshire placarded the Cornish mining towns with
bills, and as mine after mine closed down, recruited many of their best
miners.47 The exodus to 48 The return of these
disillusioned men appears to have put a damper on all emigration, and is no
doubt one of the reasons why, despite the depression, it was several
months before there was any marked response to New Zealand's generous
free emigration scheme, introduced in October. Also, there were false
hopes abroad of a mining revival. Mine managers were encouraged by the
prospect of a fall in the price of coal, and by the return of skilled miners
from 49 One or two valuable discoveries of new veins of ore were
made, and with an easiness in the money-market, investors began to rush
back into the industry at the close of the year.50
The renewed optimism persisted for a few weeks into 51 The returning inflow from 52 While Cornish mines continued to close, the newspapers
arriving from The Times reporting that the position of Cornish
mining ‘appears to become more hopeless every day’.
Some idea of the tensions which the mining decline imposed upon the
labourers is provided by events occurring in the St. Just district just after the
departure of the Luke family. Boscaswell Downs, one of the oldest mines
at St. Just, suddenly collapsed, when a merchant put in an execution. The
work force of about 300 men, women and boys had two months wages
due, so they crowded into Penzance to obtain summonses against the
manager.56 Extraordinary happenings occurred on 57 During the following week about 100 of the men were reported
to have left the district for Wales and the north of England.58
The decline of Cornish mining continued steadily over the next year or
two, and emigration to New Zealand flowed quite strongly until the end of
59 ‘Going to clay’ was not popular with
the copper and tin miners, as it entailed leaving an ancient, honourable and
highly skilled calling, for one that required only unskilled labour.60
Nevertheless, many miners who were not able or willing to leave 61 But New Zealand, facing economic problems of her
own at this time, was not in the market for them. When she began
recruiting again in the latter half of the year, she had no difficulty in
securing emigrants from 62
When New Zealand returned to the emigration market in 63 To meet the
resultant distress in the mining districts, a meeting of leading gentlemen of
the county was held at Camborne on 64 By mid March
65 After a lull
over the winter, emigration to New Zealand revived in the 66 The Cornish industry had lost many of its best
miners, and New Zealand had received a good share of them.
To conclude our treatment of Clarence and the certificate of his
marriage in New Zealand in
They one and all possess the rich Southern colouring peculiar to
67
Off the coast from Manacle Point lie the dreaded Manacle Rocks, which
have filled St. Keverne churchyard with the graves of many shipwrecked
wanderers. Though he chose to gain his livelihood from the land, John
Ebbett's childhood must have been filled with tales of the sea. In John, bound for 68
If we follow the coastguard path round the cliffs of Lizard Point we
come to the hamlet of Gunwalloe and the town of Helston, to both of
69 Thomas himself had emigrated on the Rakaia
in British King late in Isles of the South, sailing in
70 Immigrants of
a similar background, with surnames such as Snell, Hutchens, Nicholls
and Daniel could be quoted from the Penzance area, but we will move
instead to the important mining district around St. Just in Penwith, on the
west coast a mile or two north of Lands End.
In 71 However, the
Cyclopaedia of New Zealand's account of the life of one of them, John,
who was 17 when he emigrated, reports that he was brought up to a miner's
life in the tin mines of Pendeen and St. Just.72 The Tweed sailing for Otago in June
73 By the same ship also came Mary E. Bottrell, a
21-year-old servant, and her 16-year-old labourer brother Henry, both
nominated by a person of their own surname in 74 Charles Austin, aged 36, who emigrated
to Nelson by the Caroline in 75 and he himself is recorded as a miner at Reefton in
76
The other great mining area of west Charlotte Gladstone, sailing for 77 An earlier
emigration from this district to New Zealand's 78 They all left in Halcione. Her records show Richards as a draper, so he must have
been one of the itinerant salesmen catering for the Cornish miner's love of
fine clothing. Among Brogdens' first party of navvies, on the Schiehallion,
was 22-year-old Samuel Prisk, his wife and two children. In December
79 They came out as a family migration on the
Eastern Monarch, sailing in Stonehouse in Duke of
Edinburgh in
Before we leave the metal mines of west 81 The St. Agnes area was hard
hit when the bad times began in the late 1860s. In 82 and in 83 But
mines such as Wheal Kitty continued working and making a profit through
the hard times, and mining survived in the area into the twentieth century.
In front of us, about a couple of miles away, towers St. Agnes Beacon,
its shoulders bristling with chimneys and mine workings, and on its
southern flank is the mining township of St. Agnes. Soon we descend
into the Trevellas Valley and Cove. Here the once pellucid brook is
almost black, stone walls instead of flowers line its banks, and it
befouled waters darken the sand in the cove and discolour the sea for
several yards from the shore. Clambering over some rocks we soon
reach Trevaunance Cove, where things are still worse. On the beach
itself a great over-shot wheel revolves, and discharges dirty water onto
the already discoloured sand. On the hill-side above are more wheels,
slowly moving chains, mud heaps and smoking chimneys; while the
loud and ceaseless clatter of stamps fills the air with noise. This valley,
before man polluted it, must have been a very beautiful one, so too, the
cove, for the cliffs are high and shapely, and well sentinelled by outlying
rocks, but their sides are scarred with adits, and the surrounding water,
instead of aquamarine, is the colour of pea soup. At the western end of
the cove the quays of a quaint little harbour project from the smooth
perpendicular cliff wall with almost Italian picturesqueness. It was built
for the exporting of copper and tin, but is now only used by a few local
fishing boats.84
At the 85 They sailed in the
Hydaspes in Berar in May
Ballochmyle in 86 This was probably
the Thomas Fowler, 28-year-old labourer, who sailed with his wife Eliza
for Lady Jocelyn in Otaki, sailing in
Leaving the coast, we move north-east to the inland farming centre of St.
Columb Major. Even in this quiet agricultural district we find evidence of
the attraction of the mines among those who emigrated to New Zealand.
Thomas Giles was born here in Hydaspes in
British Queen early in 87 Mining had led Robert Grigg, another St.
Columb man, much farther afield than the St. Austell moors, before he
emigrated to New Zealand on the Opawa in 88 His global wanderings
are by no means unique among New Zealand's Cornish immigrants of the
1870s.
We will end our tour of the county in one of the small scattered
settlements that are so typical of rural 89
It is hardly surprising that inhabitants of this bleak district should have
gone roving in search of a better life. Their wanderings probably began by
their tramping south over the moors to work in the china clay pits. New
Zealand immigration nominations provide evidence that the gold of the
Otago diggings served as a magnet to draw some Bilberry men to the ends
of the earth.90 On Christian McAusland in
Asia in
With a population nearly two-thirds as large again as
Though third in order of size among the counties of England, 91
To understand the agrarian landscape of 92
The parish of Stockland aptly illustrates many of the characteristic
features of the Devonshire countryside, and the party of twenty-three
emigrants who left the place in 93 The ordinance survey maps show that, as is
common in south-east hayes. The
parish has a long history of smallholding, doubtless dating from the
original clearance of the forest. The dispersed holding of its 5,849 acres is
clearly evident in the 94 The Return also shows fourteen holdings in the
parish, belonging to persons whose addresses had not been ascertained.
The patronage of the vicarage living was also widely dispersed. In 95
An informant96 who has lived in the parish for most of his life and whose
memory reaches back to the 1880s has described life in Stockland as it must
have been throughout Victorian times. Farming on the small holdings was
basically dairying. The small holders made cottage cheese, keeping pigs on
the whey, and also skimmed cream and made butter. To fatten the pigs,
barley meal was bought to supplement the whey. When ready for killing,
the pig was sold to the butcher, and the smallholder usually took only the
head, trotters, chitterings, liver and lights for himself, though a better off
man might sometimes keep a quarter of the beast. The Stockland folk were
expert at supplementing their diet by catching game, as, due to the way
land was held in the parish, poaching was not an issue. Every farmlet had
some apple trees, often grafted to give both cider and cooking apples on the
same tree. Every home had a press for making cider, which was kept in
hogshead barrels, and sold in considerable quantities to the brewers. To
further supplement the household income, the women regularly tramped
the six miles to Honiton, carrying baskets of butter, chicken and eggs to
market. The parish had 61 acres of common on which people used to run
goats, and from which the poor used to cut their firewood. The overall
picture is of a thrifty, hardworking community, engaged in farming that
was predominantly subsistence in nature.
The root cause of emigration from this community was quite clearly the
pressure of population in a district where most of the soils were not
particularly fertile. From 1,164 in The Times,
the obscure difficulties and quiet emigration of parishes in rural
The oldest of the 97
remembers his uncle, Eli Thomas, born to John and Sarah Bond early in
98
The smallholders of Stockland may well therefore have been reduced to
dire straits in the
The
When the Dallam Tower sailed from 99
‘WE CAN LIVE here, but we only lingered in England’, wrote John Timms,
late secretary of the Ascott-under-Wychwood branch of the union, thus
pithily summing up his experience of nine months in New Zealand.1 The
preservation of numerous immigrant letters, through their publication by
the union newspapers, provides abundant source material for studying the
earlier stages of the transformation which colonial life brought about. So
far our use of these letters has been largely directed towards the Old World
setting, illustrating their impact on the recruitment drive in England, and
drawing on their references to the circumstances the immigrants had left.
We must now turn to them to study the interaction between the
immigrants and their promised land. In this chapter we shall be concerned
with some of the more general features of the immigrants' experience of
their first year or two of colonial life, looking both for the continuities
which linked the old life with the new, and for the experiences and
influences which were at work transmuting the immigrant into the
colonial. In the following two chapters we will undertake a more
particularised study of the contribution of these immigrants to the making
of rural New Zealand, focussing, as we have done for the English
hearthland, on particular regions and districts.
It is clear from many immigrant letters, that their writers were
developing a new view of their place in the world long before they saw the
coasts of New Zealand. Success in achieving selection for passages, rosy
reports of conditions in the new land, and the solicitude of the colonial
authorities for their welfare while emigrating, must all have served to raise
their spirits. Once they reached the immigration barracks at the English
ports, most were agreeably surprised at the 2 On a voyage of
On board the __________ we had the usual complement of single and
married emigrants, male and female, and our doctor ‘tabooed’ me as a
saloon passenger in favour of the emigrants throughout the voyage — a
fact which gave me great offence and discomfort; but when I brougnt
my mind to bear upon the ‘situation’ I wisely contracted my claims to
3
The writer proceeds to praise the surgeon for meeting the many demands on his professional skill at all hours of the day and night, and for acting as the tribunal for all disputes and petty offences throughout the voyage.
The most important of the surgeon's assistants was the matron,
responsible for the welfare of the single women. She was usually a suitable
person from among the emigrants, selected for the Agent-General by the
British Ladies' Female Emigrant Society, whose agent paid two or three
visits to almost all the New Zealand emigrant ships before they sailed.4
Harriet Herbert, a 21-year-old general servant who arrived at St. Leonards on
I enjoyed the voyage very much and was kindly treated by everybody. I
found plenty to do and plenty of friends. I have nothing to say against
the Government, for they looked well after the single girls, and we have
had five pounds given to us for industry and good conduct on board the
ship, so I am quite free, which is a great thing. I was able to earn £2 by
my needle while I was on board which was a great help to me.5
When the ship reached its New Zealand destination, the immigrants had
further proof that they had indeed made good their escape from the status
of ‘nobodies’. After a voyage on which he was so well fed that he writes that
he had never lived so well in all his life, Charles Loomas describes his
arrival in
We cast anchor on the 14th of July, between two large mountains,
about 3,000 feet high. Cows and sheep were feeding on them. This was
the most beautiful sight I ever saw in my life. Hundreds of wild ducks
came flying round the ship, and all kinds of wild fowls. The New
Zealand Government Inspectors came on board, and asked us all how
we were, and what sort of voyae we had had; and whether the captain
and doctor had treated us well, we told them we had been treated with
the greatest kindness. They told us that our ship was the cleanest that
ever came into port … They sent us a boat load of bread and other
provisions - three sides of beef, three dressed sheep, ten sacks of
potatoes, one sack of apples for the little children, and about 300
newspapers to look at.6
Charles Loomas was clearly impressed by a government which would send commissioners to enquire whether its servants had treated him well.
A sense of their new importance in the scheme of things was further
reinforced when the new arrivals came ashore. Thus, when Harriet Herbert
left the St. Leonards for the Conflict on 7
Warren seems to have been particularly impressed by the Government's
unfailing provision of good food - even on the coastal steamer, or at the
little up-country depot at Marton. Immigrants who arrived at New
8 Larger
centres, with their greater influx of newcomers, could not hope to emulate
There were, of course, often also relatives and old friends waiting to
welcome the new arrivals. 9 Another Lincolnshire
family, that of George Hill, from Laceby, were enquired for at the
10 In Ballochmyle with his hymn
singing. The Astons had been Wesleyans, but this welcome led to their
throwing in their lot with the Primitive 11 This
warmth of renewed associations with chapel folk, and the conviction, as
one immigrant expressed it, that ‘there is the same God here as at home’
sustained many Methodist immigrants as they adjusted to their new world.
Church connections and religious beliefs do not seem to have had the same
importance for most Anglican immigrants, although Walter Warren refers
to ‘the pleasure of attending church for the first time’ in the new land.
It would be wrong to imply that official arrangements for the care of
newly arrived immigrants were always of a high standard. For one thing, it
took time to perfect these arrangements. Thus, a party of twenty
forwarded from 12 The flood tide of
Lyttelton Times of his experiences. He spent a few
days in the Immigration Barracks at Addington, but they were so
overcrowded that he never had his clothes off the whole time, and slept
chiefly on the mess-room table. Having obtained work, but not accommodation, he was sent with his wife and child to the old
the only alteration being that the old iron-barred door was taken off
and laid outside and a more civilised one put on; with this exception, the cell
was in the same condition as when used for prisoners, the authorities
not even having taken the trouble to erase the choice compositions, both
of prose and verse, with which the cell had been adorned by previous
compulsory occupants. As my wife cannot read, and is, like most of
13
A few weeks later a colonist wrote to the press criticising the immigration
officer at 14
Probably most of the immigrants were more surprised that their comfort
was a recurrent matter of concern in the New Zealand press, than that
arrangements sometimes left something to be desired.
Having landed safely in New Zealand, the immigrants' next concern was
to find employment and accommodation. As each party arrived, the local
immigration officer advertised the date on which they would be available
for engagement. Employers and their agents then visited the barracks, and
under the immigration officer's supervision, agreements were entered into.
Henry Kaill, a 32-year-old labourer from Dorset, who arrived on the
Atrato in
We stopped in the ship till the 23rd, and then we landed. The next day
was the hiring day - it was like a fair; the men that were mostly wanted
were ploughmen, and single couples to live in doors. There were plenty
of masters; I engaged with a gentleman as ploughman, at £80 per year,
with firing, and he kept me the first month in food, so that I might have
my first month's money to start with.15
Henry Kaill was accompanied by his wife, and thus is an example of the ‘single’ (i.e. childless) couples he refers to. Immigrants with large families of young children were the hardest to place, but while the boom years lasted, few spent any length of time in the depots. Of his new employer Henry Kaill wrote
My master and mistress are like father and mother to me. They went to
16
Such praise of employers is common in the immigrant letters, and the
grounds for it are not hard to explain. Labour was enjoying a sellers'
There was a pig in the sty for us when we got there, and we have had
no furniture to buy, for they have found us some, and buckets and
pancheons, and all sorts of useful things, and he has brought us a nice
little clock, they are so kind and good to us, they have given us lots of
things, they sent us a fowl the other day for dinner. The day we came
they had a fire in the house and kettle boiling; they brought us some
butter and eggs for dinner, and they are going to give us a hen and a
seat of eggs, so you know they are very good to us.17
The benefits of the labourer's lot in New Zealand that were most frequently mentioned in immigrant letters were probably the good wages, the plentiful, good, cheap food, and the short (usually eight hour) working day. Many letters mention all three. The following extracts are from letters written in the mid-1870s by three immigrant labourers, each a family man, and each writing from a different province of New Zealand.
This is the country for living - beef, mutton, butter and eggs, and
everything else that is good … We are as happy as the day is long. I
would not come back on any account, for we can get something to lean
over, no water broth, but a good belly full of beef …18
There is no looking two ways for Saturday night here, as there is at
home when it has been wet … we are all getting fat to what we were
at home, except myself, and I think I am a stone heavier than I was
when I left home, and all the rest best me. My wife thinks she feels
better than she ever did in her life, and I think I do too; and we think it
is better food and more of it and less work that does it. We work eight
hours a day; that is not 12 or 14, is it now?19
We can go to the shop, and get a bag of sugar, and half-chest of tea,
and pay for it ready money, and anything else without any trouble; that
is more than we could do at home …20
Clearly this combination of shorter working hours, good wages and good
food was sufficient in itself to work a major transformation in the
immigrant. Not only did ample food, rest and recreation bring about a new
physical well-being, but there were also important changes in mental
outlook, including release from the perpetual worry of poverty, and from
the continual petty humiliations associated with it. Even the relief from
In New Zealand the immigrant labourer found that he was no longer
consigned to a menial and degraded status, consuming what was not good
enough for his ‘betters’, excluded from their company, the recipient of
their charity. As the servant girl Harriet Herbert put it, ‘There is no bitter
oppression here — all are equal and free.’ The uplift of spirit that resulted
from this release from class bondage can be sensed as an undertone in most
of the letters. Some give it overt expression, selecting particular aspects of
colonial life, or incidents, to make their point. As this immigration of the
1870s seems to have strongly reinforced egalitarian trends in New Zealand
society, we will provide a range of illustration. The social implications of
diet are implicit in the comments of many of the letters. George Tapp, a
former member of the Kent Union's executive, makes this aspect quite
explicit, in a letter written from Taranaki in
Working people don't eat sheep's and bullock's heads or liver here.
They have the best joints, as well as the rich.21
Jem and Jack Smith, two brothers writing from near
Of course we are found, and live first-class; we dine along with our
master and mistress every meal and live the same as if we was
his own. We don't sit down in a haystack in the cold to eat our food, nor
under a hedge; we have not had a meal out in the field all the time we
been here …. The farmers here are not so proud as some of the poor
people at home.22
Thomas Stephens, a farm labourer, late of Snodland, Kent wrote from
The masters are not like they are in England, and you dont see them
with kid gloves on. They take hold of the pick and shovel, the same as
other men do. The master is called the ‘Boss’.23
Probably implicit in the last comment is the fact that New Zealand
employers and overseers did not expect, or want, to be sirred, or treated
with any form of deference. William and Charlotte Tomlin, late of Riby,
Lincolnshire, writing from South
… there is no gleaning, and so I shall not have a bull headed foreman
to take away a bit of corn and swear me down in a lie, for there is no
foreman here, there is no big ones riding about …24
James Pratt, late of Otham, Kent, wrote from near
… when they set you to work they say, ‘Will you do this please?’ Not
as it used to be, ‘If vou don't like it you can leave.’ The master and man
are one. You would not know which was the workman if you saw
them.25
George Mumby, late of Grasby, Lincolnshire, wrote from Taranaki in
I have been working for the farmers a good deal since I came, and when
I am working by the day, I always get my dinner with them. Jack is as good as
his master they tell me and there is no respect of persons.26
Stephen Rout, late a delegate of the National Union in the Andover
district, Hampshire, wrote in
I can now fancy old Bowsey slipping about from door to door asking
who was at church last Sunday; if they were not no blanket or soup,
nor yet any coals. Thank God I do not want any now, he would not
give me any last year. The Good Templars gave two cows to an Orphan
Asylum. I should like you’ to have seen the procession when we
presented them. We dressed them in ribbons, and now one of them has
got a calf, and they are christened Faith, Hope, and Charity.27
After only six months in 28 One senses between the lines
the unexpressed thought that the hunting enjoyed by the gentry of England
was tame in comparison. ‘It is fine sport hunting boars’, Box writes, and no
doubt it provided much more excitement than the shooting of pheasants
and grouse. Some immigrants seem to have wasted little time in sampling
the joys of the hunt. Within a few days of arrival, while still living in the
immigration barracks, George Phillip, a 23-year-old labourer from
Gloucestershire, was out shooting on the 29 During a few months of colonial experience in
both
There are plenty of wild pigs out in the country, and last week there
was a lot of them came close to where i was working. My mates having
a dog trained for hunting the wild pig, we had a pig hunt, and
succeeded in capturing two of them, each weighing about two score. I
had one, and my mates had the other, so you see we can have a bit of
sport sometimes … There are a few pheasants up here, but no rabbits,
which are plentiful at 30
After less than a year in the
If you go into the bush about three miles you can have plenty of pork
for shooting but you must have a good dog and gun. There are plenty
of wild bulls, it is the best of beef; there is no one to say they are mine;
those that get them have them. There is plenty of rabbits, but there are
no hares. Plenty of pigeons and ducks … Goats go in droves by
hundreds, but they are very wild; it is good sport to hunt them.31
There were game laws in New Zealand at this time, and acclimatisation
societies concerned that they should be enforced, but in practice hunting
went on almost unrestricted and unpoliced. In 32 He need not have worried. Introduced game continued to
multiply in most districts despite the depredations of these immigrant
neophytes.
After his travels in rural England in 33 Newly arrived immigrants
to New Zealand repeatedly expressed surprise at the readiness with which
their masters would toss them the reins of a good riding horse. It is clear
from the letters that most immigrants considered that one's promotion to
the saddle was something to write home about. James Pratt reported that at
… nearly all the people have a horse to ride to work. If you want to
go out on Sunday nearly anyone will lend you a horse and saddle for
the day.34
And William Burton, writing early in
Many of our emigrants appear there, and are able to bid and buy.
C___P___ bought a saddle and bridle the other day and when he
came up to pay me pulled out a roll of notes. I quietly said to him, you
could not do that at home. I often get a nod or a wink from familiar
faces, when I connot call name to mind. There are scarcely any who do
not possess horse, saddle, and bridle.35
New Zealand farmers could take a very direct approach to turning the
newcomers into good riders. Jem and Jack Smith's letter of
I often have to ride here on horseback on Sunday along with my master,
where some of the riders would look a bit shy at home; and I do
36
The advantages which immigrant labourers found in the colony were in
general also enjoyed by their womenfolk. They too found that they were
able to view the world from the new vantage-point of the saddle, and in
many cases their hearts were further gladdened by being able to dress in a
style suited to the occasion. Dixon Catley, a young man from Nettleton,
Lincolnshire, wrote home from Milton, Otago, on
Sunday last (Sept. 20) was a beautiful day, and to see the women
walking out in their silk dresses - oh mi! and seeing the men and
women come to church on horse-back you'd own this is a strange place
for dress. It is very common for the women to ride on horse-back.37
However, it was the enrichment which colonial conditions could bring to home and family life which was the main inducement to women's emigration. For many couples marriage was made possible by their successful application for passages, and the wedding took place shortly before sailing.
Single women commonly found that emigration led quickly to marriage.
The 38 The Daily News correspondent who joined the train
carrying the Stad Haarlem party from Kent to
… from the pleasantries levelled at the shepherd's elder daughters, two
comely damsels whom their father destined for domestic service — not
here, by the way, but in New Zealand - it was evident that new
countries find favour for a very good reason in the eyes of unmarried
women. ‘Why don't I send them to service here in England?’ replies
their father, evidently proud of them; ‘For very good reaons. They
could not earn the £20 a year you talk of, sir, because they are not
gentlemen's servants. They would have to learn a long while, and
perhaps have to go and slave for people no better than themselves; and
who is to marry them? Some fellow no better off than their father; and
then comes the whole wretched story over again.’ Hereat, the damsels
having escaped into another carriage, a friend of the father began, ‘Don't
you know Smith's girls, those by Otham as was? They have only been
out ten months, and the oldest is married to a man in business in
39
Harriet Herbert's first New Zealand letter to her parents broke the news
that she had sailed with a prospect of marriage in mind. She had first met
Alexander Brown, a young carpenter and cabinetmaker from Brighton, at
the offices of the emigration agent, ‘Mr Gardener, 66 Queen's road
Brighton’, and he had come out as one of the single men immigrants on the
St Leonards. He is listed as a 22-year-old carpenter from 40
Some immigrant girls married, like the Smiths from Otham, well up in
the world. Most, however, like Harriet Herbert, married within their own
station and, as with the women who arrived married, compared their new
lot with what they could have expected in the old land. Some, especially
those with large families, wrote of their relief now that catering was no
longer a burden. Joseph Leggett's wife Ann wrote to her mother in July
41 She, Joseph, and their seven
children, were all thriving on the abundant diet. The improved health and
morale of husbands and children must have transformed the life of many a
labourer's wife. From a sawmill settlement at Koromiko in
My husband is worth two men to what he was. Then he gets in more
and better company: nearly all the men at the mill are men of property:
one milks four cows. They get cleaned and change their clothes, and
then play at cricket, or go for a walk.42
Similarly, many letters tell of healthy happy children. Thomas Rathbone, a
43-year-old labourer, emigrated with his wife and five children, aged from
1 to 13, from the Wychwood hamlet of Lyneham, in
We are all looking jolly and well, and we begin to like this country very
much … Tell father … the children wish to be remembered to him;
they like New Zealand very well. They go to school, and when the tide
is out they go on the beach and amuse themselves gathering shells and a
variety of things.43
‘We can enjoy our children here, for we can get everything for their
comfort”, wrote Thomas Vickers, after four years in the colony. ‘We do
not know how to be thankful enough that we have got from poverty …’44
Vickers had emigrated from Alford, Lincolnshire, in
But the sun does not always shine on family circumstances, even in the
most favoured of lands. In the English villages, sickness, bereavement and
45
took note of this aspect of colonial life when he visited New Zealand in
… among the variety of local magnates one glaringly noticeable
absentee is pointed to. There are no poor laws and no poor law
guardians! Do our readers comprehend that? or shall we repeat it. No
poor law guardians! We almost felt disposed to settle down in the public
roadway and return devout thanks to heaven when we heard tell of it.
And there are no union workhouses. Oh! ye shades of the glorious
army of departed English relieving officers listen to that! And there are
no starving poor! Ye spirits of the twenty thousands of living English
poor law guardians, hearken unto it! No out-door poor whose hovels
require to bepryed into at all unseasonable hours; no workhouses to
visit, and no in-door beggars to bully!47
But if the old hated English provisions no longer applied, how were times of need dealt with in the colony? Simmons explained that
There are several charitable funds from which persons suffering from
temporary reverses are assisted; but if a travelling labouring man is
necessitated and lacks food, he has but to knock at the first door he
comes to and ask, and in nineteen out of twenty houses he will find that
the spirit of the Good Samaritan dwelleth therein. May ages roll over
the colony ere it be found requisite to establish a system for the relief of
their poor!48
This is only part of the answer, however, and a rather too optimistic account at that. Let us examine in more detail what the newcomers were able to do for their own aged parents; how their own needs were met when ill-fortune struck; and how the education of their children was provided for. Once the basic needs of bed, board and clothing had been met, these must surely have been the considerations to which their thoughts were next directed.
The welfare of parents in their declining years was a matter to which rural
labourers had to give thought as they emigrated. In some cases parents
were fit and willing to accompany their children and the family could meet
the expense. If it was beyond their means, the New Zealand authorities
would sometimes grant assisted passages, if by doing so a desirable family
would be obtained. Sarah Strawbridge the 73-year-old widow from
Stockland, 49
Another example is 60-year-old farm labourer John Hand, who, with his
wife Elizabeth, 58, accompanied his son Charles, 34, with his wife and
three children, to 50 The free passages which the
where grown-up families of sons and daughters can be induced to
emigrate together, it might be well to allow the parents, even if over the
age prescribed by the rules, to come free, as such families invariably do
well, the presence of the parents being a safeguard for the young
people.51
A more common pattern was for elderly parents to follow their children,
once the latter were established in the new land. By 52 A similar
suggestion in a letter from the Agent-General dated 53 A good example of the planning of this type of immigration is
provided by a letter from Joseph Leggett's wife, Ann, to her mother,
written from
My dear mother, I daresay you think it very unkind of us not sending
you any money before now; the reason we did not send you any we
expected you were on your way out, and wanted to surprise us. When
we received your letter to say you was not started we was very vexed;
and we have kept our front rooms for you, thinking you would be here.
Dear mother, you said in your letter free emigration would be stopped
in a month. We heard the same, but it is a false rumour. Joseph read it
in the paper Saturday that it was not stopped. If it had been stopped
Joseph would have had sent the money for you to have come out. If
you write to the agent in 54
An example of chain migration is provided by the Gardner family from
Kent. They made their way to New Zealand over a period of seven years,
on six different ships, with the elderly parents forming the final link in the
chain. Gardner Senior joined the Monks Horton branch of the Kent union
in Northampton on Rakaia in
Stad Haarlem
in 55 The family chain brought to light by this sad
accident cannot have been uncommon - first unmarried young adults make
the venture, married couples with families follow on receiving their good
reports, and finally the elderly parents are persuaded to come and share
their children's good fortune.
Of course, not all elderly parents were able or willing to emigrate. In
these cases, it was probably common for their children in New Zealand to
send home money to brighten their lot. Ann Leggett's letter of 56 Arthur Clayden,
writing in 57 Letters to old folk who had remained home in England
also not uncommonly made appeal to the hopes of religious faith. Thus
Annie Philpott, the daughter of William Philpott, in writing to her
grandmother back in Tysoe on
Mother says she would like to see you (and so should we all) but we
cannot expect it in this world, but in a fairer one we will. My Dear
Granny, pray for us that we may so pass our time in our earthly home,
that we may not lose sight of our Heavenly home. There we shall meet,
my dear Granny by God's will.58
One surmises that with a family such as the Philpotts, Christian piety would have been supplemented with postal orders, and a continuing flow of newsy letters, to brighten old age back in Tysoe.
One other way of providing help for old folk left in England must be
mentioned; the leaving of a grandchild to live with them and help them.
Whether this was at all common, one cannot say, but instances of a child
This is for our dear boy to look at. Number of days - 80 all told.
Distance 14,139 miles. I am not sure that the distance is quite right. It
might be wrong - our dear boy, be a good boy to your grandfather and
grandmother. Send us all the news you can. Be sure and write soon
enough. I will send you all the news I can. May God bless you is the
wish of your father and mother and sisters and Charley. Kisses for
Willie. I am in a hurry. All fast asleep. Must be posted tomorrow, the
third. Mail leaves for England the fourth, Saturday, at 12 o'clock at
night.59
How true was Alfred Simmons's picture of New Zealand as a country
where one's passing needs and temporary reverses were met with simple
ease, through a widespread Good Samaritan spirit? His picture of the
travelling labourer being readily fed at almost any door was certainly
correct. The unusual practice of providing food and accommodation free
on demand to any travelling workman had developed in the convict
settlements of
A few days after his arrival in Taranaki in
When we first came to this place, the emigration officer hired a
conveyance for us, and when we got here, a woman came out and took
Sarah and the children into the house and made them some tea till we
got unloaded, and a farmer took me and gave me some tea, sent me
home with some candles, meat and potatoes, also lent us a saucepan to
cook in; in fact the people are always bringing us something; a
gentleman brought us a whole ham, and a woman a shoulder: we can
have any amount of new milk for fetching. One woman gave Sally two
hens, and no one could be better dealt with by neighbours. The nearest
shop is five miles off, but any of them will lend me a horse when I want
one, and bring us goods from the shop when they go.60
An example of kindness in time of sickness is provided by a letter from
14-year-old Mary Miller, who emigrated from Kent with her parents and
brother in 61
When the La Hogue arrived at 62 Joseph Johns, a 41-year-old Cornish farm labourer,
who arrived by the Camatic in 63 Alfred Simmons learnt that in cases such
as these it was usual for the subscription to be used to place the widow in a
small business, and so secure a maintenance for her.64
The death of Joseph Johns stirred the people of Feilding to the determination that they should have a Friendly Society to provide relief in such circumstances. One local correspondent, in reporting the accident to his newspaper, gave the assurance that
ere this letter is in type a society shall have been formed that will give
the men of this place the feeling of free citizens of the most splendid
country on earth, where there are neither relieving officers, casual
wards, or union workhouses, but where the immigrant, if he conduct
himself as a man should do, is the equal of any in the land …65
This spirit of self-help, and mutual assistance by equals was encouraged
over the ensuing years by a growing network of Friendly Society branches,
and by steadily expanding life assurance facilities, including those of the
Government Life Insurance Office, founded in 66 Hard times in the 1880s convinced many New
Zealanders that if they were determined to repudiate the spirit of the
English Poor Law for that of the Good Samaritan, they would need to
enlist the arm of the State to make the relief of need universally effective.
The New Zealand community was already, by the 1870s, turning much
more decidedly than the homeland towards the State, for the provision of
schooling. There is every indication that the majority of English assisted
immigrants approved of, and supported, this movement. Many of those
who had been involved in the Revolt had been prodded to think on this
67 He knew ‘from bitter,
cruel experience’ how hard it was for a labourer to get ‘even a working-day
sort of education’, and he had come to the conclusion that unless the
labourer could get himself educated he had no hope of rising to a manly
independence. As a rebel against the established hierarchy, he resented that
the majority of village schools were ‘parson's schools’, and he believed that
the labouring class would be ‘no wiser than madmen’ if they did not take
every advantage of the
… opposes the education of the labourers with steady consistency;
and, in their short generations, they are quite right, for they long since,
and before you showed them, foresaw that more learning meant more
wages.68
It would indeed be strange if Arch's stirring advocacy, and the farmers' dogged opposition, failed to teach many a rural labourer to value education more highly.
The Kent union took even more direct measures to foster rural
education. George Roots, its first chairman, repeatedly urged the labourers to give their children the best possible education, and told them of how
he had been able to raise himself in the world through the education which
his own farm labouring parents had with difficulty provided for him.69 A
Daily News correspondent sent to
… are now prepared and anxious to establish night schools in villages,
if the school-rooms, which are doing nothing as a rule, could be lent to
them for the purpose; but applications of this sort have been refused.
They do, however, circulate books and papers, which travel in
wondrous ways within the limits of the Union.70
A Daily News reporter, describing the departure of the Stad Haarlem
party, wrote that it was in Kent as he had earlier remarked in other parts of
the country, the best men ‘… in every sense the most valid men.’ who
emigrate. He further explained that the emigrants were not only ‘the most
muscular’ but also ‘the best instructed’.71 Our account of the Revolt will
have indicated one reason why this was so: it was the more literate villagers
to whom unionism mainly appealed, and it was the better educated among
In
I have been bid 8/-. a week for Charles, with meat and lodgings, but I
have not let him out at present. There's no fear of letting them out when
you like.72
Charles's age had been 13 when he left England seven months earlier. In
England many a farm labourer would not have dared to refuse a request for
a boy of his age, for fear of jeopardising his own job and tied cottage.73
Finally, among the influences at work transforming the immigrant, we must mention the arousing of his ambitions, a factor whose outworkings we will examine more fully in our next two chapters. For in emigrating, the English labourer had not merely exchanged a penurious dead end for a more comfortable one. Rather, colonial life quickly challenged most newcomers to raise their sights, to embrace opportunities to ‘get on’, to embark on careers of ever-rising prosperity. These aspirations, once aroused, were sometimes thwarted by personal weaknesses and misfortunes, or by the coming of hard times, but the drive of strong personal ambitions stands out as one of the potent shaping forces in nineteenth century New Zealand society, and no immigrant could remain unaffected by this prevailing atmosphere.
Immigrant letters show that ambition was often whetted by finding that
one's own prosperous employer had arrived in the colony as a penniless
labourer. In his letter from
I work for a man from Bedfordshire. He came out here a poor man, but
now he has 100 acres of good land, 9 horses, 30 cows, and a good flock
of sheep - the best I have seen yet. I can save money now. I have got
£4 10 s., and by the time this reaches you I hope to have as much more…74
The abrupt transition from the account of his employer's career, to the
report on the progress of his own savings suggests that Eli was aspiring to a
similar career. When the Suffolk immigrant, Walter Warren, found work
near Marton in
My master has got over 3,100 acres of land. He came out here as poor
as myself eighteen years ago; he keeps a very large quantity of cattle.75
By
Our central concern in this study is with the emigrants from rural
England who helped to shape rural New Zealand, but to illustrate that the
go-getter spirit was at work in town as well as in country, we will quote a
letter from a townsman immigrant, Henry Dee, a 22-year-old labourer,
who emigrated with his wife Catherine, from
We have not got a house yet; we are in lodgings, paying 5s. per week
…. I have got a good place at the baking; I get £2 per week and all
found. My wife is getting good wages at the dressmaking, from 10s. to
12s. a dress. I have bought her a sewing machine, a very good one, a
Wheeler and Wilson; I gave £8 for it, so she will be able to do better at
home. She can earn 30s. per week. This is a fine country. This is the
place for the working man. Masters are the same here as the working
man. My master is a Scotchman. He has been here three years, and says
this is the place for a man to get on …. We have been to see Mr. and
Mrs. Taylor; he is getting 8s. per day, wet and dry. They have a house
and let lodgings, and take in laundry work.76
The early stages of ‘getting on’ were humble enough, as Henry Dee's letter
shows, and indeed it was one of the virtues of these assisted immigrants that
there was usually nothing pretentious about the outworking of their
newly-heightened ambitions. David Whiting, writing from Tataraimaka in
Taranaki, on
I can tell you we are getting on very well; but you will laugh at my little
way I am started in - but we must go by littles at a time. At first we got
a pig - then we got hens and chickens. We have got between 40 and 50,
and then another pig; and now I can buy a cow, when I can light on
one to suit us, and the keeping for 6d. a week; so you will see my little
speculating.77
Such an inventory of a growing barnyard of livestock is a somewhat
humorous feature of many of the immigrant letters. This approach to
‘getting on’ would have had several attractions to ambitious newcomers. It
would enable them to enjoy a plentiful diet of good food, while husbanding
their earnings with a view to farm ownership. The nucleus of livestock
would be invaluable when a block of land was finally acquired. In the
meantime all members of the household could contribute to the family
effort by helping with the barnyard chores and mastering livestock skills.
‘Getting on’ in rural New Zealand was often very much a family affair, as
our next extract illustrates. The Jewitt family had emigrated from Ulceby,
Lincolnshire, in
We have got two acres of land and a house, it we built ourselves with a little help from our neighbours. We only paid £3 for labour, and I like it very much. We have seven fowls, two pigs and a hive of bees, and we hope to have a cow as soon as we get the land fenced in. Jack is at work at 8s. a day. Tom, Ellen and Sarah are in service. Tom 8s. per week; Ellen 10s., and Sarah 2s.6d. to nurse a baby. Mary was out seven weeks, but she couldn't stand it, so Ellen took her place. Jack goes away for a month, tents out and cooks his own food; he is on the railway, and the line runs by our house … My wife has been out charing a few days where Ellen lives, they gave her 7s. a day. When Tom gets his money he is going to buy a horse, for if he can get two horses, a dray and plough, he can get a good living by making roads and ploughing land. … We gleaned 3 quarters in one field, for they don't rake it here. I can get 2s.6d. a pair for knitting socks, for men wear them here.78
When Alfred Simmons travelled through New Zealand in the southern
We came across scores of labouring men who had been well known to
us in England as honest but poverty-stricken fellows, who were now
possessors of their own little freehold houses and gardens, some of these
small properties being worth from £200 to £350 each, and the men
earning three times as much wages as they ever received at home, having
a respectable item deposited in the Post-office Savings Bank of New
Zealand, enjoying life as they never enjoyed it before, and as happy in
their adopted homes as the days were long. If it were necessary we
might attach hereto a yard-long catalogue of individual cases (furnishing
the names), in which poor English farm-labouring families, after a
residence in the colony of from three to five years, have already
acquired a house and large garden. In the great majority of these cases
they have, in the first instance, bought a “section” of land — some an
eighth, some a quarter, and others half an acre or more — and have then
had their cottages erected upon their several sections. We visited in one
week the homes of nearly fifty such families, all of whom had emigrated
not long since from the county of Kent. One man, in addition to
purchasing his house and garden, had leased seventy-five acres of
Government pasture land, was the owner of twenty cows, and supplied
a small neighbouring town with all the milk used therein. Another man,
besides have a cottage erected for himself and family, had built and
rented a second cottage, had reserved a portion of his freehold land for
pasture, and had already got six cows and some goats upon it. There
were cases innumerable where labouring men of the same stamp as the
foregoing were gradually following in their fellows' footsteps …79
Simmons appears to have spent most of his few weeks in New Zealand
in the
Many of the nominators have not been more than six years in the
colony, but are possessed of considerable property. Amongst these may
be found a number of Government immigrants who are now
hotelkeepers, farmers, county storekeepers, master mechanics, and in
Government employ.80
THE IMMIGRANT RURAL labourer was impelled by his memories of the
world he had left, and by the opportunities of the colonial world he had
joined, towards one paramount personal ambition and one dominant social
ideal. He would till his own land as an independent yeoman farmer, and he
would live in a yeoman community where men mixed in a brotherhood of
rough equality. His wife and children would toil with him, helping to bring
his dream to pass, and sharing in its fruits. There would be no degraded
paupers to shame his new community, and no great ones, exacting
deference while living in idle luxury. Rather, in this yeoman's Promised
Land, all would enjoy security against the fear of want, a daily round
enriched by family fellowship, and leisure to share, according to their
interests and abilities, in the affairs and recreations of the local community.
In old age one would rest in the enjoyment of the ample fruits of one's own
labours, having seen one's children established in the same way of life. This
yeoman ideal drew much of its strength from an idealised popular tradition
of a ‘Merrie England’ of the past, and from the Promised Land of Old
Testament history and prophecy. It had been reinforced in recent times by
the North American experience, for there the yeoman had become ‘the
hero of a myth, of the myth of mid-nineteenth-century 1 The
English village labourer's awareness of this myth had been strengthened by
the recent spectacle of the triumph of the yeoman North over the
plantation South, and by the growing impact of American religious
revivalism, which was rich in agrarian imagery. But the yeoman outlook
would surely have developed even without the aid of ancient traditions or
contemporary myths, for it represented the simplest and most direct way
of imagining the removal of all those deprivations and humiliations under
which the English village labourers suffered. And in the world of the late
nineteenth century such men could have found few places better suited
than New Zealand for the furthering of their dream. There were, of course,
other personal ambitions held by some of the colony's labouring immigrants, particularly those being fostered world-wide by new patterns of
city life. But in New Zealand it was the yeoman ideal which was dominant,
and it even found an urban expression by way of the quarter-acre section
and holiday bach.
The newcomers of the 1870s were offered no one simple path to the
fulfilment of their ambitions, but rather a range of options. For they came
with a variety of skills and personal circumstances, and they joined a fluid,
rapidly-developing pioneer community in a land with a number of
strikingly varied local environments. We must, therefore, search for
New Zealand's shape and relief have tended to make the Arden-Feldon
division largely a matter of west and east. The country extends for a
thousand miles athwart a belt of rain-bearing westerly winds, and for much
of its length a formidable chain of high mountains forms a barrier in their
path. To the west of the mountains the rainfall is high, to the east,
relatively low. This pattern of topography and rainfall is most pronounced
in the
The greater number of the assisted immigrants of the 1870s joined
settlements which owed their founding to Edward Gibbon Wakefield's
dream of a system whereby English rural society might be recreated in a
purified form. Among the weaknesses of the New Zealand Wakefield
schemes were the failure to appreciate either the difficulties of colonising
the Arden, or the attractions of an alternative form of settlement, the
pastoral occupation of the Feldon on the pattern already developed by the
Australian squatters. It would have been difficult to find anywhere in New
Zealand of the 1870s a district where there was anything resembling the
English rural pattern of gentry, farmers and labourers. Rather, the
Wakefield settlements had given rise to two main types of community —
those shaped respectively by the emerging yeoman farmers, and by the
squattocracy. The yeoman pattern had become firmly established around
the original sites of each of the Wakefield settlements. The heavily-forested
and hilly site of the
If we wished to give a quick, simplified picture of the development of
Most of the main forces patterning the careers of our immigrant rural
labourers will now be clear. We will find them cooperating with the various
influences encouraging the extension of yeoman farming on the Feldon,
and we will find them providing a steady flow of recruits for the stream of
settlers moving from the Feldon to colonise the Arden. As a result of this
movement there developed what has often been referred to as ‘the drift
north’. Its causes lay in the fact that the greater number of the rural recruits
of the 1870s went to the Feldon of the
The working men of 2 In
mid-December the movement claimed a roll of about 500 heads of families
in 3 Late in December William
Rolleston, Minister of Lands, was in 4 Rolleston gave
this land company little encouragement. It was eventually forced to restrict
its activities to sending delegates to inspect forest land which the
government put up for sale in Taranaki over the following winter, and to
facilitating individual applications for sections by its members.5
Working men's settlement associations were by no means new to New
Zealand, but it seems likely that the sweeping proposals and rather direct
and outspoken methods of the
The Feldon of
The English labourers who immigrated to the
By the 1870s the rougher pioneer days of squatting were past. The station
homestead, in the centre of its wide stretch of pastures, had become an
attractive and comfortable place, where the pastimes and social conventions of the homeland gentry had taken colonial roots. Each homestead had
a dependent colony of servants and labourers, and it was among these that
many of the newly arrived immigrants found their first employment. Not
surprisingly, some of the newcomers equated the squatters with the
English squires. Thus the Lincolnshire immigrant Michael Cook wrote
home in
A squire they call Sir Thos. Tancred lives near us; he saw my stacks and
was so taken up with them that he came and borrowed me three days to
go and stack for him, so my master drove the engine to let me go … I
charged 18d. an hour — good stackers can get that.7
There can be no doubt that among the squatters there were those who
aspired to the creation of a colonial gentry class. Thus it is reported of
8 In
Canterbury Times wrote of John Studholme's ‘almost chivalric
attachment to his order, like aristocracy…. The belief that squatters are a
different order, essentially of a higher nature, a more perfect mould, has
9 But such dreams were not to come to pass. Too
many of the squatters had risen from the ranks of the labouring class, while
others who had come from better circumstances had no desire to recreate
the English class system. For any who did hanker after such things, the
obvious course was to make a colonial fortune quickly and return to
England. However, they would have had little chance of doing this if they
had not made good by
The years 1877 and 1878 saw a great land boom in
An experienced New Zealand colonist on a visit to The Times of the prospects which rural New Zealand offered to the
immigrant. He maintained that it was almost an advantage to arrive
without capital. He had found that men of small means often bought land
soon after arrival, before they had enough experience of colonial conditions to buy wisely, and as many such men were unaccustomed to hard
fxphysical labour, they started with a double disadvantage, and often lost,
rather than made, money. On the other hand, some of the richest men in
the colony had arrived penniless, and had made their way up by steady
work and by investing in land only after gaining the necessary experience.
However, much more typical of the assisted immigrants who succeeded
as farmers in New Zealand were those who arrived as married men with
little or no capital. On the
In Eli Bloxham and John Jewitt we have already given two examples of
immigrants setting out to establish themselves in 15
To complete our account of newcomers settling in this yeoman district,
we will take three Mongol. The passenger list shows him as a 35-year-old gardener,
but he had in fact had quite a varied career as a gentleman's servant,
groom and coachman. After six months in 16
Thomas White was born at Bourton, which neighboured George
Allington's home parish of Stretton-on-Dunsmore. White, with his wife
Sarah and their four children, joined Allington's Crusader party of
This he clearly proceeded to do. He is recorded in 17
For our third Crusader party. James was born at
Webtoft in north 18 He had also helped each of his four sons to purchase
farms and owned a freehold home in
We turn next to those immigrants who chose to get their start on a
squatter's station. One such was 38-year-old farm labourer George
Addington, one of Duncan's recruits from Cardington in Bedfordshire.
Addington reached
We are doing well, and you need not wonder at it, for we eat half a
sheep in a week, and I think you must value your place to get up at five
in the morning; but if I get up and have my breakfast by eight o'clock
that is soon enough in this country. I have a good master; I have a
cottage and garden. He got me a six-gallon boiler, a tea-kettle, a
saucepan and frying pan, two sacks of potatoes, six cwt. of coal, a peck
of sugar, a tin of tea, and a grate and oven, and two hundred feet of
boards to do what I liked with; and when he sent my wife and family to
me he went to 19
George and his wife had been engaged as a married couple. Probably one
reason why Middlemiss was prepared to take on an older man with a
considerable family was that he was farming two widely-separated
properties and was looking for a man with potential as a manager.
Middlemiss may also have been attracted by George's physique. His
descendants report that he would come home from
We are fifteen miles from the snowy mountains, and can see them quite
plain … It is a nice level place where we are; we have no trees in the
Probably George was not quite so happy with the bare open landscape as
his letter may have led his brothers to suppose. Certainly the settlers
transformed the plains over the next few decades, breaking its monotony
with hedges, shelter belts, and tree surrounded homesteads. George will
have helped with this transformation while moving up from farmhand to
substantial landowner. He first took a small holding of about 60 acres at
20
While George Addington was making his way in the district south of the
Waimakariri, Henry Tomlinson, former secretary of the union branch at
Laceby, was making his way in a very similar fashion on the rather poorer
country to the north of the river. He was the kind of married man that
station owners were looking for - experienced in farm work, yet still
young, and without a large family. He went first to work on a large sheep
station at West Eyreton, owned by Marmaduke Dixon, who was also
Lincolnshire born. Dixon had grown up at Caistor, and belonged to a
branch of the Holton-le-Moor Dixons, another of whose members,
William Dixon, we have noted as a pioneer of popular education at Caistor.
21 After a little experience with this excellent
mentor, Tomlinson had sixteen years as manager of another West Eyreton
station, owned by P.C. Threlkeld, a pioneer of wheat-growing in the
district, and a noted sheep breeder.22 By 23
Our next examples of men who began their New Zealand careers as
station hands are two young farm labourers who arrived as single men, and
married after a short time in the colony. Henry Hearn was twenty when he
joined Allington's Crusader party for New Zealand. He had grown up in
rural Buckinghamshire, and had been ‘on his own’ in the world from the
age of eight. Late in life he recalled that as a lad he had had the care of four
horses, and had begun each day at 3.30 a.m., to earn two shillings and
sixpence a week. In Crusader. Mary Ann must have been one of Arthur Clayden's recruits,
as she was born at Littleworth, near Faringdon. She had emigrated as a
17-year-old housemaid, like Henry, venturing ‘on her own’. Considering
the strong demand for domestic servants in 24
Robert Brookland arrived in New Zealand on 25 It was 26
Among those arriving in Lady Jocelyn was Thomas Timms, 39, shepherd,
with his wife Ellen, 40, and their four children, all under ten. They can be
identified as a family referred to by Joseph and Ann Leggett in a letter to
Ann's mother, written from
Tom was up to see us last Sunday and Monday, he is well; much better,
he says, than he has been for a long time. He has not much to do except
to ride a horse round the sheep twice a day; he has two or three dogs
which do most of the work. Ellen and the children are well; but Ellen
does not like the country, it is lonely where they are; there are some
‘cockatoos’ or small farmers living near them. One of them was at our
house yesterday, and we sent Tom some potatoes and fowl down —
Walter gave him four. He will get on better after a bit; the worst of it
that Tom dislikes is because there is no school for the children near,
but, he said, one would be built soon.27
This illustrates another, and less attractive, aspect of the thinly settled
sheep country. A woman used to the bustle of an English village could find
it very lonely, and important social institutions, such as a school, could be
lacking. In the letter, Joseph Leggett mentions that he had discussed with
Tom Timms the idea of their going into partnership in a farm, starting with
fifty acres and working up. This plan was not proceeded with, but Timms
found his own solution to his family problems. In 28
Longbeach merits our attention for it will have given many of the ‘Vogel’
immigrants their start in colonial life. John Grigg (1828–1901) was a
Cornishman who emigrated to 29 The Ashburton Guardian described a good harvest in
A position as a station-hand generally gave much more security of
employment than was enjoyed by the typical English village labourer. We
now turn to those who did not seek or were unable to secure, such
employment, often because they had a large family, and who chose to live
in a rural centre and take whatever labouring work they could find. The
position of these men would have seemed superficially similar to the
situation they had left in England, but the easy access to a freehold home,
and the vastly different economic and social context meant that in reality
they too were entering on a new life. For our examples of these immigrants
we will turn to 33 having doubled its
population to fifty permanent residents in the preceding twelve months.
Alfred Saunders, Christopher Holloway's host during his visit to
34 Those arriving on the Atrato, and with Leggett on the
Ballochmyle, were among the first to use the barracks. Leggett himself
must have moved with his family to 35 Leggett had
taken his carpentering skills to a ready market.
How three Labourers' Union Chronicle.36 When he
wrote again on
The last time I wrote to you it was poor news, but the last words I told
you were that I would send you the truth, good or bad. Now for some
good news. I had 24 weeks in the barracks, firing found. We did not
pay any rent, as I told you before they wanted us to do. I have bought
half-an-acre of land for £20. I have paid £5 towards it, and I have got to
pay the remainder in two years. I have a house 20 feet long and 9 feet
wide for £46. I have paid £16 towards it. I agreed to pay 10s. a week till
it was paid for, but if all is well I shall be able to pay £4 a month, so
you see it will soon be my own. I have got my land ploughed, and
planted spuds, turnips, radishes, lettuce, cabbage and other plants, and
all look well. Fred and Jim have got the next two half-acres to me. I
have got it fenced in. Fred and I have left our first master and started on
the repairs for Government on the same length of line as we started on
before, at 8s for eight hours, from eight in the morning till five in the
evening. We have been lucky to get on regular close to home. My wife
goes out some weeks two days, some three, besides washing at home.
She gets 5s. a day and her food, so my money at the least is £3 a week.
… 37
‘Fred and Jim’ who had the next two half-acre sections to Emmanuel, were Frederick Berry, 37, labourer, who emigrated with his wife Elizabeth, 38, and six children, George, 13, Ellen, 10, Emma, 8, Rose, 6, Fred, 3, and infant John; and James Taylor, 39, labourer, also with a wife and six children. Fred Berry wrote home to his father by the same mail as the letter we have quoted from Emmanuel. Fred reported that
… We are doing well … and like the country much. I do not regret
coming. I only wish I had come out sooner … I have got a bit of land
and I hope I shall have a home by the time you get this letter … I am
very much indebted to Mr. Ford; send me his address, and I will pay
him as soon as I can.38
‘Mr. Ford’ is probably Edwin Ford, who took over as district secretary of
the union when Leggett emigrated. It was Ford who sent in a later letter
from the Berrys for publication. It was to a friend, dated from
Jim Taylor and W. Petty are at harvest, and six more men, and they
think they are doing very well; but E. Jeffs and I are packing on the
same length, so we can't go harvesting … We have all got half an acre
of land, and the spuds are ready to get up; and they have all got a sort
of a house but me, and mine is not done yet, so I have a long stop in the
depot. But there is plenty of room, plenty of firing, and we have had
nothing to pay for rent…. We had E. Jeff's letter back in print, and
the men don't think much of him, for we all know that folks can't live
and do so well at home … I don't know anyone that wants to come
back, and I should think I was going to be transported if they said I was
to come back … Dear Friend, - I thought as ‘Fred’ had not time to
finish his letter I would just write a few lines myself … George is at
work on the line at 3s. 6d. per day and overtime sometimes; he is a
good lad. Ellen is at service. Emma is out for a little while, as it is
school holidays, so we have only two at home now …39
The Return of Freeholders shows that these three men were still labourers
in
We must now turn again to the two letters written from 40 The Leggetts' letters
of
Like the three families from Ettington, the Leggetts had bought a good
sized section in the township.41 From Ann's report to her mother, it must
have been run almost as a small farmlet:
We rise our own fowl. We have a horse, three pigs — killed one to-day —
two sheep, two cats, a fine great dog, seven children, and some fine
fowls. We growed over thirty sacks of potatoes thinking you would be
here to help eat them.42
Joseph's letter explained that they were feeding the pigs on the potatoes
they had grown, ‘mixed with good sharps’. The sharps were doubtless a
byproduct of Saunder's flourmill. Joseph reported that most of the men
who had come out with him were making similar progress, having each
a house and land of their own, worth nearly a hundred pounds. His own
children were all doing well. The two youngest were at home, three older
ones were at school, while Annie and Louisa (14 and 12 respectively when
they emigrated) were both in service. Both Ann and Joseph gave news of
their church associations. Ann wrote that ‘there is no Baptist up here; we
mostly attend the Primitive 43
Joseph's comment reflects the fact that in the colony ‘nonconformists’44
found that they could largely throw off the low status of despised poor
relations, and that they celebrated this fact by dropping the use of the word
‘chapel’. In later Victorian New Zealand it was in the Feldon districts that
denominations with ‘church’ origins fared best in competition with those
of ‘chapel’ origin, and this was particularly so in 45 The strength of Primitive Methodism among the labourers of
rural England, and its strong links with their Revolt of the Field, lie behind
these facts.
There was also a considerable number of Wesleyans among the
immigrants settling in New Zealand
Wesleyan, for contributions to help the church get established in a strategic
and promising district. The report on the first quarterly meeting explained
that ‘most of our people … have no spare cash at present having laid out
their all in purchasing land, but they promise liberal aid in a year or two’.46
But this was not how it was to be. In ‘a year or two’ 47 Clearly, many of
For our final examples from the 48 Aided by
this easy start, the more enterprising of them may have already got
established on small farms.
It seems likely that Eli Pratley from Ascott-under-Wychwood became
one of these village settlers, for he later reported that following his arrival
by the Crusader in 49 Frederick Pratley, also from Ascott, and arriving on the
Crusader, is possibly the brother referred to. He also went directly to
50 Another Oxfordshire man who had a career
similar to the Pratleys was farm labourer William Bragden, 38, who came
as a member of Leggett's party, with his wife and six children. After a year
or two of labouring at 51
A glimpse into the lives of immigrants newly arrived in Peeress in
You should have seen the people on the beach when we landed, there
were hundreds to receive us. We were taken to a large building and
provided with plenty to eat and tea to drink. This is the place for
drinking tea. We stayed there till Monday morning, when eight families
were taken about 12 miles farther to a place called 52
From various other immigrants who have been traced to the Hereford in 53 The colonial careers of a number
of immigrants follow a similar pattern - a few years gaining experience and
capital in a more developed district, then a move to undeveloped country
inland, as a means of obtaining a reasonable area of freehold, on limited
means.
We will now leave Otago on 54 Another letter signed ‘Edward and Dinah Parratt’, and
dated from Hawkden Station, Blackstone Hill, on
[Father] is thinking of buying a mare, so that he can breed a foal for
himself, as it will cost him nothing to keep a horse on the station….
Father wishes he had been out sooner … We might have been on our
own land and a house of our own; we hope we shall after a bit. Dinah
and Tom are very well. We expect Dinah over before long. She comes
over on horseback. She is ten miles from us, and she has £36 wage.55
Another who found his way to a high country run was Thomas Warren, a
28-year-old labourer who emigrated from Willesborough in Kent in
You would not credit how well Susy gets on. She is quite fat and hearty, and our employer is very fond of her, and she is [of] him. Her playmates are three cats and four dogs, besides fowls and some young pigs, with all of whom she plays for hours at a stretch, and the animals are all very fond of her, especially the cats, two of which are young and very docile.
Thomas's letter shows that he was well pleased with his wages and prospects:
I put our wages, which are £55 cash a year, with food for the three of
us, firing, and house-rent, at £120 a year at the very least, and I am told
by the station hands that is very low, but then I am only a learner in
station life, and shall have more if I stop after the year has expired, as I
shall then be of some value as a station hand, and I am acquiring a
knowledge of the work very rapidly and can do it. Besides, the wages
are wealth to us, who could never find a sixpence, as there are no bills
to pay, no Saturday night to look forward to, no rent to hunt up.56
We go next to the Hawke's Bay Feldon for an example of an immigrant
who included rural contracting in his career towards farming. Charles
Codd was born in 57 It seems probable that agricultural contracting continued to be
an interest even after it had helped him to get established on a farm. A
period of agricultural contracting has been noted in the careers of a number
of other immigrants settling in Feldon districts.
Although the
On Celestial Queen, and found
employment with a fellow Cornishman, William Reynolds, who had taken
up land at 58
In 59
On Hydaspes brought to
It is a beautiful country, there are all kinds of fruit grows wild; you can
go out and gather as much as you like…. The peaches are as big as a
good sized apple, and grown by tons. There are scores of pheasants, and
you can go and shoot one when you think well, and no-one to
interfere.60
The Brocklesbys' move to Hydaspes, appears as one of the prizewinners of the
Infant Class.61
The other Lincolnshire family on the Hydaspes had been recruited by the
National Union, and consisted of 37-year-old Richard Wattam, his wife
and three young daughters. Richard's younger brother George arrived in
62 Richard wrote home from
So I left it, and had a look among the farmers near
Richard then proceeded to quote the local prices for food and other everyday necessities, and for workman's tools, before continuing with a most interesting account of the district and local society.
This is a new district only now opening, it is land that was taken from
the Maories [sic] in the last war, about 10 years ago, and it was given to
the men that fought in 50 acre lots. Five or six years ago you could buy
it, for a bottle of grog, 50 acres of fine land as need be, but now it is
from one to five pounds per acre, according to quality and situation.
… Tell Mrs Dorbakin this is the place to keep a public-house; talk
about drinking in England, it is nothing to compare to New Zealand
according to population, they do not pay here same as they do with
you. They work till they get 20 or 40 or 100 pounds, and the masters
give them a cheque for the amount, and they will then go to a
public-house and spend it all in a few days, and then go to work again.
You can tell Webster that this is the place for brick making; if he was
here he could start anywhere where there is clay, and the owner would
help him and go shares, £3 per thousand, and they talk of raising. Coals
are no dearer than in England and plenty of wood for carting it. Most of
them are single men about here, they got their fifty acres in the war,
they have built themselves houses and ploughed a part of the land and
sown it with clover, and the rest is in a wild state. They live in the
houses by themselves, eating a few hens and turkeys which some of
them let sleep in the house with them. There are plenty of natives about
here but they are very civil. They do not work much, they all have
horses both men and women, the latter ride astride the same as men.
… Very little corn is grown, although it makes a good price … They
are all for clover and keeping cattle, and it takes a good three year old
bullock to make £10. They have one steam machine up here and they
63
In 64
In 65
Among Peirce's party were two families of Keeleys from 66
In the later 1870s a number of further Cornish immigrants settled at
67 By the Hereford in
Hereford were John and Jane Bridgman and their three
children - Jane may well have been the other daughter of Jonathan
Kingdon who settled first in 68
Clearly, in the
THE BRITISH IMMIGRANTS who began the systematic colonisation of New
Zealand in the 1840s had come from a land of ploughed fields and trim
pastures, and few of them had been prepared to tackle the taming of the
forests of their new homeland. Neither in peace nor in war had they felt at
home away from the open country. Some observers of the early 1870s
reported a positive aversion against settling bush country.1 In the first
thirty years of colonisation, few of the settlers could have been described
by the American term ‘backwoodsman’. But the 1870s saw a great change
in outlook as the New Zealand backwoods were at last tackled in a spirited
manner. By the mid-1870s many settlers, including newly arrived British
immigrants as well as experienced colonials, were being rapidly transformed into efficient bushmen. Before we select a few bush settlements for
more detailed study, we must briefly examine the formidable difficulties
which had led to the postponement of the task, and also indicate some of
the chief ways in which the economic and social development of these
settlements differed from that of the districts we have studied on the
Feldon.
The first problem facing the colonists of New Zealand's dense rain forest
was the sheer difficulty of gaining effective access to the land. On the fern
and tussock of the Feldon the squatters had found it a comparatively simple
matter to drive stock onto their land, and to cart in the equipment and
supplies needed to set up a homestead, but in the Arden, roadways had first
to be carved through the forest to open up new areas for settlement, and
bush tracks made to give access to individual holdings. Unlike the Feldon,
the occupation of the Arden had to wait on government initiatives in the
opening up of the main communication lines. Not till the General
Government adopted a bold borrowing policy in
The forest which prevented easy access to the land also denied the settler
2 and forest land was looked upon as the best proposition for
the ambitious man of small means. He could buy it more cheaply — often
for as little as a quarter of the price of open land of a similar quality. Skilled
contract bushmen were now readily available, and a man could get started
by paying to have his first few acres felled at a cost of about two pounds ten
shillings an acre. On open country a man would require a draught animal
and cultivating implements to prepare for his first crop, but in the bush the
only equipment needed was an axe, a bill-hook, and a box of matches. Bush
felled over the winter was burnt off about February, and grass seed sown in
the ashes. The clearing could then be stocked with cattle the following
spring, or shut up with a cheap log fence to provide a crop of grass seed the
following autumn. The bush provided the materials for a home and farm
buildings, and abundant firewood for years to come. The energetic settler
could expect to be providing a subsistence livelihood for himself and his
family within a year or two, with a little cash income to meet the payments
on his land, and buy the few necessaries that he could not produce. In the
longer term, the rise of the dairying and frozen meat industries was to bring
increasing prosperity to these bush settlers.3
The bush communities differed from the squatter's world of the Feldon
in various ways, some obvious, some more subtle. The squatters' interests
were better served by a climate of laissez-faire individualism, while the
bush settlers needed and expected a fair measure of government help and
direction, and were encouraged by the nature of the problems they faced to
shape cooperative rather than individualistic institutions for themselves.
The squatter's world had quickly developed some tendencies towards
social hierarchy, while the tone of the bush settlements was strongly
democratic. The difference found a clear expression in the educational
development of the two regions. The development of boarding school
institutions for the squatters' children had in the first instance been
encouraged by the scattered nature of their settlements, but when the State
school appeared the squatters often by-passed it for social class reasons
similar to those of the English gentry. In the bush settlements the State
school generally received the whole-hearted support of the community,
and was very much the common school from the start. The establishment
of the bush schools was facilitated by the common concentration of the
population on a central clearing which was usual in the pioneer stage of a
new district. The launching of the bush settlements of the 1870s coincided
with a period of educational advance, which followed on the colony's
acceptance of the secular common school as its basic educational policy.
An important consequence was that the school building, controlled out of
school hours by the democratically elected school committee, became the
main social centre of the early days of most bush settlements.4 In Feldon
As the first of our bush settlement examples we will select the colonising
of the Moa Block in Taranaki, the first forthright endeavour by the New
5
Atkinson had settled in Taranaki in Waikato, which was daily expected in
Beginning in
Over half of the 365 immigrants on the Waikato had been recruited by
the Kent union. They formed a party of 200 which gathered on the
morning of
On Waikato, who set out under the guidance of a group of surveyors
to begin preparations for the making of the Inglewood settlement.
On
The Government here employed several of us at bush felling at 5s. per
day (lose no time) until we got a little experienced at the work, and then
they put small contracts to us, and men, if good hands, can earn from
12
Atkinson had drawn on provincial funds to get George Tapp and his mates
started on their work, but in due course the General Government voted
£20,000 ‘for works in connection with the location of settlers, etc. within
the province’.13 Though hampered by a shortage of labour, Atkinson and
his administration pushed ahead vigorously with preparations for the flow
of immigrants they hoped soon to see moving onto the new land. By
mid-summer the township site of 150 acres had been felled, a substantial
corrugated iron government store erected, and contractors were working
on a number of slab huts which the government was building for the
immigrants. A baker was already in business supplying the needs of the
pioneers. In old native clearings at intervals up to four miles further along
the Mountain Road, twelve acres of potatoes had been planted for use by
the expected immigrants, and slab huts were being built in these clearings
also. Although the 14 life over the
The ‘billy’ was put on, and we entered into an interesting chat with the
occupants of the hut, comprising four new chums; one of them — a
Kentish man, the adopted father of the family, both intelligent and
chatty — was busy making the Sunday dumplings; whilst another, with a
piece of board on his knee for a desk, was writing a letter; another
doing a read; and the other amusing himself in various ways.15
When Carrington opened the Waikato party had been followed by a small party of North
European immigrants, and a large party of 235 British immigrants, who
had arrived in
The Avalanche brought 250 immigrants, and a number of them were
prepared to settle with their families on the Moa Block. It was about the
time of their arrival that some of the disadvantages of sending inexperienced new arrivals out to bush work began to become apparent. On 21
Avalanche immigrants in the nearest tent saw the tree falling, but were
unable to get clear of it, and were both injured. The tree struck a further
tent, in which the men had had no warning, injuring one occupant and
killing the other. The dead man was 22-year-old farm labourer James
Wallis, one of a party of about 150 gathered from Kent for the Avalanche
by Alfred Simmons.16 Wallis had emigrated with his wife, whom he had
married just before sailing. When the coroner's jury censured the men's
overseer,17 Carrington called for a report from George Robinson,
Inspector of Works, Moa District. Robinson's report highlighted the
problems arising from the use of inexperienced men in bush work:
It would be difficult, almost impossible, for anyone not actually on the
spot, to imagine the almost ceaseless supervision required by the
overseers, over the immigrants, for the first few weeks after their
commencing bush work. The men are divided into pairs, and when
possible each pair is placed sufficiently far away from the others to avoid
danger from falling trees; and this is especially necessary from the
manner in which some of the men will persist in cutting their trees.
Instead of cutting in their dip straight across the tree, and backing it up
in a similar manner, in which case a tree can only fall one of two ways,
they will chop all round the tree until there is nothing left but a piece in
18
Once the township site was felled, most of the bush parties were set to
work on branch roads to open up land for sale. The roads were felled and
cleared three chains wide, one chain for roadway, and those on either side
to be grassed, so as to encourage an early occupation of the land once it was
sold. The government's hopes that its immigrant workmen would make
use of their bush experience and the savings from their wages, to take up
sections, were a little dampened by the reluctance of their families to move
out to the Moa Block. A month after the Avalanche arrived there were still
twenty-five families in the immigration barracks. The men could have
taken their wives and children out to their rough bush huts on the block,
but the road work on which they were engaged would have continually
taken them away from their families, causing various hardships and
difficulties. The government therefore decided, on the advice of W. K.
Hulke, its Immigration Agent, to allow immigrant families to ‘squat’
rent-free on unsold sections at Inglewood, for two or three years, and to
grant each family two pounds towards erecting a rough hut for themselves.19 On 20 February the first Moa Block land was put on sale, and by
24 February 1000 acres had been taken on deferred payment and 716 acres
for cash. It was, of course, too late to begin felling for the current season's
bush burns. The government clearly anticipated that there would be a
strong work force based on Inglewood, felling bush over the winter
months. It let a contract for the carting in of substantial food supplies
before the winter mud made the task uneconomic. Speaking at the
Agricultural Society's ploughing match dinner late in May, Thomas Kelly,
the Provincial Secretary, told how the shortage of surveyors and bushmen
was hampering the opening up of the block. Most of the men the
government had sent out to the work had soon found employment
amongst farmers back in the older settled districts.
Over the 20 Before emigrating
he had been prominent in the public life of Liverpool. Trimble's son Alfred
later recalled his first impressions of Inglewood, ‘just an ordinary bush
clearing; black and ugly; with a muddy track cutting it from North to
South’.21 A small party of German immigrants came to Coltingwood, in August. In September over 400 immigrants arrived by the
Halcione and Chile, almost all of them Burton's recruits. By means of
packhorses, contact was maintained with the settlement throughout the
winter, and its population rose steadily from about 300 in June to over 600
in October. Thomas Kelly, speaking in the House of Representatives on 15
John King, one of Burton's recruits by the Chile gives a good description
of how the settlement looked to a new arrival in the
Now for a little bush work; we have had a fortnight in the bush and it
is as rough as any man can desire. I will try to describe the road to
Inglewood. First, you may have seen a road into a small wood in the
winter. We are about 10 miles in the forest, and it took us 10 hours to
go 17 miles, and we had 2 horses to each cart, and we had to follow the
cart and hang at it to keep it from tipping over very often; at other
times we lift them up a hill. We got there all safe, 23 of us and tools.
The women are still in the barracks, for baggage and all provisions cost
£7 per ton, going up at present, but dry weather will soon alter this, we
have had a lot of wet here lately which is rather against us … Most of
us Grimsby chaps has gone up to this new township, and they let any
man have a rood of land for 3 years and all the wood on it free, and he
can build a house and clear his land and then he can buy it at an auction
if he feels disposed, the upset price is £5. King, Keightley, Wilson, E.
Perkins, T. Smith, T. Cox, and several others from Lincolnshire are all
in one square of land adjoining; so we are nearly altogether, and this is
called squatting … nearly all hands here that has been a few months
have a cow and a horse, and the women ride to market on a horse and
come home loaded with things as natural as they go in a gig at home.
… I can't say much about the money earned here yet, for we are
house building and have to help one another, so that we have not had a
fair chance, but they allow any man to work for himself three days and
three days for them, so that he can have a little money to live on time
his house is being built. The single men are all sent up into the bush to
form a township, and I will state how my own lads is situated, and all
the rest are on the same footing. The oldest lad has 6s. per day, and the
2nd lad has 4s. per day of 8 hours, and they live in tents found by the
government….22
The superintendent declared
23 Inglewood's second sawmill was established by Colonel Trimble.
The machinery, accompanied by an engineer, arrived in 24 The establishment of the industry was being
hampered, however, by delays in the construction of the promised
railway. The advertisements for the first sale of land in the block had stated
that the railway should be completed to Inglewood by
Public meetings were held at Inglewood over this winter for other
purposes also. On 8 July Colonel Trimble chaired a meeting in the
schoolroom, called together for two main objects.25 Some of Burton's
Lincolnshire recruits had been disturbed by statements that he had made
false representations to induce people to come to New Zealand, and wished
to come to his defence. The meeting therefore began with a motion
expressing satisfaction with Burton. It was moved by William Carter, who
had emigrated from Withern by the Chile, as a 28-year-old carpenter. He
had probably been an official of the union, as he claimed to have attended
all Burton's meetings held in his district. He maintained that though John
H. White had sometimes been carried away to make remarks that were too
glowing and highly coloured, he had found all that Burton said true to the
letter. John King from Grimsby seconded the motion, remarking that
Burton had given a very honest representation of Taranaki as he left it, but
the great and rapid influx of people had of course brought some changes,
including a rise in prices and shortage of housing. The motion was carried
with only one dissentient. Colonel Trimble then explained the meeting's
other purpose. A memorial asking for a town corporation was to be
circulated for householders to sign. Trimble said that he had found a
universal determination to get Inglewood out of its muddy state.
Forty-two householders signed the memorial at the meeting. Inglewood
was proclaimed a town on
Meanwhile steps were being taken to meet the religious needs of the
settlement, with the Chile passenger list as a
54-year-old farm labourer, accompanied by a wife and three daughters,
and who was reported to have promptly bought a block of 64 acres under
deferred payment. Another early lay leader in the cause was George
Cartwright, the second secretary of the Laceby branch of the Labour
League.
By the 28 Meanwhile Henry Brown was moving his
mill from Carrington Road to become the Moa Block's third sawmill.
Henry Brown rapidly became the dominant figure in the sawmilling of the
district.29 There was an increasing pace of life on the Mountain Road also.
As it was improved it became an important stock route over which cattle
were driven from the rich pastures of the Patea district to the river port of
Waitara for shipment to the Avalanche. The letter is
dated
I suppose I should hear from some of you oftener if I was to send you a
‘fiver’ now and again; but I find them very handy at present, as I am
getting a house built, which will cost me £50 for labour … When I get
that house built, it will stand on my own ground, and no one can turn
me out of it; not if I was to shoot a bird on some one else's land. But
there is no need for that, as I have plenty of pheasants and wild pigs on
my own land. Pig hunting is much better fun than rabbit hunting. We
shall have plenty of pig hunting at Christmas time. You would like to
see some of the rusty old boars; they have a hide on them about two
inches thick. There is plenty of land for sale as yet, but the price is
30
In 31
Like Taranaki, Nelson Province was slow to take advantage of the
‘Vogel’ immigration drive. Nelson had not suffered through land wars, but
the hills and mountains which hemmed the settlement round were a more
formidable barrier than Taranaki's bush, and little fertile land lay beyond
their ramparts. Until 32 On 7 May the
Agent-General despatched 332 immigrants on the Adamant, as the first
response to these instructions. Their arrival on 13 August quickly led to
some consternation in the provincial administration, for when they offered
themselves for employment few were engaged. Meanwhile a further
shipload was already at sea on the Chile, and another party was about to
sail on the
Karamea was situated on Nelson's
The Karamea is a low-lying undulating tract of country, shelving
towards the west to a sandy open beach, on all other sides it is
surrounded by steep hills and a mountainous country. It consists of
34
There had been gold rushes to the district in 35 A handful were still there when the special
settlement went in.
Both the Upper Buller and Karamea possessed some land suited to farming, opportunities for road works to provide employment while the settlers got established, the attraction of auriferous ground, and the possibility of a timber industry. The main consideration which led the provincial government to prefer Karamea over the possible alternatives was the cheapness of sea communication as compared with the heavy cost of land transport into the interior. Time was to show the government's estimation of the site to have been unduly optimistic. There were no major finds of gold, sawmillers were not attracted to the area for several decades, a hoped for route through the mountains to Nelson was not found, and the development of a road south to Westport proved more difficult and expensive than anticipated. Even the sea link, the district's main attraction, was poorly serviced once it became clear that the settlement was not going to flourish. In studying the Moa Block we followed immigrants to a well-considered and fortunate settlement which made steady progress towards prosperity. Karamea will serve as an example of a less fortunate and well-considered settlement, whose isolation was its main handicap. Other isolated coastal settlements of the period, and some in more difficult inland areas, suffered similarly. We will first trace the early history of the Karamea special settlement, and then look more closely at the experience of a settler who persisted, and became established there, and more briefly at two who abandoned the attempt in the second year and moved elsewhere.
By early 36
The day before they left, Elliott made a rousing farewell speech to the
pioneers telling them he was sure they would succeed since ‘colonising was
the especial mission of the Anglo-Saxon race, and the same blood flowed in
their veins as in the men who gave language and laws to the whole continent
of 37 They sailed on Sunday
morning, Wallace. A number of
the men were accompanied by their older sons, so that the party totalled
thirty-seven. Over a quarter of them were Shetland Island crofters and
fishermen, there were three Manxmen, three Cornish miners, and the rest
were from various English counties, mainly farm labourers, but including
one or two artisans.38 After delays caused by heavy seas, the pioneers
landed at Karamea on 27 November. Some were quickly discouraged when
they realised what would be involved in getting established in dense forest
on an isolated coast, and thirteen left during the first month. These
included the Manxmen, two of the Cornish miners, a carpenter from
Middlesex, and two stone masons from Gloustershire.39 Those who stayed
were predominantly English farm labourers and Shetland Island crofters.
It was subsequently admitted that too little care had been taken in selecting
the party. Most of those who left would seem to have had skills more
appropriate to other parts of the colony, while those who stayed would
seem to have been the ones better fitted for the pioneer task.
The main responsibility for planning and directing the settlement was
taken by Eugene O'Conor, the Nelson Provincial Secretary, but he was
not, of course, able to give it the close supervision that the Taranaki
administration gave to the Moa Block. To the difficulties of the site and the
lack of care in selecting the pioneers were added problems created by a
rather unsuitable overseer, who had shortly to be replaced, and delays
caused by failure to find the survey lines made ten years earlier. While they
waited for the survey problems to be solved, the men were set to work
clearing land and building a government store and a small jetty, on the
Government Reserve on an island at the mouth of the river. Shortly the
men were able to get to their sections and begin making a clearing, and
erecting their first rough huts, to receive their wives and children. Due to
the unfortunate alienation of the fertile river flats in 40
A comparison of Karamea's development with that of the Moa Block is
instructive. The establishment of the two settlements followed a similar
pattern, with the pioneers simultaneously developing the roadlines and
breaking in their sections, the one task financing the other. On the Moa
Block we noted the difficulties created by putting inexperienced immigrants to bush work, but also that once land sales began there was a large
influx of experienced colonists. The inexperience of newly arrived
immigrants must have led to the same difficulties at Karamea, but here
there was no prospect of a rapid build-up of experienced settlers. The
provincial administration did what it could, offering land for sale adjacent
to the special settlement, without much success, and negotiating with the
General Government a limited relaxation of the Special Settlement
regulations, to allow a few experienced colonists to be included.41 At
Inglewood the government store quickly gave way to private traders, and a
money economy functioned almost from the start. At Karamea the
authorcies had great difficulty in divesting themselves of the store, and
were forced into the prolonged operation of a truck system that gave rise to
various frictions and difficulties. Inglewood settlers could often earn
money back in the older settlements, and soon had sawmills giving
employment on the block. Lacking these advantages some Karamea
settlers found it very difficult to work off their score at the store. Quite
soon the Moa Block settlers were able to concentrate on developing their
sections as a united family enterprise. Once the more essential works had
been done around the Karamea settlement, these less fortunate settlers
were expected to spend much of their time far away from home and family,
labouring on the road through to the south.
The worst has yet to be told. After two years of struggle, the settlers on
the South Terrace found their soil to be worthless, and had no choice but to
abandon the site. They were relocated on a block of their own choosing
further up the river, which they named the Promised Land. The name was
suggested partly by the Biblical faith of many of the settlers, but also,
apparently, because they first claimed it for the 5 acre allotments, which
they had been promised in the First Prospectus in addition to the 50 acre
sections, and of which they had had no further word.42 Curiously, the
quality of the Promised Land was first discovered by Edward King,
reputedly an ‘infidel’.43 He had formerly worked for Sutton's Seed Farm of
44
In the course of time the settlers came to fix the blame for their various
difficulties and disappointments mainly on O'Conor, the Provincial
Secretary. In 45 With the abolition of
the provinces, the administration of the settlement passed to the Buller
County Council. By the 1880s those who had stuck to the settlement were
enjoying the limited prosperity of a plentiful, mainly subsistence, agriculture. R.
The settlement was made up of people, who coming from their village
homes in quiet far-off English counties, have formed a compact
community, still clinging to their old home associations, and knowing
little of the colony they inhabit beyond the stray news now and again
brought to them.46
To ‘quiet far-off English counties’ we must now return, for the origins
of Thomas Lineham, our example of a successful Karamea settler. The 47 Thomas
Lineham's application for assisted immigration to New Zealand was
supported by certificates from J. H. Readman, Baptist Minister, from
John Jenkyns, Vicar of Lidlington and from Henry Taylor, the General
Secretary of the National Union. A medical certificate had been signed by a
physician and surgeon of nearby Cransfield.48 The immigrants' passenger
list of the Adamant shows that Thomas's family had grown to six by 49
The reason why Thomas was not included in the pioneer party for
Karamea is clear enough. What is surprising is that with his son George, he
50 and from the reports of the
overseer of the settlement, available in New Zealand
If you could have seen me and George pitch our tent in the Karamea; we had to cut the wood down before we could pitch our tent. It makes us think about the patriarchs of old pitching their tents. We had to work some days before we could see anything beside the sky above our heads. The trees were so high, some of them were thirty yards long.
Thomas and young George must have worked to some purpose, for the
overseer's report of
We live about 200 feet above the level of the sea, and we can see the wide ocean any time in about five minutes' walk. Ours is table land, and there is mountains above us. The mountains are very high; your hills are like molehills to them; they rise all at once. You can go on the level till you get to the foot of them; then they seem to rise all at once.
Meanwhile back in Nelson Thomas's wife gave birth to a daughter, a week before Easter. When little Mary Ann was a month old, Thomas's wife and family joined him at Karamea, with the exception of Georgiana, who apparently had a good situation in Nelson. Thomas's letter expresses some pride in the home he had been able to provide.
… me and George built us a house, and then Mary and the children come to us. So you see, by the kind providence of God, I have a house of my own and plenty of wood to burn, and it is a better house than our old one at Lidlington … I must tell you that I have a chimney big enough to lay logs five feet long across the fire place, so you may guess we are not cold.
Thomas's house had benefited from the generosity of a kind lady who had sent them ‘two nice windows, three feet wide and four feet six inches long. There was good news, too, about food:
They find us plenty of food; certainly we was short of meat for a week or two, but we lost our sheep in the bush. It makes us think about the poor empty bellies in the old country, when God so kindly spreads our table. I killed a sheep last Saturday night. Me and another man had it together - a fine fat sheep - and we had as much suet as we had in six months in England, and that will last us about a fortnight; and we have our provisions from the stores; sometimes we have two hogsheads of sugar, about fifty or sixty pounds each, and flour any amount, and butter and tea any quantity.
Thomas explained how they were being allowed to live on credit while they got established, and expressed his gratitude for a start such as no one was prepared to give him in England. He already had a few fowls of his own, but it would, of course, be some time before much of the family's food could be taken from their own land.
Before we leave Thomas's letter, we must note its expression of a simple faith and piety, in keeping with the Bunyan tradition of the Baptist connection evidenced among Thomas's immigration application certificates. He writes of the ‘kind providence of God’ whereby he has been ‘restored to health and strength again’ and how ‘God in his goodness has put us in a land of plenty’, and remarks that though they have as yet ‘no public means of grace’, he is nevertheless thankful that ‘where there is a heart to pray God has an ear to hear’. When explaining that there are no venomous reptiles or wild beasts for them to fear, Thomas turns aside to remark that ‘it is as the Bible says, we can worship God under our own vine and fig-tree, none daring lawfully to make us afraid’. The support of this faith must have been an asset during the trials and disappointments that lay ahead.
The overseer's reports for the latter half of
We conclude our account of Karamea by looking briefly at two settlers
who, after persisting for eighteen months, left the settlement. We will look
Adamant, and both
went to Karamea with the initial pioneer party. It is probably significant
that their English background was small town, rather than village. Liley
appears in the Adamant
passenger list shows Frederick as a pit sawyer, and his family has grown to
seven. Samuel Friend appears in the
The overseer's reports for the early months at Karamea show some
differences between the work of Samuel and Frederick. Both had sections
on the South Terrace. By
It is not likely that Thomas Lineham was tempted to leave Karamea by
letters from Bedfordshire immigrants settled elswhere-for comparatively
few had come from his county, and most of the Bedfordshire party on the
Adamant went to Karamea. On the other hand, Friend and Liley may well
have been unsettled in this way. The colony had seen considerable
immigration from Kent, and most of the fairly large Kentish party on the
Adamant did not go to Karamea. Friend and Liley may have been further
unsettled by the fact that an old mate (and in Friend's case, probably a
brother) was following them from Westerham to New Zealand. Thomas
Friend was secretary of the Westerham branch of the National Union. He
appears in Westerham's Fern Glen on
I drove to Nelson last Sunday, I went to Sam's to dinner and Fred
Liley's to tea. They are all quite well and doing pretty well now; but
they made a great mistake in going up to Keremea [sic] as that is a great
failure.51
The limited evidence of the overseer's reports suggests Samuel Friend
lacked the qualities needed for success as a bush pioneer. This may well
have been a matter of health and physique, for Samuel died in Nelson in
For our next bush settlement example we go to Woodville in Hawke's
Bay, concentrating our attention particularly on the thirty-five families
who banded together in
In 52
Ormond's plans also included a railway to parallel the Great South
Road, a steady flow of immigration, and a rapid settlement of the
province's undeveloped land. Brogdens won the contract for the first
sections of the railway, and we have already considered some members of
their first party of navvies for this work, those reaching Chile in
In 53 Road and bridge contractors were
prominent among the speculative buyers of Woodville land in January
54 This must have been John Pinfold, formerly
secretary of the Taynton branch of the National Union. Following his
arrival in the colony in
George Hutching, whose reminiscence we have just quoted, was one of
three brothers of Essex origins, who arrived in E. P. Bouverie, and
immediately transhipped to a coastal steamer owned by Brogdens, sailing
for 55 Shortly
thereafter James Hutching began to practise his trade in Woodville. A
settler who arrived to fell bush in 56 On 25 May
57 Meanwhile George and
James had soon been followed to New Zealand, and on to Woodville, by
their older brother, Stephen, a 39-year-old farm labourer with a wife and
six children. Stephen had been working as a gardener at Penge in
pointed with pride to his twenty acres of land with the cottage on it his
own freehold, and to chickens and ducks in abundance, and, if he have
not now, he will soon have pigs, cows and a good farmyard … Mrs
Hutchins was not so jubilant as her husband; she experienced the loss of
the Christian advantages of Penge Baptist Tabernacle, but if the Rev.
John and Mrs
A mile further on the road I observed a sign-board, James Hutchins,
boot and shoe maker, and out came James, equally pleased as was
Stephen … The brothers recounted some of the difficulties which had
beset them, and which are incidental to all emigrants, but the experience
was beneficial and now each rejoiced over them, and are strong men,
able to hold their own.58
Clearly, then, the bush settlement at Woodville had made a certain amount
of progress by 59 He lived for a time in 60 The congregation grew steadily in the early 1870s, and would seem
to have been a stronghold of temperance. In 1871 and 1872 Sowry
approached the Provincial Council on behalf of the ‘Lily of the Valley’
branch of the Rechabite Lodge, asking for assistance to form an association
to take up land on the deferred payment system.61 The association which
Sowry formed when Ormond gave him the go-ahead in 62
The initial meeting leading to the formation of the Woodville Small Farm
Association was held in Waipawa on 63 At this
meeting fourteen married men signed a memorandum expressing their
desire to take up land in a small farm settlement at Woodville. Within a
month the association had a full roll of members for the 2,500 acre block
which was being allotted to it. A leader on the association in the Hawke's
Bay Herald of 22 April had led to a deluge of applicants. Only married men
with families were accepted, and the 35 members had a total of 165
children.64 The Hawke's Bay Herald of 2 May reported that most of the
members had capital, ranging from £100 to £1000. On 65 This was done on 10 June. On 13
June Sowry wrote to say that several of the members would like to take
work cutting the roads through the settlement. Ormond replied that this
work had almost all been already let. Some of the members spent time
during the winter felling the first clearings on their sections. Others
decided to continue in employment elsewhere, and let their felling on
contract. A letter written from
Charles Hambling had emigrated from Over Winchester on 66
The association included at least nine Oxfordshire members, most of them from the Wychwood area. We have already given some account of the local preachers mentioned by Hambling. The other members known to be from Oxfordshire (most of whom were mentioned in Chapter 6 above) were Henry Cox, Edward Groves, William Maisey, George Millin and Eliiah Mills — all of them assisted immigrants arriving in the colony between March 1874 and February 1875. Thirteen other members of the association have been traced in the assisted immigrant passenger lists. Two were Scots, the others came from nine different English counties, with no more than two from any county, apart from Oxfordshire. The majority of the members were therefore immigrant labourers from rural England. Most of them were working in or near Waipawa at the time they joined the association.
The bush sections to which the members began to move in the latter half
of 67 By 68 When Sowry visited
69 Their request was granted, the school
being built the following year. Its first teacher was William Gibb
Grawford, a member of the small farm association, who had come to the
colony in 70 Once opened, the
school became the township's main venue for meetings, including the Free
Methodist services and Sunday School. No doubt the Rechabite Lodge
branch, founded in 71
It is clear that the association's members had a much easier start than the
Karamea pioneers, and they also had several advantages over the first
immigrant settlers on the Moa Block. They were, however, handicapped
through having more limited opportunities for wage labour than the
Karamea and Inglewood settlers. In this respect, the more advanced
roading that they enjoyed was a disadvantage. Also, they were not helped,
as were the Inglewood settlers, by the early development of a vigorous
timber industry. The Woodville district was poor in millable timber,
and there was no railway to transport it out until the late 1880s. The meagre
wage opportunities of Woodville are reflected in two letters which George
Hutching wrote in 72 Although Hutching did not belong to the small
farm association, some of its members' circumstances must have been very
similar to his. The
… we think the letter evasive and consequently unsatisfactory. We
would therefore beg of your honor to give a final and decided answer
this time, as to whether the government will enforce payment, they
would imprison, or take any property, as one of the two latter courses
would have to be taken in half the cases for I am sure there is not one in
ten that could follow out the course proposed in your letter viz pay by
instalments as tis as much and even more than most of us can do to
keep clear of the storekeeper; we had hoped by taking his course to
save all unnecessary troubles which would ensue were legal proceedings
Hutching reminded the minister that members of parliament, including
some in the cabinet, had stated publicly that to demand payment of these
notes would be unjust, and concluded by asserting that there was a strong
case for striking these sums from the books, rather than allowing them to
‘hang over our heads like the sword of Damocles keeping us in constant
fear, a tax on our energies, a drag upon our existence and a barrier to our
progress’. The letter was not answered. Its tone indicates not only the
village labourer's new image of himself, but also the colonial's lack of awe
and deference for the governing authorities. By
In Hawke's Bay Herald visited
Woodville and wrote an account of its progress.73 While wandering about
the township he met Joseph Sowry, whom he described as ‘chairman or
secretary or committeeman on every local organisation’. He found Sowry
‘an exceedingly intelligent and shrewd man’ with some worthwhile views
on the colony's land laws. Sowry told the reporter that
The great disadvantage under which the Woodville settlers labored was, in his opinion, the extent of bush held by absentee proprietors who would not improve. A well-known M.L.C. [Member of the Legislative Council] held several acres next to the township, and not a tree had been felled. If the settler owning the next section fenced and cleared, and built a house, he might find his fences, his grass, and his house destroyed one day when the absentee's bush caught fire.
That afternoon Sowry brought three horses, and conducted the reporter and his companion around the Woodville Small Farm Association settlement.
Our horses went up to their knees in the soft mud of the road, and
stumbled over the tree roots which still spread under the surface. No
one can get anything like a fair idea of Woodville from the main road.
Hidden by belts of trees are special settlements here and there, carrying
a large and apparently prosperous population. The particular settlement
in question was only some three years old, but the bush had been burnt
off and mostly felled, cattle wandered among the stumps, fences divided
the land everywhere, and comfortable houses were taking the place of
temporary huts which were at first erected. Here and there was a
paddock of wheat or oats - all surface sown, for it will be some years
before a plough can be put to work. Our guide told us that, though
they had to ‘rough it’ at first, the settlers had managed to make both
ends meet, and were now drifting into smoother waters. A few had
capital, and employed those who had none in clearing and felling. Mr
Ormond had an adjoining section of some four hundred acres which he
had cleared, and this caused the circulation of about a thousand pounds
The Return of Freeholders shows that by
To conclude our account of this small farm settlement we will briefly
recount a few episodes from the experience of Charles Hambling and his
family in the decade after he left his carrying ‘speculation’ in Hawke's Bay Almanack for 74 By
75
When the railway at last reached the town in 76
The bush settlements at Inglewood, Karamea and Woodville had a good
deal of planning and central direction behind them. Many bush districts,
however, were settled in a much more haphazard way, being put up for sale
to the first comers or the highest bidders after a minimum of preparation in
surveying and making of access roads. For our final examples we will go to
one such area, south Taranaki, where bush settlement of this type was
getting under way about 77 J. W. Cleaver is quite probably John
Cleaver, a 45-year-old labourer who emigrated from Crusader. A return
of 78
The pioneers of the south Taranaki bush also included some recently
arrived immigrants, among them quite a number of the Stad Haarlem's
Kentish party. One of these was William Hatcher, 33, an experienced
Kentish hop worker who emigrated with his wife and three children. He
may well have been among those who brought cases of hop sets with them.
By 79
In south Taranaki we will concentrate our attention briefly on the
country district of Ngaere, which provides two interesting examples of
Mongol, noting the
loss of four of his five children, and the vigour with which he and Louisa,
his wife, entered into the opportunities of colonial life. From Otago the
Johnsons moved first to Kakaramea, on Taranaki's Patea coast, at this time
a squatter district. They were employed to cook on a sheep station; but
probably Joseph was also called upon for his shepherd skills. When Joseph
bought land at Ngaere, he would travel the 30 miles from Kakaramea on
weekends, to begin the work of clearing, and to build a whare. In the early
1880s (probably late 80
The persistence of Old World habits and traditions is further illustrated
by our other bush settler example from Ngaere - George Sparks, the
shepherd from Chartham in Kent who emigrated on the Stad Haarlem in
81
When the Yeoman's agricultural reporter visited Ngaere early
in 82
Besides the more usual fruit trees and hops, they had planted currants,
walnuts and Spanish chestnuts. The reporter considered that they would
soon need a large preserved fruit factory. The district was not, in fact, so
suited to fruit growing as these pioneers thought, and before long they
were turning their attention to dairying. The hearthland origins of these
settlers would probably account for the earlier interest in fruit — and
detailed local research might well find more of the Stad Haarlem’s Kentish
folk among them. The persistence and adaptation of hearthland family and
community habits and traditions have been repeatedly in evidence in this
study Our brief glance at pioneer Ngaere has raised and illustrated this
aspect of immigration in a particularly pointed way. Much fuller studies of
immigrant origins will surely be needed if New Zealand local history is to
get adequately to grips with its subject, and if the country's agrarian and
social development is to be properly understood. To conclude this chapter
we will briefly return to our first three bush settlement examples, to further
illustrate the kind of material which can be uncovered.
A notable feature of the early years of the Inglewood settlement was the
flourishing Moa Farmer's Club, founded in Yeoman referred to it as ‘the already renowned Moa Farmer's
Club’.83 The Yeoman, which circulated widely on the west coast both
south and north of 84 During the 1880s the club had few imitators on
the 85 Most of these
were from the north of that county and would have known of the Tetney
Agricultural Society. Tetney is a salt marsh parish, about six miles south of
Grimsby. Its agricultural society was founded in 86 Beside their knowledge of this association,
some of Inglewood's Lincolnshire settlers must have had personal links
with the strong marshland peasant tradition from which it sprang, and
some would have been influenced by their knowledge of the recent
transformation of the wolds by means of well considered improvement
techniques.
Karamea's English settlers came from many of the English counties, but
the Bedfordshire group of about thirty was the largest, and it is therefore
likely that their county's traditions had a little influence on the settlement.
It is of interest that the skill of lacemaking was handed on to the third
generation of one of the families from Lidlington.87 More significant is the
Bedfordshire contribution to the religious history of the settlement. Due to
its smallness and isolation, and the diverse church backgrounds of the
settlers, Karamea had no resident clergyman in its early decades.
Nevertheless the settlers maintained quite a vigorous religious life by
means of family devotions and cottage meetings. In part, these drew on
88
In our account of the Woodville Small Farm Association we noted its
strong contingent of Oxfordshire men, most of them from the Cotswold
hills of the Wychwood area. Returns of sheepowners show that in 89 Of
these 487 were owned by four men from Oxfordshire: Henry Cox,
Edward Harding, William Hope and Elijah Mills. They had probably had
experience with sheep on the Cotswold Hills. Bush-burn clearings were
not very suitable for sheep, as the charred logs and tree roots which
encumbered the ground resulted in torn and dirty fleeces, but these
Oxfordshire immigrants apparently decided to continue the type of
farming they had been used to.
In examining the colonial significance of hearthland origins, it will
sometimes be the stray immigrant with a particular skill who merits
attention. The Woodville Small Farm Association provides a good example
of this. The Oxfordshire members came from a region of stone building,
whose traditions and skills had little relevance to Woodville. It was the
Perfect family, the only one in the association which has been traced to
Kent, which provided the valuable skill of brick-making. George Perfect
was listed as a 42-year-old farm labourer when he emigrated on the Hudson
in 90
Building in rural New Zealand has been predominantly in timber and brick, and
it therefore seems likely that Kentish immigrants made a major
contribution to housing the pioneer settlers of the countryside.
THE SUBJECT OF this study leads to no obvious denouement. Neither New
Zealand's harvest of village labourer immigrants in the 1870s, nor the
stirring of rural England with which it was so closely linked, led to any
single decisive culmination. The Revolt of the Field wilted under the
pressure of its adversaries, and faded away with the onset of harder times
for English farming. The village emigrants to New Zealand merge into the
larger story of the building of a new nation. Yet, although we are offered no
single obvious vantage point, we would be unwise to ignore the way in
which history, in its continuous unfolding, reveals new significance in
what has gone before. In this chapter we will first look briefly at the New
Zealand careers of a small group of men who had held significant offices in
the unions of the Revolt, for the further light this may throw on the
movement they helped to lead. We will then supplement the examples we
have already given of the New Zealand careers of English immigrants, by
examining aspects of rural society in both England and New Zealand in the
1900s, because this decade roughly represents the close of the active careers
of those who were adult village householders in the 1870s. By the turn of
the century the outcome of the decision for or against emigration from the
English countryside may be assessed in terms of the lives of the men and
women who made the choice on behalf of themselves and their families. As
has been our practice throughout this study, we will also take some account
of the wider agrarian scene — the structure of rural society, and the
interaction between men and the land they tilled.
No members of the executive council of the Lincolnshire Labour League
appear to have emigrated to New Zealand. We will therefore choose Henry
Tomlinson from Laceby as probably the most prominent member of the
League to settle in New Zealand. He was the able secretary of a strong local
branch, and would probably have taken an increasingly important part in
the League's affairs had he not left in A Farm Labourer's Report of New Zealand in
1 as important contributions to the recruitment campaign conducted
by Burton and White in close association with the League. We have already
followed his New Zealand career, for the first twenty years as the trusted
manager of several large Cyclopaedia of New Zealand, both with a record of public
service on local bodies.2
We have already noted the two members of the Kent union's executive
committee who emigrated to New Zealand — James Pratt, the former Royal
Stad Haarlem party, and George Tapp, secretary of the Lamberhurst
branch, who led the Waikato party, and became a pioneer of the
Inglewood bush settlement. By
One of the twelve agricultural labourers who served as foundation
members of the executive of the National Union was George Allington, the
Primitive Methodist lay preacher from Stretton-on-Dunsmore. He was an
early delegate of the union and, in two years of travelling on its behalf,
visited twenty-two counties. In mid 4 At this early stage he apparently
hoped that the village labourer would quickly acquire the franchise, and
change rural England by means of his voting strength. The Dorset County
Express of 5
We have already seen that he later chose to leave England, leading a large
party of unionists to New Zealand. He settled in the 6 The rolls of the
Joseph Leggett, the first secretary of the Directory for 1910 and 1917 he is listed as a builder
at Highbank, but his death certificate gives his occupation as farmer. He
was among those giving evidence to a Royal Commission appointed to
examine the colony's land laws, when it visited Methven in 7 Obviously Leggett was a public-spirited settler, concerned for the good of his neighbours, and of the
colony as a whole.
If we were to examine the colonial careers of the larger group who had held lesser places in the English rural unions — as branch secretaries or branch delegates, for example — they would merely reinforce the impres sion given by these more prominent leaders. In New Zealand they proved themselves to be solid, hard-working, responsible, public-spirited men. Although many of them had shown their ability to move their fellows with a simple, direct form of oratory, none developed as demagogues in the colony. These New Zealand immigrants provided further proof that the Revolt was a well-justified movement of protest against the oppression of a social class, and the debasement of an honourable calling.
Of course, many who were active in the Revolt must have seriously
considered following their friends to New Zealand, but have been held to
England by personal ties and predilections. Joseph Arch himself may well
have been among these. In a letter of 8 Arch had been
offered a cabin passage if he would go out as leader of a party, and clearly
must have been showing some interest. In the event, he did not go, and nor
did Holloway despite the good report he brought back of the ‘Promised
Land’. But these two leaders did not have to face the aftermath of the
Revolt as farm labourers. Many of the movement's lesser leaders must have
endured years of unrecorded bitterness and victimisation. Of the
Wychwood villages it is reported that the bad spirit between masters and
men persisted for years, with the bitterness creating divisions in both
churches and chapels.9 E. N. Bennett, writing some forty years after the
Revolt, reported that many villages in the southern half of England held the
humble tragedies of men treated as social lepers for daring to lead their
10 It was to escape futures such
as these that many of the union leaders opted for New Zealand.
When we turn to the English countryside of the 1900s we find that since the 1870s there had been significant changes, both in the farming industry and in rural society. Our present purposes will be served by dealing mainly in broad outlines, but looking in a little more detail at some of the districts which we dealt with in depth for the 1870s. English farming adjusted to its long depression by a considerable shift from arable to permanent pasture, and a reduction in its labour force. Pastoral produce enjoyed an expanding market, faced less foreign competition than arable produce, and of course required less labour. Labour was also dispensed with by accepting a less tidy standard of farming (allowing hedges and ditches to deteriorate, for example), and by the use of labour-saving machinery. In general it was the small farm and the large which weathered the depression best. The large farmer had the capital to finance adjustments in his style of farming, and was the best placed for economising in labour. The middling farmer, unprepared to labour himself, but yet with limited capital, tended to go to the wall. The small man, prepared to work himself, and accept a quasi-subsistence level of living if necessary, proved more resilient, though he often survived at the expense of turning his sons against farming
These changes brought a considerable movement of rural population.
Farmers who did not adapt were forced off the land. From 11 But farm labour was not merely being forced out by
changes in farm practice, often it was moving away faster than the decline
in labour demand, drawn by the increasingly well-publicised attractions of
the cities. As the village labourer drifted citywards, many from the middle
and upper levels of society were turning back to the country. From the
12
In small towns lying off the railway lines, such as Burford and Chipping
Camden, these people reclaimed the sixteenth and seventeenth century
merchants' houses — ruinous in the 1870s and 1880s. While earlier comers
from the cities had tended to conform to the rural social order of the squire
and parson, these later comers created a social round which was largely
independent of the old order. Yet they also tended to hold a watching brief
on behalf of a wider public opinion, and thus they made an immense
difference to the human relations of the countryside.13 Less desirable, in
the higher levels of society, were an increasing number of landowners who
had made their money in business, and who used their country houses
mainly for hunting and shooting parties, without recognising any special
duty towards the local community. More than ever, the English countryside was a playground as well as a land of farms.14 And still the soil was
generally expected to provide support for four classes — landlords, clergy,
tenant-farmers and labourers. This arrangement continued to handicap the
prosperity of English farming and the well-being of the English farm
labourer.
As our main guide for a closer look at a few selected districts we will take
Rider Haggard, who spent eight months of 15 One of Rider
Haggard's informants, an aged clergyman in north 16
With others of her young men moving out to convert arable to grazing
elsewhere in England, rural
Nearly every farmer I spoke with in 17
In contrast, in New Zealand of the 1900s the young Bonds and Strawbridges were eagerly embracing a farming career.
Echoing through Rider Haggard's two volumes one hears the ceaseless tramp of young feet leaving the land. In his account of Oxfordshire the theme recurs again and again. An informant in Islip, a man active in the village's social and sports clubs, told him of what was happening in that parish.
Islip was a purely agricultural village of some 600 inhabitants. As its
youth grew up they drifted citywards, upwards of thirty having left Islip
in 18
From near Banbury a tenant farmer wrote to tell Rider Haggard that five
young men had that day left a neighbouring parish for 19 At Great
Rollright the school-master told Rider Haggard that ‘three-quarters of the
young men and all the young women left the village at nineteen or twenty
years of age, only the dullest staying at home’.20
At Binbrook on the wolds of north Lincolnshire the school-master told
almost the same story as his fellow at Great Rollright. Over sixty per cent
of the children he taught left the village, only the dullest staying on the
land.21 The foreman of a large farm in this parish told Rider Haggard that
the young women went to the towns and drew the young men away after
them.22 Of these lads one wold farmer remarked that ‘it is not wonderful
that they should go seeing that in the country they had no prospects,
whereas in towns a man may rise’. Of his own class, this man believed that
the only ones making money on the wolds were ‘land skinners’ and
‘monopolists’. The latter were men of large capital who took a number of
farms, shut up four out of five of the houses, or put their foremen in them,
and farmed the land as economically as possible.23 Between Swallow and
Riby, Rider Haggard spoke with one of Lord Yarborough's tenants, M.
Addison, who had held Riby Grove Farm for the past twenty-five years.
Addison said that when he began, the farms of Lord Yarborough's estate
were in great demand, and it was almost impossible for an outsider to rent
one. Now on the 20,000 acres which lay around, in no one case had a son
succeeded his father in the tenancy.24 All over the wolds Rider Haggard
noticed signs of neglect — turnip crops failing through not having been
marled, grass growing on the roads, houses shut up.
Of changes that had come in the daily lives of farm labourers, Rider
I could take you to the cottage of a shepherd, not many miles from
here, that has brass rods and carpeting to the staircase, and from the
open door of which you hear a piano strumming within. Of course,
bicycles stand by the doorway, while at night a large paraffin lamp
throws out a perfect blaze of light upon the passer-by.25
But Hardy also noted less attractive changes. The labourers had become
more and more migratory, and one consequence had been the complete
disappearance of much village tradition — folk-lore, local chronicle, local
topography. A Somerset clergyman offered Rider Haggard another
explanation for this restlessness among the younger generation. He had
noticed a loss of the trust in an over-ruling and personal Providence, which
had enabled their fathers to bear their trials and privations with so much
patience.26 The general impression Rider Haggard received from the
masters was that the labourers had never been better off, nor more
discontented. He was deeply disturbed by their flight from the land, but
we will have to turn elsewhere to gain real understanding of the grounds of
their discontent.
In 27 from which the
Allen family had emigrated in 28
The wages in this district were by no means the country's lowest, and
Ridgmont benefited from cheap cottages provided by the Duke of
Bedford. Mann's considered conclusion was that the prospect this village
offered its labourers was
a weary and continued round of poverty. During childhood, poverty
conditions are almost inevitable. As a boy grows up, there are a few
years intermission till, as a young man, he has two children: then
poverty again till these children grow up, and, finally, at best, a
penurious old age, barely lifted above the poverty line.29
What the village labourer's continuing poverty meant in intimate day to
day terms is described in Christopher Holdenby's Folk of the Furrow.30
Holdenby gained his knowledge by living and working with the rural
labourers in the early years of the twentieth century. Although he was
ashamed of betraying the hospitality and generosity of the cottagers with
whom he had lived, he forced himself to describe the deficiencies of the
I have known men, subject to all weather conditions, go from morning
till evening on a bread-and-butter pudding, and the evening meal was
often a question of whether you wanted any. ‘Ay, ol’ Tony an' Ned
went all of a sudden, and I be thinkin' fro' the looks of Ted as 'ow 'e
won't be long. You watch 'ow 'e stoops as 'e goes along, an' that there
cough which keeps a troublin’ ‘im.’ A few weeks before, Ted had
looked strong and weather-beaten, but he went very suddenly, just like
his brothers. In a crisis my friends have nothing to fall back on.31
But a deep hurt to the spirit cut far more keenly than material want.
Holdenby describes the labourer's inborn feeling that he was of the land,
and that the land was by right part of him, yet he was alienated from this
very native soil on which he lived. ‘Most naturally he fathers the wrong on
those he sees wielding power around him. Suspicion has reached a painful
point almost stultifying action.’32 Interwoven with the resentment at
disinheritance was the rankling hurt of a continuing state of servitude. This
was well described by Lieutenant-Colonel D. C. Pedder in the Contemporary Review of
Farm service is still subjugation. It yokes and goads and brutalises. Men
are still dismissed if their acquaintances do not please their masters.
Their wives, though under no legal obligation to do so, must still go out
to field labour or ‘give offence’. Opposition in politics may involve ‘a
march’ as they have learned to call a compulsory flitting … ‘Still a
slave before his lord’ represents the attitude of the farm hand in the
presence of his employer. No sheep before her shearers was ever more
dumb than the milkers and carters and ploughmen at the village
meetings to which their masters may choose to summon them. They are
cowed.33
This state of subjugation persisted despite the labourer's somewhat
improved economic position, and despite the laws passed to free him. Since
34 Even Rider Haggard, with his landholder's outlook,
admitted that the labourer, though now armed with his vote, still looked
upon the farmer with fear, if not with hatred.35 Worst of all, he had lost his
self-respect.
The farm labourer is looked down upon, especially by young women of
his own class, and consequently looks down upon himself. He is at the
very bottom of the social scale. Feeling this, and having no hope for the
future, now-a-days he does not, in the majority of instances, even take
the trouble to master his business. He will not learn the old finer arts of
husbandry; too often he does as little as he can, and does that little ill.36
To complete our brief survey of ‘afterwards’ in rural England of the first
decade of the twentieth century, we must glance briefly at Change in the Village and The Wheelwright's
Shop, paid a fortnight's visit to 37
Sturt found that the occupied land of Zennor consisted of ‘that sloping
platform between the waste downs and the turf that slants down to the
cliffs’38 and that here lived a curious remnant of a much larger population
that had flourished there ‘before the mines closed down, say a generation
ago’.39 The numbers had fallen from 1100 to 300, and when Sturt asked
what had become of the miners, he was told that they had emigrated. The
fisherman too had gone, and almost all the artisans. Sturt found no masons,
carpenters or builders, though he learnt that somewhere in the parish there
was a smith and a wheelwright. Practically none remained save people
capable of getting their living out of the land.
It was as if a storm had washed out all but the bedrock of society, so to
speak; and here they are, the men and women able to live by their own
labour on that rugged land, independent of all other help save that of
the black-smith and wheelwright.40
Granted that they bought their bread, clothing, and materials for firing and
lighting, these folk were in all other directions ‘a simple self-supporting
people’. The parish had no unemployed, for it had no labourers. Nor had it
class distinctions, for all were small farmers. They worked about seventy
farm-holdings, all concerned mainly with dairy produce and pigs. The
farmers met their labour problems by helping one another. Sturt commented that he had ‘never elsewhere seen so near an approach to a
community of self-supporting peasants’.41
Sturt had gone to 42 He was at first puzzled
to find none of that ‘love for quiet comeliness of workmanship’ that was
still much in evidence in his native
The whole country (at least outside Penzance) had a grey poverty-stricken aspect; suggesting to me that on those rugged moors it was as
much as the folk could do, or had ever been able to do, to wring a
scanty subsistence from the soil and the weather; that their hard cruel
granite stone had all but baffled them, so that they had barely been able
to make terms with it that would let them live, and that they had never
had leisure to think of living in comely manner.43
Sturt soon came to see the wind as the great enemy of refinement in the
region's buildings and landscape. Only stone and well-weighted slate
Sturt spent some of his evenings in the inn tap-room and he was
surprised to find how many of the men, who looked so much like sons of
the soil, could talk familiarly of
One old gentleman (in his cups and very boastful of his own wealth)
bragged of Zennor as the best bit of land, and of its people as the very
best people, in all the world. He has been to Colorado, and to South
44
New Zealand too must have seen some of the folk from Zennor, and in turn have sent its own ripples of influence back to affect the parish's ongoing life.
Having drawn together the more readily available material on the New
Zealand careers of Cornish immigrants of the 1870s, one is left with an
impression almost the converse of Sturt's account of the population of
Zennor. While Zennor, no doubt in common with similar parishes
throughout 45 It
seems to have been common for Cornish immigrants to combine farming
with contracting.46 They also contributed in many ways to the development of transport and communications in the colony, contracting for the
building of roads and bridges,47 making a strong contribution to the
manning of the railways,48 and operating many of the road transport
services.49 As one would expect, Cornish immigrants were also to be found
in good numbers among the colony's artisans — both in workshops of the
old village craftsman type,50 and in those of modern urban industries.51
Sturt's impressions of
The general impression gained from reading a good range of accounts of
New Zealand's Cornish immigrants of the 1870s, is that they have had a
modest pride in their backgrounds, and have been prepared to give
relatively balanced and unvarnished versions of their origins. The same
cannot be said of the majority of the 1870s immigrants from the English
villages. It is a curious feature of the recording of New Zealand history,
whether at family, local or national level, that for nearly a century there has
been an almost complete absence of any reference to the Revolt of the
Field, or to the degradation of the village labourer, against which it was a
protest. The Cyclopaedia of New Zealand, a massive six-volume commercial venture of the turn of the century, contains nearly twenty thousand
biographical notices of local worthies from all districts of the colony,
among them a considerable number of the English rural immigrants of the
1870s. Yet one might read the accounts of all these latter, without gaining
an inkling of their low status in England, or of the Revolt which was
associated with their departure. Many contemporary immigrants from
other callings supplied the Cyclopaedia's interviewers with detailed information on their English careers, but the former farm labourers are in
general merely recorded as ‘brought up to farming’ or having been
‘engaged in farming pursuits’. One might easily gain the false impression
that these settlers sprang from a small yeoman class in England, and indeed
the Cyclopaedia's writers sometimes make explicit, but quite inaccurate,
statements to this effect. Thus Henry Tomlinson, the one-time Laceby
union secretary, is said to have ‘worked on his father's farm until he
emigrated’,52 yet the records of the Revolt in Lincolnshire show that his
father had worked for Francis Sowerby for forty years before being
‘spotted’ following the 53 Many New Zealand families seem
to have a vague, erroneous notion that they have sprung from nineteenth
century English yeomen stock. It would seem that the immigrant
generation largely suppressed any discussion of the degradation they had
endured in their former life, and that in rural New Zealand there must have
been a tacit understanding that personal links with the English past, with its
54
We have already followed through the careers of quite a wide selection of the immigrants, and thereby gained some impressions of the development of colonial society. However, before we turn to our brief examination of New Zealand rural society in the 1900s, we must give some account of the economic and social developments of the years between. We have seen how the Vogel immigration drive was brought to a halt at the close of the 1870s by the onset of depression in the colony. With brief interludes of recovery, this depression was to last till the mid 1890s. Did this decade and a half of difficult times lead to widespread disillusionment for the English immigrants of the 1870s? Was their general experience one of severe setback in their progress towards the better life of their dreams, and of the emigration agents' promises? I believe that the answer to these questions must be a qualified ‘no’. Against the background of his deprived and restricted past, I believe that even in the worst years of colonial depression the typical experience of the immigrant from rural England was one of freedom and plenty which represented a very considerable ‘bettering’ of himself.
Much more research of a careful and detailed nature is required before
we can claim a clear understanding of the nature and social impact of the
long depression of the 1880s and 1890s. The picture which I believe is
emerging is one of hard times which were very uneven in their impact both
in terms of geography and of sections of the population. In a most useful
survey of the evidence, 55 I have
myself suggested that later Victorian New Zealand falls logically into three
broad regions, viz., the 56 In particular, while
the rest of the colony saw considerable net losses on migration over these
years, the Bush Provinces experienced a continuous inflow. Thus, in the
decade 1881—1891,
A balance sheet of how these immigrants weathered the hard years can only be fully made up when we have firm answers to such questions as how many remained itinerant labourers, how many became cottagers in town and city, and how many established themselves as yeoman farmers in the countryside. Some suggestions on these matters will be given in our next chapter. Here, to complete our treatment of the hard times, we will move down the years for a series of glimpses designed to build up a sketch of the contexts in which the immigrants developed their careers.
Our first glance is at Ormondville where forty-seven settlers petitioned
Parliament's Waste Land Committee in Chile's Brogden party; William West, from Milton-under-Wychwood; John Maycock, formerly a glover in Charlbury; Emmanue!
Plank, a one-time groom in
The year 58 Yet a quick survey of the Bush Provinces in this year yields a
sheaf of rosy reports. In January mills were being expanded around
Feilding to meet a largely increased demand for timber.59 In February
60 In March
Taranaki's Inglewood was described as ‘a pushing little place’ with five
stores and another going up.61 In July it was Woodville's turn. A travelling
reporter decided that it was probably unequalled in the 62 Over the autumn
and winter there were frequent reports of good shooting — pheasants, wild
pigs, rabbits, hares, as well as native game.63 The harvest of waste and wild
— bush, swamp, river and sea — must have made a significant contribution to
the well-being of the common people throughout the colony. In Feilding
one problem reported in the 64 Yet this district was
experiencing a steadily increasing demand for labour at the time, with
sawmills short of hands, shearers being sought for, and wages rising.65
However, even in the Rangitikei, individual experiences varied. On 18
October Charles Francis wrote from Marton to his newspaper, complaining of exaggerated statements in a rival journal regarding shortages of
labour and exorbitant wages. Francis told of nine years' experience in New
Zealand as a navvy. He reported his wages as one shilling an hour, and
complained that in his five weeks in the district he had earned only £5. 12s.,
having lost much time with wet weather. Furthermore, labourers were
daily seeking work on the contract, and invariably received the answer ‘full
handed’.66 As we have seen, the evidence suggests that there was ample
work in the district for those with the relevant skills. But it is clear that,
even in good times the itinerant labourer with limited skills could be in
difficulties.
Early in New Zealand Industrial Gazette
commented that ‘perhaps at no time in the history of the colony has there
been such a mixture of good and bad times as is just now the case’. While in
67
Even in 68
In the mid 1880s reports of buoyant times and of the progress of rural
industries, continued to come in from Bush Province settlements. In
69 In 70 These two brief references must serve to illustrate two constant
sources of Bush Province optimism over these years — the prospect that the
business and labour market might at any time be stimulated by the
development of virgin country, and the steadily growing promise of the
new dairying and frozen meat industries.
Finally, in this brief survey, we will note that this diversity of experience
persisted into the later 1880s, when the hard times of the 71 Across the
ranges in the northern Wairarapa bush settlements, the settlers were
reported to be buying fruit trees in immense numbers, the supply coming
from as far away as Nelson and 72 Year by year labour
shortages continued to be reported from Taranaki,73 while in inland
Rangitikei of 74 As the farms became more developed, the demand for
agricultural skills increased. A correspondent writing from Rangitikei
early in
The ordinary swaggers who at times abound on the country roads are
unfit for agricultural work, and are now almost useless on farms where a
course of systematic cultivation is pursued. Men able to milk or work
with horses are at a discount.75
Let us now sum up the significance of this brief summary of the unfolding years. It seems inconceivable that a fair proportion of the English ‘Vogel’ immigrants did not weather these years with credit. Times such as we have described were surely suited to the talents and ambitions of men such as those from the Cornish exodus and the Revolt of the Field, men drawn by, and selected by, such recruiters as Carter, Burton and Duncan. The many successful colonial careers which we have traced must surely be not exceptions, but typical of the common experience. We must now turn to a consideration of the colonial world which they had helped to build to see what had been achieved by the opening years of the new century.
Between the 1870s and the 1900s there had been considerable changes in
the landscape of rural New Zealand. An English clergyman who had seen
the Canterbury Plains in 76 In the
… glimpses of great stretches of down land, literally covered with
fallen, bleached trees, in many places so thick that they covered the
whole ground. This is where the fire has been run through them, and is
the preliminary process of making grazing land. I could not help
thinking that it was a sinful waste of timber …77
Bullen remarked that the little towns he passed through all ‘wore a
delightful air of quiet comfort’. The men and women all looked fairly
well-to-do, but their children ran about barefooted ‘in a way that is
disconcerting to an Englishman’, though Bullen decided that this represented a fad, rather than a lack of means.78 It is perhaps fair to comment
that it was the social control of his ‘betters’ that kept the ill-fed children of
the English village labourer shod in a seemly fashion.
In
… the difference between a typical New Zealand and an Australian
homestead … is the difference between a factory for the production of
wool or corn, and a home. The New Zealand holding is less in area, the
paddocks are smaller, green hedges are common. There is a front
garden, in which familiar English flowers mingle with the semi-tropical.
A vegetable garden is there, with fat cabbages, giant cauliflowers, and
the green potato patch. To this add an orchard, with the hardy English
fruits in the South, or in the North away from the sea and in the
uplands. In warmer spots, lemons, oranges, figs, grapes, and peaches are
abundant. The fields are always green, and the grass grows generally all
the year round. There is an air of plenty, and quiet, and comfort, which
one misses and longs for in 79
Of course not all New Zealand farm homesteads were as pleasant as Berry's idyllic picture, nor did all who came to New Zealand as farm labourers end their careers in possession of one. But the colony's relatively easy ladder to farm ownership, and its lack of marked class barriers, gave to rural life and work an easy, pleasant tone, too rarely found in rural England. E. W. Elkington, an English wanderer who spent seven years in New Zealand around the turn of the century, remarked that the colonists, instead of shirking work, as was so common in England, seemed to enter into the spirit of it and enjoy it.
It was the same on the farm: the men took a pride in their labour, and
did it, not because it had to be done, but because it was their work; and
instead of one man's getting annoyed because another did too much,
they seemed to scorn any of their mates who were careless or slack, and
dubbed them ‘loafers’…. All this seemed very strange to me because I
80
Elkington also found that no kind of work was a disgrace in New Zealand,
but poverty was, ‘whilst in England you may be poor but you really must
not drive a milk-cart or a bus’.81
Of course New Zealand life also had its less attractive aspects. The
farmland landscape was raw and unkempt, as yet but partially tamed by the
settlers. Colonial society was immature and often lacking in grace. Frank
Bullen found 82 Probably it was the
monotony of detached cottages and bungalows, many of them on sizeable
sections, reaching in almost to the heart of the city, that gave him this
impression. But he seems also to have sensed a deeper lack than the absence
of the Old World's impressive facades of unbroken street fronts. In
outlook most New Zealanders too seldom rose above the petty localism of
the village mind. The parish pump tended to dominate, even in national
politics, at the expense of the larger view. To Bullen the colony seemed
almost at a standstill, yet everywhere, even in the smallest rural centres, he
found a curious misapprehension that the local community was making
rapid material progress such as would astound an English visitor. He
observed that the local inhabitants watched over the erection of even the
tiniest new edifice with almost parental solicitude.83
No doubt a shallow, unpolished materialism is a common feature of colonial societies, but the particular parochial flavour which it assumed in New Zealand surely had its origins, at least in part, in the injustices and deprivations endured by the village labourer of Victorian England. In the new land it was a village world which he set out to recreate, and soil, climate and terrain largely conspired with his endeavours. New Zealand entered the twentieth century as a predominantly ‘village’ society, with a strong flavour of parochialism. The return of good times, and the onward march of a rural economy whose husbandry drew readily on advances in agricultural technology, gave to these new villages a material affluence that must have provided the declining years of many a ‘Vogel’ immigrant with a strong sense of self-satisfaction. Nevertheless, a deepening hunger for ‘Home’, a growing reverence for the ‘Old Country’, bore witness to a feeling that there were some things lacking in the achievement.
THE OVERALL IMPRESSION which one has gained from probing the origins
of New Zealand's English rural immigrants of the 1870s and examining
their colonial careers, is that time and circumstances served the colony
exceedingly well in providing her with the kinds of settlers she needed. At
this stage of its development, the country could be best served by a peculiar
mixture of primitivism and modernity among its settlers. For the
pioneering of new country, particularly in the bush, the old traditional
agrarian skills and village crafts were an invaluable heritage. But the hope
for an increasingly prosperous future lay in the rapid building of a modern
transport and communication system, and in the development of agricultural export industries using modern industrial technology. It was New
ealand's good fortune that in the homeland of the 1870s the old skills and
crafts still retained sufficient vitality to be readily transplanted and to meet
the needs of primitive frontier settlements in the new land, and yet that at
the same time many of the immigrants had acquired in their native villages
the skills and attitudes needed for a transition to modern technology. An
undue fascination with modernisation can easily blind the New Zealand
historian to the importance and significance of the older traditional skills in
the country's agrarian history. The New Zealand farmer's ability to draw
on a wide range of techniques, from the ancient to the most modern, has
been an important asset in the progress of the country's agriculture down
to quite recent times. It is not the Old World only that has a vital interest in
treasuring the memory of the age-old farming skills.
The reader who has been surprised to learn of New Zealand's long-term
loss of all awareness of the link between the colony's greatest immigration
drive and the Revolt of the Field, may experience something more than
surprise when he learns what has been the traditional view of the nature and
quality of the ‘Vogel’ immigrants. This view has been widely and
repeatedly expressed, but we will present it in the words of J. B. Condliffe's
New Zealand in the Making, first published in
… it is one of the chief criticisms of Vogel's immigration policy that
immigrants were badly selected, … and remained in the towns to
produce unemployment and sweated labour conditions …1
… the bulk of assisted immigration in this period of boom consisted of
town-dwellers who were led to expect employment in urban industries.
They brought with them the urban outlook. Their numbers included
many trade unionists and radicals …2
… to find any parallel to the chosen bands of emigrants who laid the
foundations of New Zealand it is necessary to go back to the Puritan
3
Clearly, judgements such as these accord ill with the main drive of the evidence presented in this present study. We will need to give some account of the origins of this mistaken traditional view, and to see whether any significant evidence has ever been produced in its support. Our study has, of course, been concerned primarily with immigration from England, but if there is any validity in the common view that this immigration flow contained too many poorly-selected, urban-oriented labourers, the question must revolve mainly around these English immigrants. For England was by ar the most urbanised of the sending countries, and she provided a good half of the immigrants. Our choice of the village labourers as the main subject of this study is based on the contention that among the English immigrants they predominated both in numbers and significance. In criticising the traditional view, we will need to provide good support for this contention. We will turn first to the New Zealand House of Representatives for an important contemporary debate.
On 4 His figures
cover the period to 5 Of 20,189 adult males, 6,741 or just over one
third, are shown as farm labourers. Other land workers included 360
shepherds, 451 gardeners, and 22 beetroot growers. These figures confirm
that the immigration drive concentrated its main attention on the villages.
In keeping with the large number of farm labourers, a good number of the
artisans listed must have been drawn from rural districts. This would surely
be true of most of the 749 blacksmiths and 79 wheelwrights, and is very
likely to have been the case with a large proportion of the 1,324 carpenters,
145 sawyers, 98 brickmakers, 96 butchers and 73 saddlers. Many too of the
419 miners would have been Cornishmen possessing strong links with the
soil. There were probably more urban workers among the 323 tailors, 309
painters, 266 bricklayers, 252 cabinetmakers, 104 plasterers and 66
tinsmiths, but all of these callings had their representatives in the villages.
Indubitably mainly of urban origins would have been the 209 cabmen, 63
coachmakers, 86 printers and compositors, 12 watchmakers and 6
bookbinders — but when all such urban callings are taken together they
In his statement Atkinson referred to the ‘wonderful stories current as to the very bad characters that we were introducing into the colony, and their general unfitness to do anything except live on the charity of others’. In rebuttal, he maintained that the colony had ‘reason to be thoroughly satisfied with the immigrants both physically and morally’, and he gave the results of his own careful investigation of the facts. Of the 60,000 people introduced over a period of four years, only 489 had been committed to prison, and nearly 300 of these were ‘for merely trifling offences, and the offence of drunkenness’. Only 47 had been committed to lunatic asylums, and of these 20 had already been discharged. Considering the stresses involved in immigrating and adjusting to a new life, it would seem that older colonists had no grounds for pointing the finger at the new arrivals.
In the debate which followed his statement, Atkinson's assessment of
the quality of the immigrants was well supported. George Hunter,
member for 6 William Rolleston who, as Superintendent of
I am free to say that I do not think any country has ever got a better
selection of immigrants than those sent out here during the last year. We
have got a supply of good agricultural labourers, and I hope that we
shall be able to keep up a constant supply of a really suitable class of
immigrants.7
There were some, however, who were not so well pleased. Lauchlan
McGillivray, representing
I was never very favourable to the system of free passages to this
country, for I conceived it exceedingly likely that an inferior class of
persons would avail themselves of that arrangement. Why, the very fact
of persons paying their own passage evidences at once a superior class,
and presupposes also a serious intention of settling on the lands of the
Crown; and it would be better to see a few hundred persons of that
kind arriving in the country, … than to see a far larger number of an
inferior class.8
What McGillivray wanted was to see tenant farmers being brought in,
rather than common labourers. But the hard facts of the matter were that
when British tenant farmers chose to emigrate, they preferred to go to
9 According to an experienced New Zealand colonist who
wrote to The Times in
We have, then, competent contemporary testimony from experienced
colonists such as Atkinson, Hunter and Rolleston in support of our
evaluation of the general quality of the immigrants. Our study of the
circumstances of the emigration from rural England provides a good
rationale for this judgement. While it was in the interests of the farm
labourers' unions to suggest that the farmers were losing their best
workmen we have seen that the same conclusion was reached by onlookers.
Subsequent investigators have confirmed their judgement.11 It stands to
reason that it would have been the most spirited men, the more able and
better educated, who would have most resented the labourer's position,
and who would, in particular, have refused to bow when the farmers
moved to crush the Revolt. There is no reason to doubt Joseph Arch's
assesment of the emigrants ‘the bulk of them were picked men, the drones
of course would not go’.12 For somewhat similar reasons, it was much the
same story with the Cornish miner emigrants. In Lyttelton Times carried an account of 300 miners and their families leaving
Using the 14 Let us
therefore examine the birthplaces recorded for the Milton-under-Wychwood villagers, to see whether those selected for New Zealand had
been well rooted in the village, or had followed a more migratory life.
Fourteen Milton farm labouring families emigrated to New Zealand in the
1870s, and there were forty-two other households headed by farm
labourers in the same age range (50 years and under). The following table
summarises the information on the heads of these families:
This shows that New Zealand drew most heavily on those who were natives of the village. Let us now examine the birthplaces of the wives of the thirty-four Milton-born men:
These figures strongly suggest that as a group the New Zealand immigrants
had been far less migratory than their fellow-villagers. This inference is
strongly supported when we examine the birthplaces of the children in
these families. There were children in thirty-two of the households that did
not go to New Zealand, and their birthplaces indicate twelve family
migrations. Thirteen of the New Zealand immigrant households had
children, averaging almost 50 per cent more children per family than the
others, yet the birthplaces indicate only one family migration. Taking the
15
Why then, did an adverse judgement on the ‘Vogel’ immigrants become
so firmly established in New Zealand? Part of the answer would seem to lie
on the social psychology of the New Zealand community of the 1870s. The
earlier immigrants had been drawn largely from the lower rungs of British
society, but in the colony most had made their way up in the world. For
many of them the new arrivals must have served as a reminder of the
humiliations of their own past. It seems probable that the ‘Vogel’
immigrants were more solidly lower working class than any earlier major
immigration flow had been, and that this gave rise to fears among the
established colonists that the standards of community respectability for
which they had striven would be undermined. A good deal of jealousy was
aroused by government policies which gave more favoured treatment to
the new arrivals than to old colonists. Foundation settlers found that it was
more difficult for their children to acquire land in the government's new
settlements than for immigrants newly arrived on free tickets.16 Various
emotions were therefore interwoven in the quite widespread denigration of
the ‘Vogel’ immigrants. The new arrivals on their part, were concerned
primarily with finding acceptance in the new community, and so were not
inclined to make their own status obvious by leaping to the defence of their
class. Most of them would have shaped their conduct so that, as soon as
possible, they could pass as ‘old colonials’ themselves. The contemporary
denigration was therefore allowed to pass almost unchallenged. In later
years the ‘Vogel’ development policy provided a convenient scapegoat for
various economic and social ills, and any less happy social development
was likely to be blamed on the reputed poor quality of the assisted
immigrants of the 1870s. Yet, while it has been repeatedly asserted that the
‘Vogel’ immigrants were the main cause of the appearance, for example, of
unemployment, urban slums, and sweated labour conditions, it is most
unusual to find any evidence produced to support the position. I have,
however, found one example, and this we will examine in detail.
In 17 for his article on unemployment in New Zealand in the 1880s
In briefly interpreting this breakdown of the winter unemployed of
The greatest concentration in the table above had been in the colony
between five and fifteen years, making their time of arrival somewhere
between 1869 and 1879. They were then, ‘Vogel immigrants’ and
therefore would tend to have less ‘means’ than those either before or
after them. Certainly the assisted immigrants of the 1870s carried an
unfortunate stigma with them.18
When carefully considered in context, I do not believe that these statistics
give any support to Campbell's comments. Indeed, it would be surprising
if they did, for the parliamentary paper from which they are derived is a
product of the Stout-Vogel ministry19, which one would not expect to find
producing evidence of the poor quality of the ‘Vogel’ immigrants. That the
largest group of unemployed should come from those who had been in the
colony between five and fifteen years is what we should expect, for this
group must have provided the larger part of the work force.
The figures for the unemployed who had arrived in the colony in the
1870s deserve closer scrutiny. We will consider first those who had arrived
between ten and fifteen years earlier (1869–1874). Were these necessarily
mainly ‘Vogel’ immigrants? An analysis of population growth between the
censuses of 20
Also, in the five years 1870–74, New Zealand received 12,299 non-Government immigrants from the
However, it is when we consider this group in conjunction with the
next, those who had arrived between five and ten years earlier (1874–79),
From these figures it can be calculated that for the 1869–74 arrivals there was one person unemployed for every 62 ‘Vogel’ immigrants, whereas the ratio, for the 1874–79 arrivals is one to every 113 ‘Vogel’ immigrants. As the ‘Vogel’ component rises, the unemployment problem declines. These figures favour the ‘Vogel’ immigrants, rather than tell against them.
But even if these 22 A considerable
proportion of the province's ‘Vogel’ immigrants were moving North, to
take advantage of the opportunities offering there. Those who remained to
join the
Up to this point our discussion on the quality of the immigrants has been
mainly concerned with examining evidence bearing on their contribution
to the labour needs of a pioneer, largely agrarian, community. From the
various kinds of statistics which the colony collected, it would be possible
to develop discussions relating to various other desirable economic, social
and cultural attitudes and habits. We will content ourselves with examining
only one further aspect — the question of literacy. If, in the selection of the
‘Vogel’ immigrants, standards were indeed ‘rather let down’ we might
expect to find some faltering in the literacy figures of the colony for the
later 1870s. Fortunately for our purposes. New Zealand statistics of those
signing with the mark at marriage are available from 23 Much of this must
have represented aid to aged parents in the homeland. All the indications
are that the newcomers possessed a high level of literacy, which they used
to the benefit of both their old, and their new, communities.
The evidence, then, is surely consistent, clear and unambiguous. The main thrust of this study is well supported by the facts and figures examined in this chapter. It would seem more in line with the evidence to credit the ‘Vogel’ immigrants with a major contribution to the advance of New Zealand farming, than to blame them for the appearance of urban problems. We give it as our considered opinion that the New Zealand countryside has never received a more valuable infusion of rural skills. And we would point to England as the most weighty contributor to that infusion, due to her contingent having been drawn predominantly from her village world.
IF HE IS to fashion a satisfying reconstruction of the past, the social
historian must gain some grip on the intangibles of the mind, and give some
account of the hopes and dreams of the people of whom he writes. He will,
of course, find that these hopes and dreams were subject to the flux and
eddies of change, and that the ideal promised lands of past imagination
flickered and shifted, while the fullness of the desired reality forever
escaped the grasp.
We have seen how the Revolt of the Field began with a vision of the remaking of rural England in terms largely of an idealised past in which the labourer received a due reward for his toil, the land was more fairly shared among the people, and a deep spirit of community suffused the whole of life. We have seen how this vision quickly shattered in the face of social and economic realities, and how successfully the emigration agents were then able to move in with their rosy pictures of an alternative promised land in the virgin countryside beyond the seas. We have followed the great exodus of English villagers to the most distant of the British colonies, and traced something of their fortunes in the new land. Inevitably their dreams of a better world were shaped by their place in time and space; by memories of the landscapes and communities from which they had come; by the reshaping of those memories as diverse influences played upon them from the land of their birth; and by the unfolding experiences of the new land and the new community.
As we have seen, there had in many cases been hunger, frustration, anger and bitterness in the circumstances of their going. Many had been convinced that they were leaving a land of bondage and want for a land of freedom and plenty. But inevitably the new land was found to have unexpected lacks, limitations and disappointments; and inevitably also, there came nostalgia and longing for the scenes of childhood and youth, and for qualities of the old land whose value was only truly realised after experience of their absence in the new. Commonly, it would seem, the bitter memories faded, while the nature of the continuing links with the old world kept alive and enriched a consciousness of the positive values of the world they had left. England was referred to as the ‘Old Country’ and as ‘Home’, and these expressions carried rich connotations of love and longing. In comparison with the Old Country, the colony was sensed to be somehow fragmentary and incomplete. Some comments by the twentieth century English poet, T. S. Eliot, are pertinent at this point. Referring to ountries such as New Zealand which derive from migrations from the Old World, he writes:
They have transplanted themselves according to some social, religious,
economic or political determination, or some peculiar mixture f these.
There has therefore been something in the removements analagous in
nature to religious schism. The people have taken with them only a part
of the total culture in which, so long as they remained at home, they
participated. The culture which develops on the new soil must therefore
be bafflingly alike and different from the parent culture …1
As we have been concerned only with the last of New Zealand's four
founding decades, this ‘schismatic’ incompleteness of colonial life cannot
be fully explored here, but clearly in its ‘village’ and labouring class bias the
immigration of the 1870s was a continuing pattern already well established.2 The sense of social lack and the hunger for a lost completeness of
culture, which arose from this sectional nature of immigration, were
significant forces in the colonial transmutation of the dream of the
promised land, and must be taken into account along with those more
obvious factors which have been to the forefront throughout this study:
the freedom from the entail of the past, and the opportunities for a fresh
start provided by the bounty of virgin land. It was largely this sense of
cultural and social lack which turned the hearts and minds of the colonists
so strongly back towards the Old Country. It is therefore important that
we consider in a little detail what effect the timing of this migration had on
the continuing links between the emigrants and the hearthland.
The migration flow of the 1870s coincided with a rapid further extension
of popular education in both colony and hearthland, leading shortly to
almost universal literacy. In 3 he was merely putting into words
what a majority of New Zealanders felt.
How this powerful interplay of influences worked out in terms of
personal experience is aptly illustrated by the boyhood memories of the
New Zealand writer Home, written in
To a boy who had been born in New Zealand and had never been out
of it, Ulster was a shadowy place. England and English things were
always before my eyes, the English army, the English navy, English
statesmen, English power throughout the world. I have no English
blood in me that I ever heard of. Had I been brought up in a different
atmosphere, I might have grown to manhood filled with the hatred of
England which used to grow with such bitter luxuriance in the land that
of all her territories, England most deeply wronged. As it was, I had
some affection for the country of my parents, but infinitely more for
England. It was a huge, mysterious, awful, sacred, and yet always
lovable place, this England, a land of immemorial things, of shining
heroes, of imperfectly understood but fascinating ritual, of marvellous
romance, of world-embracing authority and prestige.4
The persistence, ever deepening, of a unified colonial-homeland consciousness in these distant South 5
After the 1870s, the English village labourer's deep love of the land faded
markedly, and with it passed his idealised dream of an old-time brotherhood of yeomen living together in a closely knit, cooperative community.
But it was this old dream that drew so many of the ‘Vogel’ immigrants; and
an important part of the social history of New Zealand is concerned with
how it was acclimatised to the new land, finding there a measure of
realisation as a curious mixture of old emotions and new technology.
Professor W. J. Keith has suggested that sometime in the 1880s there
occurred in the English social consciousness an urban-rural dissociation of
sensibility.6 If this is true, New Zealand received her foundation stock
while town and country were still attuned to each other. Whatever the case,
it is clear that this aspect of the social psychology of mid-Victorian
The source materials for this book, searched from the libraries and
archives of both the old country and the new, have been acknowledged step
by step as we have proceeded. But undergirding all, only occasionally
overtly referred to, yet pervasive as a source of understanding, lie the
writer's memories of the two countrysides, providing material for the
reconstruction in the imagination of the past landscapes that were both the
scene and the source of the dreams and hopes of the immigrant generation.
A childhood among bush-burned hills of inland Nelson, half a life-time's
experience in many other New Zealand districts, and a glorious spring,
When one recreates in the imagination the colonial landscapes of the 1870s, it is not difficult to see that the settlers must have felt a sense both of welcome and of rebuff. The new land held some promise that it might be shaped into a new and better England, but it also displayed a disconcerting toughness and wildness, forboding a determined resistance to all efforts to mellow and tame. As settlement continued its advance across the uneven, cross-grained, craggy scramble of landscapes, it was forced into localised pockets, a circumstance which served to nurture the village outlook which so many of the immigrant stock brought with them. Yet, in ways which have yet to be fully explored, they were villages with a difference.
And so the new rural social order was shaped. The dream that had first been fashioned from the finer elements of the heritage of rural England was adapted to the realities of a raw and strange new land. But always, as the decades unfolded, there were haunting memories of a far and loved countryside to guide the eyes and hands of the immigrant settler. Even the colonial-born carried something of the vision in their minds, only to find, if fortunate enough in time to view its origins, that the reality was beyond all their imagining.
1 As this work is concerned solely with nineteenth century material, the contemporary measures will be used throughout, and not their metric equivalents.
2 Terry Coleman, The Railway Navvies,
rev.ed.,
3 Captain Cook
in New Zealand, 2nd ed.,
4 Marlborough Press,
5 Ibid
6 AJHR
7 AJHR
8 Ibid., pp.3–7
9 Ibid., pp.6–7, 22–48
10 AJHR
11 R. H. Silcock, ‘Immigration into Canterbury under the Provincial Government’ (unpublished MA thesis,
12 AJHR
13 Ibid
14 Ibid., pp.10–12; D-1, pp.8–9
15 AJHR
16 AJHR
17 Ibid
18 Ibid
19 > Marlborough Press,
20 AJHR
21 This letter and those quoted in the following paragraphs, are taken from
Marlborough Press,
22 IM 5/4 contains a complete list of the
members of this party, and John
Reynolds and his family were found in
collating with the
23 John Rowe, Cornwall in the Age of the
Industrial Revolution, Liverpool,
24 AJHR
25 Marlborough Press, 14 &
26 Ibid.,
27 Ibid.,
28 Marlborough Press, 19 February & 19
29 AJHR
30 RFNZ, pp.A23, F18, H19, B106, L41.
All details of New Zealand
31 Evening Post (
32 Appendices to the Journal of the Legislative Council,
33 AJHR
34 North Otago Times,
35 Ibid.,
36 Hawke's Bay Herald,
37 IM 5/4/3
38 Ibid
39 AJHR
40 AJHR
41 AJHR
42 AJHR
43 LUC,
44 AJHR
45 AJHR
1 Ruth Allan, Nelson: A History of Early
Settlement,
2 Silcock, ‘Immigration into
3 PDNZ 8 (
4 AJHR
5 This account of Joseph Arch is largely
based on: Joseph Arch, Joseph Arch:
The Story of His Life told by Himself,
Joseph
Arch, Kineton,
6 Arch, Life, p.7
7 Ibid., p. 10
8 E. J. Hobsbawm & George Rudé, Captain Swing,
9 J. A. Yelling, Common Field and Enclosure in England 1450–The English Village Community
and the Enclosure Movements, London,
10 The story of the riots is given in chapters
10 & 11 of J. L. & Barbara The Village Labourer, 2 vols, Guild
Books, Captain Swing.
11 E. Gibbon Wakefield, Swing Unmasked,
12 John Hurt, Education in Evolution,
Paladin ed.,
13 Arch, Life, p.26
14 Ibid., p.27
15 Ibid., p.176
16 Horn, Arch, pp.12–14
17 Arch, Life, pp.39–40
18 J. D. Chambers & G. D. Mingay, The
Agricultural Revolution 1750–1880,
19 Arch, Life, p.35
20 E. W. Martin, The Shearers and the
Shorn,
21 Hobsbawm & Rudé, Captain Swing, p.33
22 Labourers' Herald (
23 Kent & Sussex Times,
24 Labour League Examiner (
25 Wakefield, Swing Unmasked, pp.20–24,
28–31
26 Hobsbawm & Rudé, Captain Swing,
p.236
27 Arch, Life, p.30
28 J. P. D. Dunbabin, ‘The “Revolt of the
Field”: The Agricultural Labourers’
Movement in the 1870s' Past and Present, 26 (
29 Ibid
30 Lord Ernle, The Land and its People;
Chapters in Rural Life and History,
31 Arch, Life, pp.29–30
32 Kent Messenger (
33 Ibid.,
34 Richard Grant White, England, Without
and Within,
35 Ibid., p.178
36 Ibid., p.179
37 Ibid., pp.174–75
38 Ibid., pp.175–76, 322–23
39 Richard Jefferies, ‘Mademoiselle, the
Governess.’ Hodge and His Masters,
Fitzroy ed., 2 vols.,
40 Jefferies, Hodge and His Masters, I,
p.119
41 PPGB
42 Hammonds, Village Labourer, II, p.11
43 Cited in Rex C. Russell, The ‘Revolt of
the Field’ in Lincolnshire, (Louth,
44 Arch, Life, pp.148–50
45 Cited F. E. Green, A History of the English Agricultural Labourer 1870–1920,
46 Arthur Clayden, The England of the
Pacific, or New Zealand as an English
Middle-Class Emigration Field, London,
47 LUC,
48 T. W. Fletcher, ‘The Great Depression of
English Agriculture, 1873–96’,
Economic History Review, 2nd series, 13
(Economic History Review, 2nd series, 17 (Rural
Discontent in Nineteenth Century Britain,
49 The Revolt of the Fields in
East Anglia, n.p., History of Education, III, 2
(
50 Arch, Life, p.73
51 Ibid., p.78
52 Ibid., p.97
53 C. R. Carter, Life and Recollections of a
New Zealand Colonist, 3 vols., London
1 Carter, Life and Recollections, III, p.226
2 AJHR
3 Ibid
4 Latiffa Khan, ‘Immigration into Wellington Province, 1853–1876’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Victoria University
of
5 AJHR
6 New Zealand Statutes,
7 AJHR
8 Ibid., p.15
9 Ibid., p.10
10 Ibid., p.16
11 See e.g. Appendices to the Journal of the
Legislative Council,
12 AJHR
13 AJHR
14 AJHR
15 W. A History of Canterbury, II,
16 Carter, Life and Recollections, III, p.227
17 Great
18 AJHR
19 Ibid., & D-2, p.32
20 AJHR
21 AJHR
22 AJHR
23 Unsourced newspaper clipping in IM 5/4
24 Lyttelton Times,
25 AJHR
26 Carter, Life and Recollections, III, pp.233–35
27 Pamela Horn, ‘Agricultural Trade Unionism and Emigration, 1872–1881’,
The Historical Journal, XV, 1 (
28 Lyttelton Times,
29 The Times (
30 Kent Messenger (
31 AJHR Life and
Recollections, III, p.228
32 AJHR
33 AJHR
34 AJHR
35 AJHR
36 AJHR
37 Appendices to the Journal of the Legislative Council,
38 AJHR
39 Ibid., p.6
40 Ibid., pp.10–11
41 Duncan to Provincial Government, Papers Laid on the Table, Canterbury Provincial Council. Session XLI, No.2,
MS,
42 A. Peacock, The Revolt of the Fields in
East Anglia, n.p.,
43 Ibid
44 AJHR
45 See Chapter 6 below for a fuller treatment of emigration from this district.
46 AJHR
47 For the details of Holloway's career, I am
indebted to Pamela Horn, ‘Christopher
Holloway: an Oxfordshire Trade Union Leader’,
Oxoniensia, XXXIII (
48 AJHR
49 Lytteton Times,
50 Ibid
51 LUC,
52 LUC,
53 Horn, Arch, p.48
54 LUC,
55 Church Gazette (
56 AJHR
57 LUC,
58 Ibid
59 Although signing his name to the
affidavit, he made his mark on a document in IM 5/4/7.
60 Christopher Holloway, ‘Journal of a
Visit to New Zealand, 1873–1875’,
Typescript copy, Alexander Turnbull
Library,
61 Evidence of W. H. Hosking, Surgeon,
ship ‘Scimitar’, IM 5/4/10; but see
AJHR
62 AJHR
63 Ibid
64 AJHR
65 LUC, Chronicle, of which no
copies appear to be extant.
66 IM 5/4/7
67 Church Gazette (
68 AJHR
69 Information from Miss G. Robertson, Eltham, N.Z., (a granddaughter of Joseph Johnson).
70 LUC,
71 LUC,
72 CNZ, 1, p.944
73 Alan Bott, The Sailing Ships of the New Zealand Shipping Company, 1873–1900,
74 RFNZ, p.P33
1 AJHR
2 For a study of the Kent union see Rollo
Arnold, ‘The “Revolt of the Field” in
Kent, 1872–79’, Past and Present, 64
(
3 Kent Messenger and Maidstone Telegraph,
4 Ibid.,
5 Canterbury Journal,
6 Kent & Sussex Times,
7 Kent Messenger, 4 &
8 Ibid., Kent and Sussex
Times,
9 Kent Messenger,
10 In PPGB passim. His conduct of union affairs throughout the
1870s was consistent with his testimony
to the Commission.
11 Kent Messenger,
12 Ibid.,
13 Ibid.,
14 Ibid.,
15 LUC, English
Labourer
16 Kent Messenger,
17 Ibid.,
18 English Labourer,
19 Canterbury Journal,
20 Kent Herald (Canterbury), 4 December
21 Issues of the Kent Messenger for the last
seven weeks of
22 Kent Messenger,
23 This money was probably provided by
the
24 Kent Messenger,
25 Ibid
26 Kent Herald (Canterbury), 4 December
27 S. D. Waters, Shaw Savill Line, (Christchurch,
28 Kent Messenger,
29 LUC,
30 AJHR
31 LUC,
32 LUC,
33 This option was offered in an advertisment by the Agent-General, LUC, 17
Atrato's passenger list has 40 Oxfordshire emigrants.
34 Evening Post (
35 Duncan to Provincial Government, 26
36 Ibid., Lyttelton Times, 11
37 Duncan to Provincial Government, 14
38 LUC,
39 Duncan to Provincial Government, 16
40 Ibid., Session XLII, No.27.
41 Russell, ‘Revolt of the Field’ in Lincolnshire, p.59; Labour League Examiner
(
42 J. P. D. Dunbabin, ‘The Incidence and
Organization of Agricultural Trades
Unionism in the 1870s’, Agricultural
History Review, 16 (
43 Labourer (
44 AJHR Labour League
Examiner,
45 LUC, Eastern
Monarch, which sailed 8 May, but
Streatfield's name occurs in the Adamant's passenger list.
46 Kent Messenger, 2 May
47 Arnold, ‘“Revolt of the Field” in Kent’, pp.80–81
48 Kent Messenger, 26 September, 17 & 24
defendant October,
49 Labour League Examiner, 5 & 26 September Lyttelton Times, 28 December
50 AJHR LUC, 26 September, 24 &
51 LUC,
1 Holloway, Journal, entry for 6 February
2 Ibid., entry for Thursday, [19] February
3 Unless otherwise footnoted, the details
of Holloway's tour are taken from his
Journal for the relevant dates.
4 Holloway, Journal, entry for Friday,
[20]
5 LUC,
6 Ibid
7 Holloway, Journal, entry for 2 April
8 Ibid., entry for
9 Lyttelton Times,
10 Taranaki Herald,
11 AJHR Taranaki
Herald,
12 Holloway, Journal, entry for 18 August
13 LUC, AJHR
14 AJHR
15 Ibid
16 AJHR The Origins
of New Zealand Diplomacy. Wellington,
17 Carter, Life and Recollections, III, p.236
18 AJHR AJHR
19 AJHR
20 Holloway, Journal, entry for 31 March
21 LUC,
22 AJHR
23 Labourer (
24 AJHR
25 AJHR
26 LUC,
27 AJHR
28 Ibid., p.32
29 AJHR
30 AJHR
31 AJHR
32 AJHR AJHR.
33 AJHR
34 AJHR
35 AJHR
36 IM 76/1123
37 AJHR
38 AJHR
39 Ibid., p.11
40 Ibid., p.19
41 AJHR
42 AJHR
43 AJHR
44 Ibid
45 AJHR
46 AJHR
47 AJHR
48 AJHR
49 Kent and Sussex Times, 16 November
50 AJHR
51 AJHR
52 Ibid., p.9
53 Kent and Sussex Times, 21 December
54 See Chapter 9 below for a fuller account of these events.
55 AJHR
56 Ibid., p.2
57 Alfred Simmons, Old England and New
Zealand,
58 Alfred Simmons, State-Directed Colonization: the proposal explained and defended…, (
59 AJHR
60 AJHR
61 AJHR
62 Ibid., p.2
63 AJHR
64 Ibid., p.14
65 Ibid
66 AJHR
67 AJHR
68 AJHR
69 AJHR
70 AJHR
71 Horn, ‘Christopher Holloway’, pp.133–36
1 IM 15
2 AJHR
3 Two illustrations of the unsatisfactory
nature of the county information in
the passenger lists: Joseph Leggett appears on the Ballochmyle's list as from
Berkshire, as also do his two older
daughters, of 14 and 12. One might
therefore conclude that this is a Berkshire family. But the Wennington, sailing from
4 R. Lawton, ‘Population movements in
the West Midlands, 1841–61’, Geography, 43 (
5 A. F. Martin and R. W. Steel, eds., The
Oxford Region,
6 C. S. Read, ‘On the Farming of Oxfordshire’, JRASE, 15(
7 Ibid., p.257
8 VCH Oxfordshire, II (
9 Chapter 3, above.
10 LUC,
11 Chapter 4, above.
12 J. N. Brewer, A Topographical and
Historical Description of Oxfordshire,
13 This account is based on Hammonds,
Village Labourer, 1, pp.83–92.
14 Quoted in V. J. Watney, Combury and
the Forest of Wychwood,
15 Brewer, Oxfordshire, p.43
16 M. Sturge Gretton, A Corner of the
Cotswolds through the Nineteenth
Century,
17 PPGB 1868–69, 13, p.588
18 The account which follows is based on Read, ‘Farming of Oxfordshire’, pp.141, 224, 239.
19 The description which follows is based
on personal observation, assisted by
John Orr, Agriculture in Oxfordshire:
A Survey,
20 Gretton, A Corner of the Cotswolds,
pp.123–24
21 This account of the forest is based
on Watney, Cornbury, pp.10, 202–209,
244; John Kibble, Historical and
Other Notes on Wychwood Forest … Charlbury,
22 Watney, Cornbury, p.204
23 For the Forest Fair see Kibble,
Wychwood Forest, pp.19–22; Gretton, A Corner of the Cotswolds,
pp.120–35; Watney, Cornbury, p.208
24 Gretton, A Corner of the Cotswolds, p.135
25 JRASE, 24 (
26 VCH Oxfordshire, II (
27 VCH Oxfordshire, X (
28 Ibid., p.131
29 VCH Oxfordshire, II (
30 Muriel Groves, The History of Shipton-under-Wychwood,
31 PPGB 1868–69, 13, p.575
32 On this see the discussion of ‘the
privatised worker’ in D. Lockwood,
‘Sources of Variation in Working
Class Images of Society’, Sociological
Review, 14 (The Victorian
Working Class,
33 Pamela Horn, ‘Agricultural Trade Unionism in Oxfordshire 1872–81’, Oxfordshire Record Society, 48 (Rural Discontent,
pp.85–129.
34 Kibble, Wychwood Forest, p.82
35 Ibid
36 Ibid
37 Ibid., p.83
38 Minute Book, Rural
Discontent, pp.85–6.
39 English Labourer,
40 Horn, ed., Minute Book,
41 Ibid., pp.28–29
42 Ibid., p.29, citing Royal Leamington
Chronicle,
43 Ibid., pp.31–32
44 Horn, ‘Holloway’, pp.127–29, for this
account of the Wootton branch. See
also Dunbabin, Rural Discontent,
pp.89–91
45 Pamela Horn, ‘Farmers' Defence Associations in Oxfordshire - 1872–74’,
History Studies, 1 (
46 The Times,
47 Richard Heath, The English Peasant,
48 Ibid., p.227
49 Horn, ‘Holloway’, p.128, citing
Jackson's Oxford Journal, 10 August
50 Jackson's Oxford Journal,
51 AJHR
52 Hawke's Bay Herald,
53 IM 10/2
54 RFNZ, p. H83
55 Horn, ed., Minute Book,
56 Lowering of the ages of elderly immigrants is common in the passenger lists.
57 IM 10/2
58 RENZ, p. C62
59 CNZ, VI, p.499
60 Horn, ed., Minute Book,
61 LUC, English
Labourer
62 LUC,
63 The Times,
64 The Times,
65 The Times,
66 LUC,
67 The Times,
68 In
69 Midland Free Press (Daily
News. The party referred to must have
been Brogdens' emigrants on the
70 The Times,
71 LUC,
72 Report by Daily News special correspondent, reprinted in Midland Free
Press (
73 LUC,
74 This account of events following the
trial is based mainly on The Times, 26
75 The Times,
76 LUC,
77 The account which follows is based on
LUC, Midland
Free Press (
78 LUC,
79 Ibid., p.7
80 LUC, Midland Free
Press (
81 Hansard, 3rd series, 216, pp.501, 548,
639
82 LUC,
83 LUC,
84 Ibid
85 Ibid
86 LUC,
87 LUC,
88 Pamela Horn, ‘Agricultural Labourers'
Trade Unionism in Four Midland
Counties (1860–1900)’ (unpublished
Ph.D. thesis, University of
89 AJHR Lyttelton
Times,
90 Horn, ed., Minute Book,
91 LUC,
92 The Taynton
93 Horn, ed., Minute Book,
94 LUC,
95 Horn, ed., Minute Book,
96 Ibid., pp.36, 41. The
97 Horn, ed., Minute Book,
98 See Chapter 4 above.
99 LUC,
100 Ibid
101 Information from marriage certificate.
102 Horn, ed., Minute Book,
103 Ibid., pp.30, 40, 53, 63, 68; English
Labourer,
104 LUC,
105 LUC,
106 LUC,
107 For details of the relationships between
members of the party I am indebted to
Pamela Horn, ‘To those who perished
on the sea’, Witney and West Oxfordshire Gazette,
108 AJHR
109 LUC,
110 LUC,
111 LUC, VCH Oxfordshire, X
(
112 English Labourer,
113 Ibid., Adamant in
1 Joan Thirsk, English Peasant Farming:
The Agrarian History of Lincolnshire
from Tudor to Recent Times,
2 Ibid., p.237
3 Written Poems, ed. Christopher
Ricks,
4 Arthur Young, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Lincoln,
5 J. A. Clarke, ‘On the Farming of Lincolnshire’, JRASE, 12 (
6 VCH Lincolnshire, II (
7 Ibid., p.401
8 Ibid., p.406
9 Ibid
10 Russell, ‘Revolt of the Field’ in Lincolnshire, p.93
11 VCH Lincolnshire, II (
12 Rex C. Russell, A History of Schools and
Education in Lindsey, Lincolnshire:
1800–1902, 4 vols., Lincoln, 1965–67,
I, p.68 — hereinafter cited as Russell,
Education in Lindsey
13 Russell, Education in Lindsey, III,
pp.81–82
14 PPGB
15 Ibid., p.283
16 A private gang worked permanently for one farm, under a ganger who was in the farmer's employ. A public gang was employed by an independent gangmaster, and moved from farm to farm on contract work.
17 PPGB
18 Ibid., p.285
19 Ibid
20 Ibid. p.284
21 Russell, Education in Lindsey, II,
pp.27–34
22 Stamford Mercury, Education in Lindsey, II, p.32
23 Russell, Education in Lindsey, III,
pp.54, 83
24 Ibid., IV, pp.46–47, 51–52; George
Lester, Grimsby Methodism ( 1743–1889),
25 Charles Turner [Revd Charles Tennyson-Turner], Small Tableaux,
26 Alan Everitt, The Pattern of Rural Dissent: the Nineteenth Century,
27 Turner, Small Tableaux, p.63
28 Russell, Education in Lindsey, I, p.18
29 Ibid., III, p.65
30 PPGB.,
31 Ibid., p.72
32 Russell, ‘Revolt of the Field’ in Lincolnshire, p.28
33 White's Lincolnshire Directory 1872, sub.
Rothwell;
34 IM 10/3; Labourer (
35 Thirsk, English Peasant Farming, p.146;
VCH Lincolnshire, II (
36 Russell, Education in Lindsey, IV,
pp.31–32; Lester, Grimsby
Methodism, p.107
37 The main sources for this account of
Francis Sowerby are Grimsby Observer, Memorial Sketch of Mr
Francis Sowerby of Aylesby, [?
Grimsby, ?
38 Dunbabin, ‘The “Revolt of the Field”.’
p.70; Peacock, Revolt of the Fields in
East Anglia, pp.9–10
39 G. Kitson Clark, The Making of Victorian England,
40 The main source for this account of John
H. White is an unpublished typescript
by his son John H. White and
the Coast Mission, [
41 G. H. White, ‘Autobiographical Sketches’, p.16
42 RG 10/3417, Public
43 ‘Caistor and Laceby Circuit Schedules 1868–1889’, County Archives, Lincoln
44 Russell, ‘Revolt of the Field’ in Lincolnshire, p.55
45 ‘Caistor and Laceby Circuit Schedules’;
Harry Tomlinson, A Farm Labourer's
Report of New Zealand, Grimsby,
46 Labour League Examiner (
47 Ibid.,
48 Ibid., p.1
49 RG 10/3420 Public Waimea on 2 July
50 Russell, ‘Revolt of the Field’ in Lincolnshire, pp.68–69
51 Labourer (
52 Ibid.,
53 Labour League Examiner,
54 Russell, ‘Revolt of the Field’ in Lincolnshire, p.68
55 Henry Tomlinson, Diary of … Voyage
out to New Zealand…, Laceby,
56 Labour League Examiner,
57 Labourer (
58 Ibid.,
59 Ibid.,
60 Ibid.,
61 Ibid.,
62 Labour League Examiner,
63 Ibid.,
64 Ibid.,
65 Ibid.,
66 Labour League Examiner, 15 August
67 Stamford Mercury,
68 They included John Hand, 60, farm labourer, his wife; his son Charles, 34, and his wife and three children; also William Maltby, 37, and his wife.
69 Labour League Examiner, 22 August
70 Tomlinson, Diary, p.14
71 Labour League Examiner, 29 August
72 Labourer (Revolt of the Field’ in Lincolnshire,
p.28. (Ironstone was mined at Nettleton.)
73 Labourer (
74 Ibid., p.5
75 Ibid., p.3;
76 CNZ, III, p.585
77 IM 6/4/1 — 76/548
78 Ibid.; Labourer (
79 Labourer (RFNZ, p.O8
80 N.Z. Journal of History, 6 (
81 Taranaki Herald,
82 Labourer (
83 A.C. Sinclair, A History of Beelsby,
Education
in Lindsey, IV, p.30
84 Labourer (
85 Ibid.,
86 Labourer (
87 Ibid.,
88 Ibid.,
89 CNZ, VI, p.175
90 Labourer (
91 Ibid.,
92 Ibid.,
93 Ibid., Taranaki
Herald,
94 Labourer (
95 Labour League Examiner, 29 August
96 Taranaki Herald,
97 Labourer (
98 Ibid.,
1 Alan Everitt, The Pattern of Rural Dissent: the Nineteenth Century, Leicester,
2 Ibid., p.20
3 E. H. Hunt, ‘Labour Productivity in English Agriculture, 1850–1914’,
Economic History Review, 2nd series, 20
(
4 Ibid., p.286
5 Ibid., p.288
6 VCH Warwickshire, II (
7 H. Rider Haggard, Rural England, 2
vols,
8 VCH Warwickshire, VI (
9 Hitchcox's is one of the signatures on a
letter to the N.Z. Immigration authorities, complaining of poor food on
the Halcione — IM 5/4.
10 LUC,
11 LUC,
12 VCH Warwickshire, VI (
13 LUC,
14 LUC,
15 Imp. Gaz., sub. Marton,
16 Imp. Gaz., sub. Bishop's Itchington
17 VCH Warwickshire, V, pp.121–24
18 Imp. Gaz., sub. Fenny Compton
19 Imp. Gaz., sub. Priors Hardwick
20 Esp. M. K. Ashby, Joseph Ashby of
Tysoe, Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, III,
21 W. G. Miller & K. A. Carrdus, The Red
orse of Tysoe,
22 Ashby, Joseph Asbby, p.55
23 Ibid., pp.266–68
24 Ibid., p.271
25 Ibid., p.284
26 Ibid., pp.46–53, 279–86
27 Ashby, ‘poor Law Administration in a
28 Ashby, Joseph Ashby, p.115
29 Ibid., pp.59–62
30 LUC,
31 LUC,
32 LUC,
33 LUC,
34 English Labourer,
35 Ashby, Joseph Ashby, p.89
36 Imp. Gaz., sub. Oxhill,
37 Our account of this part of Berkshire is
based on: John Orr, Agriculture in
Berkshire, The Land of Britain: The Report of the Land Utilisation
Survey of Britain, 9 vols.,
38 Orr, Agriculture in Berkshire, p.15
39 Imp. Gaz., sub. Stanford in the Vale;
VCH Berkshire, IV (
40 PPGB 1868–69, 13, p.627
41 Oxford Mail,
42 Ibid., and letter from Margaret Warman,
Milton, near Abingdon, 31 March
43 Identified from letter, printed LUC, 5
44 LUC,
45 CNZ, IV, pp.479, 557
46 LUC,
47 Ibid
48 LUC,
49 LUC,
50 LUC,
51 LUC,
52 Ibid.; Bedfordshire Mercury, 25 April
53 VCH Bedfordshire, III (Dictionary of Australian
Biography, 2 vols.,
54 Imp. Gaz., sub. Cardington; VCH
Bedfordshire, III (
55 N. L. Tranter, ‘Population and Social
Structure in a Bedfordshire Parish: The
Cardington Listing of Inhabitants,
Population Studies, 21 (International Review
of Social History, 18 (
56 LUC,
57 LUC,
58 LUC,
59 Imp. Gaz., sub. Lidlington
60 VCH Bedfordshire, III (
61 LUC, Bedfordshire
Mercury,
62 Bedfordshire Mercury,
63 Ibid
64 English Labourer,
1 Chapter 4 above
2 Adapted from Alan Everitt, The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion 1640–60,
3 Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of
Kent, 2nd ed., 1,
4 [John. Whyman], ‘A Sketch of Economic Development in Kent
5 Alan Everitt, Ways and Means in Local
History,
6 Robert Furley, A History of the Weald
of Kent, 2 vols, Ashford, 1871–74, II,
p.747
7 William Cobbett, Rural Rides, ed.
George Woodcock,
8 Ibid., p.178
9 Ibid., p.179
10 Ibid., pp.181–82
11 Ibid., p.187
12 VCH Kent, II (
13 Everitt, Rural Dissent, p.84
14 Cobbett, Rural Rides, p.190
15 Ibid., pp.197–98
16 Ibid., pp.206–7
17 Ibid., p.209
18 Ibid., p.211
19 [Whyman], ‘Economic Development in Kent’, p.14
20 Everitt, Ways and Means in Local History, p.22
21 D. W. Harvey, ‘Locational Change in
the Kentish Hop Industry’, in Alan R.
H. Baker et al, eds., Geographical
Interpretations of Historical Sources,
Newton Abbot,
22 Ibid., p.256
23 PPGB 1868–69, 13, Appendix, Part I,
P.7
24 Ibid
25 Ibid
26 Kent Messenger,
27 Ibid.,
28 Ibid.,
29 Ibid., PPGB
30 Kent Messenger,
31 Kent & Sussex Times,
32 Ibid,
33 PPGB
34 Kent Messenger,
35 Reprinted in Kent & Sussex Times, 2
36 Ibid
37 Figures calculated from IM 15
38 Kent Messenger,
39 Ibid.,
40 Ibid.,
41 Ibid.,
42 Ibid
43 Ibid.,
44 Ibid., 26 July,
45 Ibid.,
46 Ibid.,
47 Kent & Sussex Times, 26 November
48 Ibid.,
49 See e.g. Turnbull, ‘Colonisation of New Zealand’, pp.328–29
50 Silcock, ‘Immigration into Canterbury’, Tables III and IV (facing pp.187, 190)
51 AJHR
52 Chapter 4, above.
53 Kent Messenger,
54 Labourers' Herald (
55 Ibid.,
56 Ibid.,
57 Kent Messenger,
58 Maidstone & Kentish Journal, 25 May
59 Kent Messenger,
60 Kent & Sussex Times,
61 Kent Herald,
62 Arnold, ‘“Revolt of the Field” in Kent’, pp.84–5 for this aspect of the Union's work.
63 Kent & Sussex Times,
64 Ibid.,
65 Ibid., 24 March, Kent
Messenger, 20 March, 30 August,
66 PPGB
67 Standard (
68 Kent & Sussex Times,
69 Ibid.,
70 Kent Messenger,
71 Maidstone & Kentish Journal, 28 December
72 Labourers' Herald (
73 Kent & Sussex Times,
74 Kent Messenger,
75 Kent & Sussex Times,
76 Ibid., p.8
77 Kent Messenger,
78 Ibid.,
79 Kent & Sussex Times,
80 Ibid.,
81 Ibid.,
82 Kent Messenger,
83 Kent & Sussex Times, 7 May, 18 June,
84 Ibid.,
85 Ibid., p.6
86 Chapter 2, above.
87 See The Times,
88 Standard (
89 Canterbury Journal and Farmers'
Gazette,
90 Kent & Sussex Times, 9 November
91 Ibid., Standard
(
92 Standard (
93 Kent & Sussex Times, 14 December
94 Ibid.,
95 Ibid
96 Ibid.,
97 Ibid., 21 &
98 Chapter 5, above.
99 Kent & Sussex Times, 9 November
100 Ibid.; Ibid.,
101 Ibid.,
102 Daily News (
103 Kent & Sussex Times, 16 November
104 Ibid.,
105 Canterbury Journal, 14 December
106 Ibid., Standard)
107 Kent & Sussex Times,
108 Ibid.,
109 Ibid.,
110 Ibid., Kent Messenger,
111 Kent & Sussex Times,
112 Ibid., Daily News.)
113 Daily News (
114 Kent & Sussex Times,
115 Ibid
116 Ibid.,
117 Ibid., 15 February, 8 March, 5 April,
118 AJHR
119 Kent & Sussex Times,
120 Ibid.,
121 Ibid
122 Ibid,
1 See PPGB 1893–94, 25, under Crediton.
2 Good contemporary accounts of the industry in the mid nineteenth century
may be found in J. R. Leifchild,
Cornwall: Its Mines and Miners, new
impression,
3 Leifchild, Cornwall, pp.286, 290
4 Rowe, Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution, p.225–26
5 W. F. Karkeek, ‘On the Farming of
JRASE, 6 (
6 Leifchild, Cornwall, pp.289–90; Razzell
and Wainwright,
7 W. G. V. Balchin, Comwall: An Illustrated Essay on the History of the
Landscape,
8 Leifchild, Cornwall, pp.278–79
9 Ibid., p.164
10 Ibid., pp.288–89
11 Ibid., pp.289–90
12 Karkeek, ‘Farming of Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution, pp.235–36
13 Leifchild, Cornwall, p.284
14 Ibid., pp.298–99; Razzell and Wainwright, Victorian Working Class, p.28
15 Rowe, Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution, pp.151–54, 312–13
16 Carter to IM
5/4/3
17 e.g. Matthew Berryman, 21, who sailed
on the Halcione in Maraval in
18 IM 10/5
19 CNZ, II, p.479 (Moyle emigrated on the
Charlotte Gladstone, sailing 3
20 CNZ, V, p.260. (Martin emigrated on
the Caroline, sailing
21 e.g. Geo. Henry Hicks, 28, who sailed
on the Queen Bee in Rangitiki in Opawa in
Economic History Review,
2nd series, 16 (
22 Rowe, Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution, p.225
23 Ibid., p.221
24 Ibid., pp.210, 218
25 Karkeek, ‘Farming of
26 Ibid., pp.401–2
27 CNZ provides evidence for a number.
See e.g. III, p.544, article on Anthony
Francis (an immigrant by the Northern
Monarch, sailing
28 PPGB
29 Rowe, Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution, pp.235–36
30 Karkeek, ‘Farming of
31 Ibid., p.460; Rowe, Cornwall in the Age
of the Industrial Revolution, pp.233,
254
32 Rowe, op. cit., p.240
33 PPGB
34 A. L. Rowse, A Cornish Childhood,
Grey Arrow ed.,
35 John Rowe, ‘The Great Emigration’ in
The West Briton: 150th Anniversary
Supplement,
36 D. B. Barton, Essays in Cornish Mining
History, Truro,
37 Rowe, Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution, pp.204–7
38 Ibid., p.322
39 Ibid
40 The Times,
41 Ibid.,
42 Ibid.,
43 Geoffrey Blainey, The Rush that Never
Ended, 2nd ed., Melbourne,
44 The Times,
45 Ibid.,
46 Ibid.,
47 Ibid.,
48 Ibid.,
49 Ibid
50 Ibid.,
51 Ibid.,
52 Ibid.,
53 Ibid.,
54 James Guy and W. S. Potter, Fifty
Years of Primitive Methodism in New
Zealand,
55 Ibid., N.Z. Methodist Times, 21 July
56 The Times,
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid
59 Rowe, Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution, p.325
60 History Studies, I
(
61 Ibid., pp.51–62
62 The Times,
63 Ibid.,
64 Ibid.,
65 Ibid.,
66 Cited, Scientific and Technical Education in Nineteenth-Century England,
Newton Abbot,
67 The Cornish
Coast and Moors,
68 Ibid., p.285
69 IM 10/12
70 CNZ, III, p.114
71 IM 10/1
72 CNZ, III, p.727
73 IM10/5
74 IM10/5
75 G. H. Scholefield, Who's Who in New
Zealand and the Western Pacific: 1925,
76 RFNZ, p.A34
77 CNZ, II, p.479
78 IM10/4
79 IM 10/1
80 IM10/1
81 A. C. Todd and Peter Laws, The Industrial Archaeology of Cornwall, Newton
Abbot,
82 Rowe, Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution, p.320
83 Ibid., p.322
84 Stokes, Cornish Coast and Moors, p.104
85 IM 10/5
86 IM 10/1
87 N.Z. Methodist Times, 9 December
IM 10/12
88 CNZ, III, p.1047; RFNZ, p.G52
89 Stamp, Land of Britain, IX, pp.448–49
90 IM 10/5
91 I am indebted especially to W. G. Hoskins, A New Survey of England:
Devon,
92 Hoskins, Devon, pp.58, 63–64, 71–74
93 Ibid, p.480
94 While the Return does not indicate the location of the land, most of these small holdings are likely to have been within Stockland Parish.
95 Kelly's Directory of Devonshire 1883,
pp.407–8
96 Mr Willie James Bond (
97 Mr. Ian Bond of Carterton, N.Z., interviewed at Carterton,
98 E. L. Jones, Seasons and Prices, JRASE, V (New Series) (
99 This reconstruction of emigration from
Stockland has been assisted by correspondence with a number of the descendants. Particularly valuable have been
letters (
1 English Labourer,
2 e.g. AJHR
3 Lyttelton Times,
4 AJHR
5 Lyttelton Times,
6 LUC,
7 Ibid
8 News of these banquets appeared in
Labourers' Herald (Labourer (Boston)
9 Labourer (
10 Tomlinson, Diary, p.14
11 Guy & Potter, Primitive Methodism in
New Zealand, p.199; English
Labourer,
12 Khan, ‘Immigration into Wellingto Province’, p.588
13 Lyttelton Times,
14 Weekly Herald (
15 LUC,
16 Ibid
17 Labourer (
18 LUC,
19 LUC,
20 Labourer (
21 Labourers' Herald (
22 English Labourer,
23 Labourers' Herald (
24 Labourer (
25 Kent & Sussex Times,
26 Labourer (
27 LUC,
28 Kent & Sussex Times,
29 South Canterbury Times (
30 Kent & Sussex Times,
31 LUC,
32 N. Z. Mail (
33 White, England, Without and Within,
pp.322–23
34 Kent & Sussex Times,
35 Labourer (
36 English Labourer,
37 Stamford Mercury,
38 N.Z. Census,
39 Kent & Sussex Times,
40 Lyttelton Times,
41 English Labourer,
42 Labourer (
43 LUC,
44 Labourer (
45 Kent & Sussex Times,
47 Alfred Simmons, Old England and New
Zealand,
48 Ibid., p.61
49 Letter,
50 Labourer (
51 AJHR
52 AJHR
53 AJHR
54 English Labourer,
55 Kent & Sussex Times,
56 Labourer (
57 LUC,
58 English Labourer,
59 Oxford Mail,
60 Labourer (
61 Kent Messenger,
62 Weekly Herald (
63 N.Z. Mail (
64 Simmons, Old England and New Zealand, p.61
65 Weekly Herald (
66 Ibid.,
67 Arch, Life, pp.25–27, 245–48
68 LUC,
69 Kent Messenger, 11 May &
70 Daily News, (
71 Ibid,
72 Labourer (
73 For a fuller discussion of the issues raised
in the last three paragraphs see Rollo
Arnold, ‘N.Z. Journal of Educational
Studies, 8 (
74 LUC,
75 LUC,
76 LUC,
77 Labourer (
78 Ibid.,
79 Simmons, Old England and New Zealand, pp.93–94
80 AJHR
1 Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The
American West as Symbol and Myth,
2 Lyttelton Times,
3 Weekly Herald (
4 Lyttelton Times,
5 See e.g. Ibid., 7 April & N.Z. Mail,
6 Lyttelton Times,
7 Labourer (
8 The Early Canterbury
Runs, rev. ed.,
9 Canterbury Times, A History of
Canterbury, III,
10 Lyttelton Times,
11 Johannes Andersen, Jubilee History of
South Canterbury, Taranaki News, 26
12 Labourer (
13 Ibid., CNZ, III, p.729
14 Labourer (
15 Tomlinson, Diary, p.14; Labourer
(N.Z. Methodist
Times,
16 CNZ, III, p.452;RFNZ, p.H52
17 CNZ, III, p.522; RFNZ, p.W41;
‘Crusader’ Association, The Clipper
Ship Crusader, Rangiora
Borough School: 1873–1973, (Rangiora,
18 Clipper Ship Crusader, pp.97–98,
126–29; Lilley Family: 100 years in
New Zealand (pamphlet)
19 LUC,
20 Letter,
21 Acland, Early Canterbury Runs,
pp.52–54; G. H. Scholefield,
22 Gardiner, History of Canterbury, II,
pp.187, 308
23 RFNZ, p.T25; CNZ, III, p.585;
Labourer (
24 Clipper Ship Crusader, pp.123–26;
CNZ, III, p.868
25 Acland, Early Canterbury Runs,
pp.175–76; Andersen,
26 CNZ, III, p.1037–38
27 English Labourer,
28 RFNZ, p.T26
29 P. G. Stevens, John Grigg of Longbeach,
30 Ashburton Guardian,
31 CNZ, IV, p.760
32 CNZ, III, p.1091
33 Press ( Lyttelton Times,
34 Scotter, Ashburton, pp.61–62, 70
35 LUC,
36 See Berry's letter below. Jeff's critical
letter has not been discovered in the
incomplete extant files of LUC.
37 LUC,
38 Ibid
39 English Labourer,
40 Scotter, Ashburton, p.383
41 RFNZ, p.L18, gives its
42 English Labourer,
43 Ibid
44 As New Zealand has no established church, such terms as ‘nonconformist’ and ‘dissenter’ are misnomers. However, they are still useful in relating New Zealand denominations to their British origins.
45 Scotter, Ashburton, p.149
46 N.Z. Wesleyan,
47 Ibid,
48 AJHR Moonshine Country: The
Story of Waitohi, South Canterbury,
49 CNZ, III, p.919
50 Ibid., p.893
51 Ibid., p.907
52 LUC,
53 RFNZ, p.B66; Timaru Herald, 27 March
54 English Labourer,
55 Ibid.,
56 Kent & Sussex Times, 19 November
57 CNZ, VI, p.415
58 Ruth Wilkinson, “First Families of Cambridge” 1864–1899 …, N.Z. Wesleyan, 1 April
59 Wilkinson, “First Families of Cambridge”, pp.86–87
60 Labourer (
61 Waikato Times,
62 Immigrant ship passenger lists collated
with information from Mr W. H.
Hicks,
63 English Labourer,
64 Wilkinson, “First Families of Cambridge”, pp.55–56
65 Horn, ed., Minute Book, LUC, IM 3/1/2 (75/14/55); CNZ, II,
pp.767–68
66 Wilkinson, “First Families of Cambridge”, pp.59–60, 91; RFNZ, p.K4;
CNZ, II, p.779
67 Wilkinson, “First Families of Cambridge”, p.76
68 Ibid., p.52; RFNZ, p.C74; CNZ, II,
4
1 Weekly Herald ( Wellington ndependent,
2 Sir Julius Vogel, ed., New Zealand:
Land and Farming in New Zealand,
Yeoman
(
3 The matters outlined in this and the following paragraph are fully documented
in
4 For bush settlement schools of the 1870s
see Arnold, ‘
5 New Zealand sources for this account of
the pioneering of the Moa Block are
documented in Arnold, ‘English Rural
Unionism and Taranaki Immigration’.
This article did not draw on materials
available only in
6 Kent Messenger,
7 Ibid.,
8 Labourers' Herald (
9 R. W. Brown, Te Moa: 100 Years History of the Inglewood Community
1875–1975,
10 Ibid., p.52
11 Ibid., pp.51, 286
12 Labourers' Herald (
13 AJHR
14 Taranaki Herald,
15 Taranaki Herald,
16 Kent Messenger, Taranaki News,
17 Taranaki News,
18 Taranaki Herald,
19 Taranaki News,
20 Taranaki Herald,
21 A. Trimble, ‘A few notes on the Early
History of Inglewood’, MS Papers
164/6,
22 Labourer (
23 Taranaki Herald, 19 & 26 February, 11
March,
24 Ibid.,
25 Ibid.,
26 J.C.R. Ashworth, Souvenir to Celebrate
the 70th Anniversary of the Inglewood
Methodist Church, 1876–1946, Inglewood, Te Moa p.66;
Labourer (
27 Taranaki Herald,
28 Ibid.,
29 Ibid., 100
Years of Timber,
30 Kent & Sussex Times,
31 Brown, Te Moa, p.59
32 Votes and Proceedings of the Nelson Provincial Council,
33 See Jennifer Curtis, ‘The Special Settlements of Jackson's Bay and Karamea’
(unpublished MA thesis, University
of Canterbury,
34 Nelson Provincial Government Gazette,
Vol. XXV, p.105
35 Ibid
36 Curtis, ‘Special Settlements’, pp.63–64
37 Colonist (Nelson),
38 List in Nelson Provincial Government papers, NP 23/3, N.Z. National Archives, collated with immigrant ship passenger lists.
39 Ibid
40 This account of the early years of the
Karamea settlement is based mainly on
archival material in NP 23/3, and on the
41 AJHR
42 The First Prospectus, dated 20
43 L. Johnson, Pioneers of Karamea, (pamphlet) Nelson,
44 Curtis, ‘Special Settlements’, pp.181–82
45 AJHR
46 R.Rambles on the Golden Coast
of the South Island of New Zealand,
2nd ed.,
47 Chapter 8, above
48 IM 3/1/2 (75/685)
49 Ibid
50 English Labourer,
51 English Labourers' Chronicle, 18 August
52 This and the following paragraph are based on Arnold, ‘Opening of the Great Bush’, pp.115–25
53 R.J. Shaffer, ‘Woodville: Genesis of a
Bush Frontier Community,
54 Woodville Jubilee Souvenir, 1877–1937
[Woodville,
55 Ibid
56 Ibid., p.75
57 Hawke's Bay Herald,
58 J. Broomhall, Fragments from the Journal of J. Broomhall, Esq., J.P., …,
59 Information on Sowry from his death
certificate (N.Z.
Mail,
60 C.B. Oldfield, 75 Years of Methodism in
Woodville 1876–1951, n.p. [
61 L.G. Gordon, ‘Immigration into
Hawke's Bay 1858–1876’ (unpublished
MA thesis), Victoria University of
62 Oldfield, Methodism in Woodville, p.9;
New Zealand Free Methodist Quarterly Magazine, N.Z.
Methodist,
63 J. Sowry to J.D. Ormond, 27 March, 4
64 Sowry to Ormond, English Labourer, 3 February
65 HB 6/10
66 English Labourer,
67 Hawke's Bay Herald,
68 Oldfield, Methodism in Woodville, p.9
69 Sowry to Ormond,
70 AJHR AJHR CNZ, VI, p.569
71 Woodville Jubilee Souvenir, p.53
72 Both in IM 3/1
73 Hawke's Bay Herald,
74 Guy & Potter, Primitive Methodism in
New Zealand, p.119; Oldfield,
Methodism in Woodville, p.10
75 Oldfield, Methodism in Woodville, p.10
76 Woodville Examiner, advt,
77 Weekly Herald (
78 AJHR
79 IM-W2/3; RFNZ, p.H32; Yeoman
(
80 This account is based on information
from Miss Grace Robertson, Eltham, a
granddaughter of Joseph and Louisa
Johnson. In view of Louisa Johnson's
contribution to the family income by
her sewing, it is of interest that Miss
Robertson is teaching homecraft and
sewing at Stratford High School at the
time of writing. For the original home
at Ngaere, see Waikato Independent,
81 IM-W2/3; Marriage certificate, Milroy-Sparks, RFNZ, p.S65;
C.D. Carncross, Ngaere School 1882–1957: Souvenir Booklet (Eltham,
82 Yeoman (
83 Ibid., p.8
84 Ibid.,
85 The minute book is in the possession of
Mr. D. Thomson, Junction Road, New
Te Moa, p.248.
86 White's Lincolnshire Directory 1872,
p.244, 246
87 Letter from Mr
88 Johnson, Pioneers of Karamea,
pp.17–18, 74–75; Dulcie Harmon,
Karamea — a story of success [Karamea,
89 AJHR
90 RFNZ, p.P24; Woodville Examiner, 14
1 Harry Tomlinson, A Farm Labourer's
Report of New Zealand, Grimbsy,
2 CNZ, II, p.767; III, p.585
3 RFNZ, pp. P45, T4
4 Clipper Ship Crusader, p.31
5 Cited, Dunbabin, ‘The “Revolt of the Field”’, p.79
6 RFNZ, p.A14
7 AJHR
8 Duncan to Provincial Government, 1
9 Groves, History of Shipton-under-Wychwood, p.47
10 E. N. Bennett, Problems of Village Life,
11 Haggard, Rural England, II, p.99
12 M. Sturge Gretton, Some English Rural
Problems,
13 Ibid., pp.115–6
14 Bennett, Problems of Village Life, p.46
15 Haggard, Rural England, I, pp.176, 181
16 Ibid., I, p.208
17 Ibid., I, p.176
18 Ibid., II, p.117
19 Ibid., II, pp.116–7
20 Ibid., II, p.114
21 Ibid., II, p.161
22 Ibid., II, p.163
23 Ibid., II, p.160–1
24 Ibid., II, p.167
25 Ibid., I, pp.186–7
26 Ibid., I, pp.228–9
27 H. H. Mann, ‘Life in an Agricultural
Village in England’, Sociological Papers,
28 Ibid., pp.176, 185
29 Ibid., p.192
30 Christopher Holdenby (pseudonym of
R. G. Hatton), Folk of the Furrow,
31 Ibid., p.71
32 Ibid., pp.33–4
33 D. C. Pedder, ‘Service and Farm-Service’, Contemporary Review, 83
(
34 Ernest Selley, Village Trade Unions in
Two Centuries,
35 Haggard, Rural England, I, p.226
36 Ibid., II, p.540
37 George Sturt, The Journals of George
Sturt (1890–1927) ed. E. D. Mackerness, 2 vols.,
38 Ibid., p.570
39 Ibid., p.571
40 Ibid
41 Ibid., p.575
42 Ibid., p.569
32 Ibid., p.570
44 Ibid., 576–77
45 CNZ, VI, p.495. Kittow emigrated on
the Helen Denny, sailing
46 See e.g. CNZ, III, p.727 (John Ellis;Isles
of the South, CNZ
VI, p.692 (John Lane;Douglas, 2 July,
CNZ, III, p.725 (Frederick
Searle;Tintern Abbey;CNZ, II, p.741 (Earl
Grandville,
47 See e.g. CNZ, IV, p.971 (Thomas
Coombes; Wellington, 4 December
48 See e.g. Clipper Ship Crusader, pp.14–15
(Richard Dalley; Crusader, 26 September CNZ, III, p.535 (Harry
Daniel; Euterpe, CNZ,
IV, p.474, (Thomas Jenkins; Wennington, CNZ, VI,
p.503, (William Fellow; Inverness, 21
49 See e.g. CNZ, III, p.544 (Anthony Francis; Northern Monarch, 31 October
CNZ, VI, p.394 (John Harvey;
Helen Denny, RFNZ,
p.H54 (Gideon Hicks; Otaki, 31 October
50 See e.g. RFNZ, p.C17 (Rueben Carne;
Adamant, CNZ, II,
p.861 (William Davey; Miltiades, 2
RFNZ, p.G14 (Nicholas
Gerry; Boyne, CNZ, VI, p.234 (Richard Hutchins;
Rangitiki, RFNZ,
p.N17, (James Northam;Star of India,
51 See e.g.CNZ, III, p.389 (Thomas Davey;
Douglas, Who's Who in
New Zealand, Waikato, 24
52 CNZ, III, p.585
53 This information from the Labour
League Examiner,
54 Keith Swan, ‘Finding Interest and
Significance in the Local Community’,
in David Duff et al, eds., Historians at
Work: Investigating and Recreating the
Past,
55 Australian Economic History Review,
56 A ‘New’ Educational
History for New Zealand?
57 AJHR, 101 Years of Ormondville,
Ormondville Centennial Committee,
58 W. H. Scotter, A History of Canterbury,
Vol. III, p.68
59 Feilding Star,
60 Yeoman (
61 Ibid.,
62 Ibid.,
63 e.g. Ibid. 13 April, 1 & 15 June, 10 August,
64 Feilding Star,
65 Ibid.,
66 Yeoman,
67 N.Z. Industrial Gazette, 15 January
68 e.g. N.Z. Wesleyan,
69 Yeoman,
70 Ibid.,
71 N.Z. Mail,
72 The New Zealand Fanner (
73 e.g. Yeoman, N.Z. Farmer,
74 Yeoman,
75 N.Z. Farmer,
76 [William R. Trench,] A Trip Round the
World: Notes from Sea and Land, Kendal,
77 Frank T. Bullen, Advance Australasia,
78 Ibid., p.241
79 Review of Reviews for Australasia, 15
80 E. Way Elkington, Adrift in New Zealand,
81 Ibid., p.17
82 Bullen, Advance Australasia, p.142
83 Ibid., p.177
1 J. B. Condliffe, New Zealand in the
Making,
2 Ibid., p.145
3 Ibid., p.373
4 AJHR
5 AJHR
6 PDNZ,
7 Ibid., pp.476–7
8 Ibid., p.471
9 Cited B. Thomas, Migration and
Economic Growth,
10 Lyttelton Times,
11 See e.g. W. Hasbach, A History of the
English Agricultural Labourer, London, English Agricultural Labourer, p.65
12 Arch, Life, p.254. See also p.219
13 Lyttelton Times,
14 PPGB 1868–69, 13, p.588
15 There is scope for much further research
on the quality of the English immigrants, interpreting the census data in the
light of a knowledge of local social and
economic circumstances. Tracing immigrants to their village of origin is,
however, a very onerous task. For what
can be done using New Zealand archival data alone, see John Morris, ‘The
Assisted Immigrants to New Zealand,
1871–79: A Statistical Study’, unpublished MA thesis, University of
16 For a newspaper editorial typical of many
on this topic, see Rangitikei Advocate,
17 Campbell, “The Black 'Eighties”, p.70
18 Ibid., pp.74–5
19 Journal of the House of Representatives,
20
21 Calculated from the detailed returns
printed in AJHR for these years.
22
23 AJHR AJHR
1 T. S. Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition
of Culture, The Founding of New
Societies, New Zealand
Geographer, 33, 2, (
2 For a discussion of the village character of
the New Zealand community see R. D.
Arnold, ‘The Village and the Globe:
Aspects of the Social Origins of
Schooling in Victorian New Zealand’,
ANZHES Journal, 5, 2 (
3 Vogel, Land and Farming in New Zealand, p.8
4 Home: A Colonial's Adventure,
5 Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost,
6 W. J. Keith, The Rural Tradition, Toronto,
BRITISH GOVERNMENT RECORDS, PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
Registrar-General's Office
NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT RECORDS, NATIONAL ARCHIVES, WELLINGTON
Immigration Department
Hawke's Bay Province
Nelson Province
CANTERBURY PROVINCIAL COUNCIL RECORDS, CANTERBURY MUSEUM, CHRISTCHURCH
‘Caistor and Laceby Circuit Schedules’. MS, Lincolnshire County Record Office, Lincoln.
Christopher Holloway, ‘C. Holloway's book of jottings on New Zealand, with
notes by the way, 1874–75, …’ Typescript,
GREAT BRITAIN
Great Britain Parliamentary Papers.
Census of England and Wales
Royal Commission on Agricultural Depression,
Royal Commission on the Employment of Children, Young Persons and Women in Agriculture. PP.1867–69, 17; 1868–69, 13.
NEW ZEALAND
General Government
Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1870–80.
Appendices to the Journals of the Legislative Council,
1870–80.
Journals of the House of Representatives, 1870–80
New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1870–80.
New Zealand Statutes, 1870–80.
The Freeholders of New Zealand,
Nelson Provincial Council.
Votes and Proceedings, Session 24,
Provincial Government Gazette, Vols. 23–25, 1874–76.
‘Minute Book of the in Pamela Horn, ed., Agricultural Trade Unionism in Oxfordshire
1872–81, Oxfordshire Record Society, 48 (
Bedfordshire Mercury,
Canterbury Journal,
Church Gazette (
Colonist (Nelson),
Daily News (
English Labourer (
Evening Post (
Hawke's Bay Herald,
Kent Herald (Canterbury),
Kent & Sussex Times (
Kent Messenger and Maidstone Telegraph,
Labour League Examiner (
Labourer (
Labourers' Herald (
Labourers' Union Chronicle (
Lyttelton Times,
Maidstone & Kentish Journal,
Marlborough Press (
Midland Free Press (
New Zealand Farmer (
New Zealand Industrial Gazette,
New Zealand Mail (
New Zealand Methodist Times, 1929–36
New Zealand Wesleyan, 1874–83
North Otago Times (
Stamford Mercury,
Standard (
Taranaki Herald (
Taranaki News (
Times (
Weekly Herald (
Yeoman (
Figures in bold type indicate illustrations
Advertisements for emigrants, 8, 70–72, 76
Agent General for New Zealand in see Vogel, (Sir) Julius;
Agricultural labourers, see Farm labourers
Allington, George (N.A.L.U. executive member and delegate), 77, 130–31, 168, 270, 329
Allotments, 115, 123, 168, 175, 178, 192, 335
Arch, Joseph (President of National Agricultural Labourers' Union), 1, 9, 66–7,
91–2, 123–4, 131, 133, 172–4, 181, 330,
348; earlier career, 18–19; called to lead the
‘Revolt’, 31–3; visit to
Ashburton Guardian, 276
Ashby, Joseph, (English village labourer), 170–72
Atkinson, (Sir) Harry, 88–9, 293–4, 297; as Minister for Immigration, 95, 346–8
Attenborough, Revd F. S. (English Congregational Minister), 124
see also
Index of Places
Banks, William (Secretary of Lincolnshire Labour League), 76, 153
Baptists, 111, 114, 130, 307, 309, 314, 326
Bathgate, John (New Zealand settler and politician), 80
Bedfordshire, 74–5, 77, 179–82, 180, 256,
281, 308, 323, 326; see also Index of Places
Berkshire, 16–17, 176–8, 253; see also Index
of Places
Berry, Revd Joseph (New Zealand emigration agent), 99, 207, 343
Birch, Thomas (New Zealand emigration agent), 39
Bonar, James (Superintendent, Westland), 86
Brewer, J. N. (English topographer), 105–6
British Ladies' Female Emigrant Society, 239
Brogden, John & Sons (English railway contractors), 5, 312; negotiations with Julius Vogel, 7; emigration drive of, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14–16, 44–5, 116, 167, 172, 176; James Brogden, 7, 10; Alexander Brogden M.P., 9; relationships with their navvies, 10, 12, 14; differences with N.Z. government, 11
Brogdens' navvies, 4–5, 80–81, 116, 176, 221, 228, 245, 340, 367n; arrival of first party, 2–5; the British navvy tradition, 3; disputes with managers, 11–12, 14; contemporary impressions of, 14–15; selection of, 15–16; effect of their reports home, 16–17
Brown, Charles Henry (Lincolnshire farmer), 152
Buckinghamshire, 94, 109, 120, 273; see also
Index of Places
Burton, William (New Zealand emigration agent), 39, 89, 94, 96, 157–9, 161–3, 246, 294, 299–302; background of, 159
Bush districts (New Zealand), 87–9, 116,
158, 167, 254, 261–2, 289–326, 339–343
passim; see also Sawmilling
Cable communication between England and New Zealand, 98–9, 355
see
Canterbury Journal and Farmers' Gazette,
206
265; immigration (see also Index
of Places
Carrington, Frederic (Superintendent, Taranaki), 88–9, 293, 296–8, 301
Carter, Charles Rooking (New Zealand
emigration agent), 44, 72, 75; career and
appointment, 8, 36; in
Carter, Revd W. E. D., 121–2, 125
Castle, Isaac, 114, 125, 128, 131, 133
Chain migration, 116–17, 130, 233–5, 250–51, 285–6
Charities (rural England), 171, 196, 209, 245
Cheviot Hills, 272
Child labour, in rural England, 22, 31, 142–3, 146, 175, 190; in Cornish mining, 215–16
Children, sickness and death on emigrant
ships, 56–61 passim, 69–70, 155; as immigrants in N.Z., 134, 156–8, 242, 248, 282–3;
see also Child labour; Education
‘Chipping Norton Case’, 119–125, 130, 281
Cholmondeley, Revd G. C., 41
Church, George (New Zealand farmer), 84
‘Close’ parishes, 142, 146–7, 164, 168–9, 179
‘Cockatoos’, 83; see also Yeoman farmers
(New Zealand)
Commissions, Royal, on Employment of
Women and Children in Agriculture
(Scimitar (New Zealand,
Contracting, by immigrants in New Zealand, 12, 14, 78, 81, 89, 283, 337
Cook, John (Lincolnshire rural unionist), 152
passim;
farming 212–13, 218, 218–20, 275–6; mining, 212–18, 215, 220–30; fishing, 212;
china clay works, 223–4, 230; smuggling,
226; 19th Century emigration from, 8,
220–21, 348–8, 374n; emigration to N.Z.,
8–9, 38, 116, 217, 220–21, 223–5, 337–8; see
also Index of Places
Cospatrick Memorial (Shipton-under-Wychwood) 78
Cottage industries (England), 110–14 passim,
120, 126, 128–9, 133, 179–82; passim, 307,
323
Cottages, see Housing
Craftsmen (rural England), 152–3, 156, 165, 336–7
Cyclopaedia of New Zealand, 117, 217, 329,
338
Daily News (
Dairy industry (New Zealand), 291, 322, 342
Daniel, Theophilus (New Zealand settler), 80
Depots for emigrants, 238; the case for, 47;
at
see also Index of
Places
Diaries by emigrants; James Gore, 67; James Beckley, 253; Henry Tomlinson 157, 328
Divine providence, 154, 308, 309, 334
Dixon, Marmaduke (New Zealand squatter), 272–3
Dixon, William (philanthropist, Lines), 143, 272–3
Dorset County Express, 329
‘Drift North’ (New Zealand), 263, 321, 352
Duncan, Andrew (New Zealand emigration agent), 39, 47, 72–7, 85, 115, 179, 181, 307, 330
Education, in rural England, 21–2, 31, 113,
142–7 passim, 159, 179, 190, 255; on
emigrant ships, 56, 71; in New Zealand,
254–6, 270, 275, 291, 301, 317, 355
Eight hour day (New Zealand), 11–12, 14, 194–5, 198, 243, 277
Eliot, T. S., 354
Elliot, Peter (New Zealand farmer), 90
Emigrant and Colonist's Aid Corporation, 87, 158
Emigrant guidebooks and pamphlets, 99, 157, 249, 328, 356
Emigrant voyages (with month of arrival in New Zealand),
Adamant (October '73), 382n; (Aug '74),
368n, 77, 181, 303, 307, 310–11
Allahabad (Sep '73), 217
Alumbagh (Aug '75), 133
Asia (Apr '74), 230
Assaye (Dec '74), 133
Atrato (Jun '74), 69–71, 73, 129, 242, 277,
363n
Avalanche (Jan '75) 77, 268, 298–9, 302
Ballochmyle (Jun '74), 71, 73, 85, 129–31,
229, 241, 277
Berar (Sep '73), 229; (Jan '75), 77, 169
Blairgowrie (Aug '75), 382n
Boyne (Feb '79), 382n
Carisbrook Castle (Sept '74), 154
Caroline (Jan '76), 227, 374n, 382n
Cathcart (Aug '74), 181
Celestial Queen (Jul '72), 285
Charlotte Gladstone (Feb '72), 227, 374n
Chile (Dec '72), 116, 312, 340; (Oct '74),
303; (Sep '75), 94, 300, 302
Christian McAusland (Dec '72), 15, 230
Collingwood (Jul '75), 94, 160, 299
Cospatrick (lost at sea, Nov '74), 78, 93,
131–2, 132
Crusader (Dec '74), 77, 130, 270, 273, 280,
320, 382n
Dallam Tower (Mar '75), 235
Douglas (Oct '74), 382n
Duke of Edinburgh (Nov '74), 228
Eastern Monarch (Jul '74), 228, 364n
E. P. Bouverie (Oct '73), 314
Euterpe (Aug '74), 382n
Fern Glen (Apr '76), 311
Forfarshire (Mar '73), 10–11, 172, 176
Gareloch (Feb '75), 77
Geraldine Paget (Dec '74), 77, 157
Halcione (Jul '72), 167; (Jul '73), 228;
(Sept '75), 94, 160–61, 374n, 300
Helen Denny (Oct '74), 382n
Hereford (Jul '74), 281; (Jan '78), 288
Hindostan (May '75), 158
Howrah (Nov '74), 298
Hudson (Nov '74), 131; (Feb '76), 201,
326
Hurunui (Feb '76), 94
Hydaspes (Sep '72), 229–30; (Nov '74),
285; (Nov '78), 230
Inverness (Nov '75), 382n
Isles of the South (Feb '74), 227, 382n
J. N. Fleming (May '74), 70, 155
La Hogue (May '74), 253
Lady Jocelyn (Nov '72), 229; (Jan '75), 77,
130, 168, 275
Lutterworth (Apr’ 73), 14, 176
Maraval (Jan '79), 374n
Miltiades (Jul '74), 382n
Mongol (Feb '74), 49–50, 53, 55–62, 59,
79–80, 125, 128, 269, 321
Northampton (Apr '77), 250
Northern Monarch (Feb '79), 374n, 382n
Ocean Mail (Nov '74), 303
Opawa (Jan '78), 230; (Nov '79), 374n
Otago (Aug '74), 282
Peeress (Jul '74), 76, 130, 281
Punjaub (Sep '73), 167
Queen Bee (Oct '72), 374n
Rakaia (Apr '74), 85; (Oct '78), 251; (Sep
'79), 227
Rangitiki (Oct '79), 50, 374n, 382n
Rooparell (May '74), 70
St Lawrence (Aug '74), 382n
St Leonard (Sep '72), 239–40, 247
Schiehallion (Jul '72), 3, 7, 9–10, 14, 228
Scimitar (Mar '74), 50, 50, 52–3, 55, 61–2,
81, 128
Stad Haarlem (Apr '79), 99–100, 206, 247,
251, 255, 320, 322
Star of India (Dec '73), 382n
Tintern Abbey (May '75), 382n
Tweed (Sep '74), 277
Varuna (May '74), 85
Waikato (Jul '74), 70, 89, 223, 294–6, 298,
382n
Waitangi (Oct '78), 382n
Wellington (Feb '75), 382n
Wennington (May '74), 69, 167, 365n;
(May '75), 382n
Wild Deer (Jan '75), 177
William Davie (Apr '74), 69, 194–5, 199
Winchester (Jul '74), 315
Zealandia (Jan '73), 81
Emigrants, see Selection of emigrants; Medical examination of emigrant applicants;
Farewells for emigrants; Railways (England) emigrant journeys to ports; Letters
by emigrants; success stories of earlier emigrants
Emigration, assisted; N.Z. records of, 102,
103; N.Z. government regulations for, 8,
38, 41–3, 46, 99–100; development of N.Z.
recruitment organisation (passim; free passages, 42–4,
46, 48, 86, 99, 117, 127; policy vacillations
(passim; phasing out of assisted passages, 100; emigrants bringing
capital, 209, 268; quality and composition
of, 103, 345–53; see also promissory notes
from emigrants; nominated immigration
Emigration from England: pre-
Employers (England), see Farmers (England)
Employers (New Zealand), solicitude for employees, 242–3, 271; social attitudes of, 156–7, 244–5, 257
Employment of newly-arrived immigrants,
10, 85, 157, 269; how arranged, 242–3;
see also Railways (New Zealand); Roadmaking (by immigrants)
Enclosures, 20, 106, 112, 138, 169–71, 218
England, regional diversity of, 102, 164–6,
183; county origins of emigrants, 102–4; as
see also individual counties
English Labourer, 67, 91, 108, 133
Evening Post (
Eviction of cottagers, 178, 178, 204–6
Farewells for emigrants; at railway stations, 52, 69, 70, 168, 207–8, 221; by union branches, 69–70, 181, 206; special occasions for large parties, 68–9, 207–8
Farm labourers (England), main source of
navvy recruits, 3, 15, 17; reluctance to
emigrate, 16, 18, 41, 159; social degradation of, 19–21, 23–4, 27, 197, 335; poverty
of, 21, 27–8, 28, 42, 45, 153, 165–6, 188,
190, 193, 303, 334; popular images of, 27,
52; regional variations, 27–8, 183, 188;
hours of work, 119, 156, 190, 195, 273;
hiring fairs, 108–9, 153; confined men
(yearly agreements), 153, 160–61; in
gangs, 142–3; ignorance of, 159, 255;
foremen, 154, 158, 161, 244, 333; labour
productivity of, 165–6; clothing of, 166;
health of, 165–6; migratory, 183, 349; perquisites of, 29, 191–2; condition and outlook of, c.see also Housing
(England); Wages (England)
Farm labourers (New Zealand), 156–7, 275–6, 280–81, 343; on sheep stations, 127, 271–2, 274–5, 282–3, 321
Farm managers (New Zealand), 273–4, 288, 311
Farmers (England), 23–5, 138, 147–8;
economic position of, 23–4, 25, 203,
332–3; rising social aspirations of, 25, 139,
141, 192; wives as social pace setters,
25–26; an ‘old style’ example, 191; attitudes to labourers, 23–4, 26–7, 152–3,
191–2, 255; discourage emigration, 41,
51–4, 72, 161–2, 208–9; Defence Associations of, 45, 74, 115–16, 151, 201–3, 373n;
unionists victimised by, 67, 116, 151,
156–7, 200–1, 206–7, 209, 256, 330–31; disrupt union meetings, 125, 200; assaults on
unionists, 152, 201; philanthropy 143–4,
147–8, 196; sought as N.Z. immigrants
(see also Yeoman farmers (England)
Farming (in England), West Oxfordshire,
109; North Lincolnshire, 137–40; Vale of
the White Horse, Berkshire, 175; Kent,
187–90;
Farming (in New Zealand), 267, 343, 345;
see also Squatters; Yeoman farmers (New
Zealand)
Federal Union of Agricultural and General Labourers, 34
Firewood, abundance of in New Zealand, 92, 195, 286, 291, 308
Fitzherbert, William (Superintendent, Wellington), 87
Food, in English villages, 27–9, 31, 127, 165–6, 189, 193, 198, 244, 335; of Cornish miners, 217; on immigrant ships, 61–2, 154, 239; in immigration barracks, N.Z., 240; in New Zealand, 10, 51, 82, 118, 127, 134, 155–6, 172, 177, 199, 209, 243–4, 248, 303, 309
Game, plenitude in New Zealand, 11, 51, 61, 127–8, 167, 176, 195, 199, 210, 245–6, 252, 285, 302, 341 hunting and shooting, England, 141–2, 192, 199, 233
Game Laws (England), 29–30, 210
Gentry, see Landowners (England); Squatters (New Zealand Pastoralists)
Gilligan, J. H. (Mayor of Palmerston, N.Z.), 82
Girdlestone, Revd Edward, 30
Gloucestershire, 41, 77, 94, 241, 245, 305;
emigration to
Gloving, 110–11, 112–14, 120, 126, 128, 129, 133
Graphic, 75
Gold fields (New Zealand), 2, 7, 167, 263, 304
Gretton, May Sturge (English writer), 332
Grigg, John (New Zealand landowner and farmer), 275–6
Guidebooks for emigrants, see Emigrant
guidebooks and pamphlets
Haggard, H. Rider (English novelist and agricultural writer), 166, 187, 331, 332–6
Hambidge, Robert (Oxfordshire farmer), 120–1, 124–5
Harris, Revd Thomas, 121–2, 125
Harvesting, New Zealand, 60, 156, 266, 269, 276, 277, 282, 322
England, 24, 63, 134, 135, 139, 145, 146,
244, 270
Hasted, Edward (Historian of Kent), 183
Hawke's Bay Herald, 116, 315, 318
Hawke's Bay Province, 38, 96, 116, 129, 262,
283, 311; general description, 312; see
also Index of Places
Heath, Richard (English journalist), 115
Holdenby, C. (English writer), 334–5
Holloway, Christopher (N.A.L.U. delegate
to New Zealand, New Zealand emigration
agent), 105; 125, 330; earlier career, 49;
leads ‘Revolt’ at Wootton, Oxon., 115;
and Oxfordshire district of N.A.L.U.,
119–20; 123; N.Z. visit arranged, 49; recruiting Mongol/Scimitar party, 49–51;
journey to N.Z., 52–60; in Otago and
Southland, 79–83; in
Honi Pihama (Maori chief), 88
Horses, class significance of in England, 141–2, 152, 246; ready availability of in N.Z., 10, 60, 118–9, 126–7, 158, 178, 246–7, 253, 282, 300, 303
Hours of work, England, 156, 190, 194–5, 243, 271, 273; New Zealand, 10, 11–12, 13, 156, 194–5, 243, 271, 277
Housing (England), of village labourers, 28,
28, 115–6, 119–20, 139, 142, 146, 160–1,
175, 190, 191; tied cottages, 115–6, 178,
204, 335; of Cornish miners, 214; and
domestic fuel, 166, 171, 174, 217;
Housing (New Zealand), improvised housing of immigrants, 126–7, 177, 280, 299; lack of provision for families on N.Z. stations, 82, 85; easy access to ownership in N.Z., 88, 155, 248, 254, 258–9, 269, 277–8, 281, 287, 297, 302, 308
Hunt, Joseph (New Zealand farmer), 83
Immigration and Public Works Acts (New
Zealand), 6; (
Immigration barracks (New Zealand), 80, 85, 240–2, 277, 280–1, 296, 299
Immigration officers (New Zealand), 96, 100, 209, 239–40, 242, 250, 253, 258, 280, 296, 299, 303, 305, 307, 350
Imperial Gazetteer, 164
Ireland, emigration from, 55, 72
Jefferies, Richard (English author), 26
Keen, J. (of Palmerston, N.Z.), 82
Kent, 183–210, 184, 250; description of,
183–90; hop gardens, 70, 183, 189, 189,
190, 199, 206, 207, 209, 320; brickmakers,
69, 194, 198, 206, 326; orchards, 189–90;
the Weald, 183, 185–7, 189–90, 202, 205;
Romney Marsh, 183, 187; North Downs,
183, 185, 187–9, 198, 206, 208; pre-
Kent and see also Simmons, Alfred (Secretary of K.
& S.L.U.); Roots, George (Chairman of
K. & S.L.U.).
Kent & Sussex Times, 201, 379n
Kent Messenger and Maidstone Telegraph,
64
Labour demand in New Zealand, (
Labour League Examiner, 76, 152, 153
Labourer (
Labourers, see Farm Labourers; Brogdens'
navvies
Labourers' Union Chronicle, 47, 48, 50, 51,
54, 55, 60, 61, 62, 63, 70, 71, 76, 78, 81,
83, 91, 92, 117, 122, 127, 132, 133, 173,
177, 178
Lacemaking, 179, 180, 181, 182, 307, 323
Land (New Zealand), purchase by immigrants, 14, 62, 84, 128, 159, 174, 178, 256,
267–75; passim, 281–2, 303, 318–19, 322;
easy access to freehold, 92–3, 127, 154–5,
158, 208, 267, 297; varied quality of, 265,
340; in N.Z. emigration propaganda,
74–5, 92, 158; settlement associations,
264, 304–11, 312–19
Landowners (England), 137–8, 140–1, 164, 232, 332; as a rural oligarchy, 23–4, 202–3
Laslett, Peter, 356
Leggett, Joseph (N.A.L.U.
Letters by emigrants, 10, 11, 51, 60–2 passim,
92, 117–8, 126–8, 154–63 passim, 167,
172–4, 176–9 passim, 182, 193–201 passim,
209–10, 239–59 passim, 266–87 passim,
296–303 passim, 306–11 passim, 315–18
passim, 376–7nn; their effect on recruitment, 16–17, 63, 68, 77, 116, 128, 155,
157, 162, 167, 176–7, 193–4, 195, 209–10;
adverse letters, 77–8, 155, 163, 277–8; letter series: Michael Cook, 154–5, 266;
Helena Barker, 158; Joseph and Ann
Leggett, 248, 250, 275, 278–9; George
Morgan, 209; George Mumby, 160, 241,
245, 252–3; William, George and Ann
Philpott, 61–2, 173–4, 251; John Piper,
199–201; James Pratt, 244, 245, 246;
Thomas Rathbone, 133–4, 248; Henry
Tomlinson, 157, 249–50, 273
Lincolnshire, 74, 75, 94, 102, 135–63, 136,
246, 301, 323; the wolds, 135–41 passim,
160–1, (c.see also Index of Places
Lincolnshire Labour League, 151, 154; origins, 75–6; and N.A.L.U., 34; and see also Banks, William (Secretary of Lincolnshire Labour League)
Literacy, of English rural labourers, 30, 54, 148; of N.Z. immigrants, 118, 352–3
Liverpool Albion, 96
Livestock, acquired by recent immigrants,
60, 126, 155, 257–8, 279, 314; see also
Horses
Local emigration agents, 40, 71–2; see also
White, John H.
Lousley, Joseph (Oxfordshire farmer), 127, 367n
Lyttelton Times, 238, 241, 348
Macandrew, James (Superintendent, Otago), 79, 93
McPherson, ___ (‘Anti-emigration agent’), 93
Maidstone and Kentish Journal, 196
Main, D. F. (New Zealand squatter), 82
Maning, Frederick (Pakeha-Maori), 90
Maoris, 61, 87–8, 90–1, 176, 263, 264, 284, 286, 293
Marlborough, Duke of, 49, 111, 115–6, 123–4
see
also Index of Places
Medical examination of emigrant applicants, 16, 307, 349
Meetings on emigration, 8, 48–50, 71–3, 75–6, 91–2, 94, 99, 116, 125, 129, 132–3, 154, 155, 159–63
Menlove, Edward (New Zealand squatter), 82
Methodist Church and Methodism (England), 53, 111, 114, 144–8, 150–51, 159–60,
169, 174, 179–81, 186–7; and training of
union leaders, 34, 49; and Cornish miners,
214, 224–5, see also Primitive
Middlemiss, John (New Zealand squatter), 271–2
Mulgan, Alan (New Zealand writer), 356
National Agricultural Labourers' Union,
origins (Warwicks., see also Arch, Joseph
(President of N.A.L.U.); Taylor, Henry
(Secretary of N.A.L.U.)
Navvies, see Brogdens' navvies
Nelson Province, 86, 96, 97, 303–11; see also
Index of Places
New Zealand, general description of, 13, 261–3, 342–4; social attitudes, 80, 92, 156, 195, 242–5, 248–9, 343–4; attitudes to immigration, 83, 95–7; as pictured in emigration propaganda, 72, 74, 83–4, 92–3, 125, 301; good living reported by immigrants, 10–11, 60–61, 167, 172–4, 178–9, 194–5, 238, 243, 286; defects reported by immigrants, 78, 275; ‘Good Samaritan’ approach to charity, 155, 249, 252–4; Friendly Societies in, 254; parochialism in, 344, 355, 357
Nominated immigration, 47, 71, 100, 117, 250, 258–9
Noncomformity, 111, 114, 141, 164–5, 174,
180, 187, 279; see also Baptists, Methodist
Church and Methodism, Primitive
‘Open’ parishes, 105, 135, 140, 144, 167, 168, 169, 175, 181
Ormond, J. D. (New Zealand squatter and politician), 283, 312, 315, 318
Otago, 37, 39, 79–83, 98, 262; finances extra
emigrant ships, 39; see also Index of Places
Overton, Revd I. G., 146
Oxford Mail, 176
Oxfordshire, 51, 75, 94, 104–34, 287;
(c.passim, 326, 330; Otmoor
district, 105–6; and N.A.L.U., 49; emigrant parties for N.Z., 44, 52–3, 60, 125–33
passim; see also Index of Places
Parents of emigrants, 161, 173–4, 208, 249–52
Parris, Robert (Civil commissioner, Taranaki), 88
Poaching, 29, 106, 111, 166, 198–9
Poor Laws, 20–21, 28–9, 156–7, 170–1, 249, 277; Boards of Guardians, 99
Posters on emigration, 8, 72, 162
Primitive
‘Promised Land imagery, 32–3, 51, 75, 92, 260, 306, 354–7
Promissory notes from emigrants, to Brogdens, 16, 42; to N.Z. government, 38, 42, 317–18
Provincial governments (New Zealand) and
immigration (
Quarantine of immigrants, 59, 63, 83, 85, 286
Quarries (England), 108–10, 113–14, 125–6, 129, 167
Railways (England), emigrant journeys to ports, 51–5, 160, 208
Railways (New Zealand), and colonial development, 2–3, 87, 276–7, 302, 319, 321,
342; immigrants employed in construction
of, 12–15, 15, 61, 78, 127, 209, 258, 276;
see also Brogden, John & Sons; Brogdens'
navvies.
Recruitment of emigrants; see Advertisements for emigrants; Emigrant
guidebooks and pamphlets. Meetings on
emigration; Posters on emigration; Emigration, assisted.
Reeves, William (New Zealand politician), 41
Religion; see Baptists;
Remittances, to England from emigrants, 179, 251, 302, 353
Report on the immigration policy of
‘Revolt of the Field’, 18–19, 29–35, 75, 97–8, 264, 279, 311, 328–31; origins of, 30–31; compared with ‘Swing’ riots, 34–5; as a ‘freedom movement’, 35, 66, 330; extent of, 33–4, 211; aftermath in village England, 330–31; memory of suppressed in N.Z., 338–9
Reynold's Weekly News, 60, 192
Riots, ‘Swing’ (
Roadmaking (by immigrants), 81–2, 118, 289–90
Rolleston, William (Superintendent, Canterbury; cabinet minister), 84–5, 264, 267, 347
Roots, George (Chairman of Kent and Sussex Labourers' Union,
Royal Leamington Chronicle, 33,
Ruddenklau, John (New Zealand landowner), 274
Saunders, Alfred (New Zealand settler and politician), 83, 276, 279
Sawmilling (New Zealand), 87, 248, 290, 301–2, 317, 321, 341
Scandinavia, emigration from, 36–7, 87, 90, 129, 312
Scotland, emigration from, 72, 257, 305, 316, 317, 329, 331
Seaton, James (New Zealand emigration agent), 39
Selection of emigrants, 8–9, 14–16, 96–7, 155, 349
Servants, domestic; in England, 109, 209; in New Zealand, 10, 278–9
Shearing (New Zealand), 60, 118, 270, 341
Shepherds, 109, 130, 156, 208–9, 275, 322, 334
Ships. For individual emigrant ships see
Emigrant voyages.
Ships, emigrant; departure of, 51, 57, 69;
rations, 58, 61–2; water supply, 58–9;
sickness and death aboard, 55–62, 69, 70,
321; captains, 56, 59, 61; surgeon-superintendents, 15, 41, 55, 56, 61, 207,
238–9; matrons, 239; schools and schoolmasters, 56, 71; sailors, 56, 61; shipboard
diaries, 55–6, 252
Shipwrecks, Cospatrick (132; John (
Shopkeepers (rural England), 40, 148–50, 161, 176
Simmons, Alfred (Secretary of Kent & Sussex Labourers' Union), 64–70, 192, 195–7,
199–201, 205–7, 249, 251–2, 254, 296; earlier career, 64–5; emerges as leader of ‘Revolt’ in Kent, 64–5; union strategy of,
65–8, 196; leadership in Stad Haarlem
emigrants, 99, 209–10; tours N.Z., 99,
258–9; his Old England and New Zealand,
99, 249; return to Kent (
Smales, Revd Gideon, 44
Social relationships, of rural England, 19, 20,
23–6, 152–3, 164, 171–2, 202–3, 330–2, 335;
of
Soldiers: use as labour during strikes, 115–16, 197
Southern Alps (New Zealand), 83, 85, 264–5
Southland, 81, 97; see also Index of Places
Sowerby, Francis (Lincolnshire farmer and philanthropist), 147–8, 151–2, 154, 156, 159, 338
Sowry, Joseph (New Zealand settler), 315–16, 318–19
Squatters (New Zealand pastoralists), 82, 83,
262–3, 265–7, 269, 271–5, 272–3, 383, 291,
339
Squires; see Landowners (England)
Standard (
Statistics; of Brogdens' emigration, 5, 15–17;
of emigration to New Zealand (passim; of
emigrant applications, 40, 100; of emigration to U.S.A., 47; of winter emigration
(
Strikes and lock-outs;
Studholme, John (New Zealand squatter), 266
Sturt, George (English author), 336–8
Success stories of earlier emigrants, 60–61, 82, 83–4, 90, 153, 179, 256
Suffolk, 74, 75, 240, 256, 331; see also Index
of Places
Surgeon-superintendents on emigrant ships;
see Ships, emigrant
see also Index of Places
Tancred, Sir Thomas (New Zealand squatter), 266
Taranaki, 87–90, 96, 98, 140, 262, 264, 292–303, 294; general description, 87–8, 292–5;
see also Index of Places
Taylor, Henry (Secretary of National Agricultural Labourers' Union,
Taylor, Revd George (New Zealand United Free Methodist Minister), 118
Temperance Movement, England, 114, 150, New Zealand, 315, 317
Tennyson-Turner, Revd Charles, 144–5, 160
Threlkeld (New Zealand farmer), 273
Threshing machines, 145, 188, 276, 282, 284, 286
Timber industry (New Zealand), see Sawmilling (New Zealand)
Times, The (
Torr, William (Lincolnshire farmer), 147
Transportation, convict, 194, 278
Trimble, Col. Robert (New Zealand settler
and politician), 299–302 passim
‘Tupurupuru’ (Wairarapa), 283
Unemployment (New Zealand), see Labour
Demand in New Zealand
see
Vale of Bedford, 179
Vale of the Red Horse (Warwicks.), 169–70, 174
Vale of the White Horse (Berks.), 174–5
Village life (England), ‘open’ parishes, 105,
135, 140, 144, 167, 168, 169, 175, 181;
‘close’ parishes, 142, 146–7, 164, 169, 179;
estate parishes, 164, 168–9, 179, 185; free
holders' parishes, 164, 167, 168, 169, 174,
175, 185; boundary settlements, 165; industrial villages, 165; decayed market
towns, 165; hamlets, 165, 167, 169, 175,
179, 180, 181, 212; effects of access to
waste land, 105–8, 164, 165–9 passim, 174,
179, 181, 188; effects of over-population,
175; shopkeepers, 40, 148–50, 161, 176;
craftsmen, 152, 156, 165; friendly societies
and sick benefit clubs, 150, 196, 204;
charities, 171, 196, 245
Vogel, (Sir) Julius, 6, 96, 294, 355; public
works policy of, 6; character of, 7; as
Minister for Immigration, 46–7; meets
Christopher Holloway, 86–7, 92; visit to
England (
Wages (England), 19, 22, 31, 36, 97, 99, 104, 109, 115, 119, 146, 154, 165, 177, 190, 200, 203–4; setting of rural wage levels, 27; influence of rural unions on, 36, 67–8
Wages (New Zealand), 10, 11, 80–81, 83, 89, 97, 118, 127, 155, 157, 167, 172–3, 194, 195, 198, 242–3, 248, 257–8, 281, 282–3, 296–7
‘Waimate Plains Co-operative Land Company’, 264
Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, 21, 24, 262; ‘Wakefield’ settlements, N.Z., 262
see also
Index of Places
Wasteland (England), effects of villagers' access to, 105–6, 164–69 passim, 174, 179,
181, 188; examples of, 166, 168, 175, 179,
181
see also Index of Places
Westland, 86
White, John H. (emigration agent, Lines.),
76–7, 94, 135, 148–63 passim, 241, 246,
251, 268, 285, 301
Williamson, John (Superintendent, Auckland), 90
Women and girls (England), deserted wives
in
Women and girls (New Zealand), given preference in emigration regulations, 99, 100; wives' attitudes to emigration, 161; single women on emigrant ships, 238–9; in immigration barracks, 240, 242; augmenting family earnings, 60, 156, 209, 257–8, 269, 277; wages of, 156, 194–5, 209, 248, 282; as domestic servants, 10, 278–9; marriage prospects of, 74, 208, 247–8; housekeeping, 248; horse riding, 246–7, 282, 300; homesickness for England, 199, 314; help for widows, 254
Wray, Charles, A. (New Zealand surveyor), 88
Wychwood Forest (Oxon.), history of,
106–8, 111–2; a description of, 107,
109–10; clearance of, (
Yarborough, Earl of, 140–2, 146, 333
Yeoman farmers (England), 20, 218–9, 232–35, 332, 336
Yeoman farmers (New Zealand), 83–4,
260–64, 267, 268–71 passim, 275–6, 280,
290, 339–40
Yeoman (
NOTE: Boundaries for English counties are as for the 1870s. New Zealand provinces are indicated thus:—
Alton (N.Z., T.), 322
Alford (Lines.), 160, 161, 165, 248
Appledore (Kent), 187
Arowhenua (N.Z., C.), 268
Ascott-under-Wychwood (Oxon.), 109, 111, 113, 119–125, 130, 280, 281
Ashhurst (N.Z., W.), 251
Ashley Clinton (N.Z., H.B.), 117
Asthall (Oxon.), 109
Aylesby (Lines.), 147–8, 154–5
Banbury (Oxon.), 52, 172–3, 333
Barford (Warwicks.), 19
Bay of Islands (N.Z., A.), 90,
Bearstead (Kent), 193
Beelsby (Lines.), 159
Benenden (Kent), 186
Benson (Oxon.), 129
Bilberry (
Bilsby (Lines.), 156
Binbrook (Lines.) 153, 155, 285, 333
Bishop's Ichington (Warwicks.), 168–9
Blackstone Hill (N.Z., O.), 282
Bletchington (Oxon.), 80
Boscaswell (
Bourton (Warwicks.), 270
Brighton (
Brigsley (Lines.), 268
Brocklesby (Lines.), 139, 140, 141, 142
Bulls (N.Z., W.), 87
Burford (Oxon.), 108, 117, 349
Caistor (Lines.) 135, 139, 142–4, 146, 148, 152, 153, 155, 156, 161, 165
Cambourne (
Canterbury (Kent), 68–9, 99, 197, 199–200, 203, 204, 205
Cardington (Beds.), 179, 180–1, 271
Careys Bay (N.Z., O.), 60
Castle Thorpe (Bucks.), 94
Chadshunt (Warwicks.), 169
Charlbury (Oxon.), 50, 105, 108, 110–12, 126, 128, 133, 340
Chartham (Kent), 206
Cheltenham (Glos.), 73
Chesterton (Oxon.), 84
Chipping
Claybrooke (Leies.), 270
Clever (Berks.), 54
Collingwood (N.Z., N.), 86
Compton Wynyates (Warwicks.), 170, 172
Cople (Beds.), 179
Coromandel (N.Z., A.), 90
Crouch (Kent), 206
Cuxwold (Lines.), 142, 160, 161
Dartford (Kent), 193
Deptford (Kent), 310
Doyleston (N.Z., C.), 269
Ealing (N.Z., C.), 274
Elkington (Lines.), 158
Eltham (Kent), 195
Enfield (N.Z., O.), 176
Ettington (Warwicks.), 277
Exning (Suffolk), 74
Fairlie (N.Z., C.), 282
Faversham (Kent), 99, 188–9, 205, 285
Feilding (N.Z., W.), 87, 158, 254, 341
Fenny Compton (Warwicks.), 169
Fifield (Oxon.), 130
Four Lanes (
Fulbrook (Oxon.), 109, 126, 131, 365n
Gaydon (Warwicks.), 169
Geraldine (N.Z., C.), 83, 129, 154
Gore (N.Z., S.), 276
Grainthorpe (Lines.), 248, 283
Grandborough (Warwicks.), 52, 60, 321
Grantham (Lines.), 76
Grasby (Lines.), 135, 144–6, 160, 245, 252
Great Rollright (Oxon.), 84, 333
Greenpark (N.Z., C.), 156
Grimsby (Lines.), 140, 148, 152, 160, 300, 301
Halberton (
Hamilton (N.Z., A.), 91, 284, 285
Hampden (N.Z., O.), 14
Harbury (Warwicks.), 31
Hastings (N.Z., H.B.), 156
Hatcliffe (Lines.), 159
Haughley (Suffolk), 240
Hautapu (N.Z., A.), 288
Helston (
Hogsthorpe (Lines.), 163
Hollingborne (Kent), 189
Holton-le-Moor (Lines.), 143
Honiton (
Horsmonden (Kent), 193
Hunterville (N.Z., W.), 342
Hurstgreen (
Hurworth (N.Z., T.), 243
Immingham (Lines.), 162
Inglewood (N.Z., T.), 89, 89, 293–303, 323, 329, 341
Irby-upon-Humber (Lines.), 268
Isle of Sheppey (Kent), 185, 202
Islip (Oxon.), 71, 105, 130, 252, 333
Kakaramea (N.Z., T.), 182, 303–11
Karamea (N.Z., N.), 531
Keelby (Lines.), 135, 142, 155
Kemsing (Kent), 198
Kineton (Warwicks.), 166
Kirtlington (Oxon.), 81
Koromiko (N.Z., M.), 248
Laceby (Lines.), 76, 77, 94, 135, 147–60passim, 151, 241, 269, 272, 302
Lake Rotoiti (N.Z., N.), 86
Lamberhurst (Kent), 70, 186, 198, 202, 205, 295
Langley (Oxon.), 165
Leeston (N.Z., C.), 269
Lidlington (Beds.), 179, 181, 307, 323
Littlebourne (Kent), 209
Long Itchington (Warwicks.), 167–8, 273
Louth (Lines.), 149
Ludborough (Lines.), 148–9, 158
Lyell (N.Z., N.), 86
Lyndhurst (N.Z., C.), 271
Lyneham (Oxon.), 111, 114, 128, 130–1, 133–4, 165, 248
Madron (
Makaretu (N.Z., H.B.), 117
Marton (N.Z., W.), 87, 240, 254, 256, 341
Maungaturoto (N.Z., A.), 278
Mereworth (Kent), 202
Methven (N.Z., C.), 329
Milton-under-Wychwood (Oxon.), 48, 50, 63, 105, 110, 111, 113–5, 117, 125–6, 128–31, 133, 165, 340, 349–50, 365n
Minster (Thanet, Kent), 193
Minster Lovell (Oxon.), 94, 109
Monks Horton (Kent), 250
Monkton (Kent), 188
Murchison (N.Z., N.), 86
Nelson (N.Z., N.), 86, 234, 342
Nettleton (Lines.), 146, 156, 160, 247
Newark (Notts.), 161
Newbury (Berks.), 54
Newmarket (Suffolk), 74
Ngaere (N.Z., T.), 60, 320, 320
Norsewood (N.Z., H.B.), 312
North Loburn (N.Z., C.), 270
Okaiawa (N.Z., T.), 320
Ormondville (N.Z., H.B.), 340
Otane (formerly Kaikoura) (N.Z., H.B.), 117–18
Otham (Kent), 193, 207, 244, 245, 247
Over
Oversland (Kent), 200, 201, 205–6
Owersby (Lines.), 282
Oxhill (Warwicks.), 174
Pahia Plains (N.Z., S.), 80
Palmerston (N.Z., O.), 81–2, 176
Papanui (N.Z., C.), 269
Pembury (Kent), 202
Pendeen (
Penge (
Penryn (
Perry Wood (Kent), 193, 200, 201, 205–6
Picton (N.Z., M.), 2–4, 3, 5, 10–14, 86, 167
Plaxtol (Kent), 195
Porkellis (
Porthoustock (
Priors Hardwick (Warwicks.), 169
Puketapu (N.Z., H.B.), 284
Queenstown (N.Z., O.), 81
Radway (Warwicks.), 170
Rainham (Kent), 198
Rakaia (N.Z., C.), 84
Ramsden (Oxon.), 165
Rangiora (N.Z., C.), 84, 262, 270, 329
Ridgmont (Beds.), 182, 307, 334
St Austell (
St Columb Major (
St Keverne (
St Teath (
Sandwich (Kent), 188
Sarre (Kent), 188
Sarsden (Oxon.), 122
Selling (Kent), 206
Sevenoaks (Kent), 206
Shipton-under-Wychwood (Oxon.), 78, 109, 111, 114, 116, 131–3
Snodland (Kent), 244
South Ferriby (Lines.), 161
South Ormsby (Lines.), 161
Southbridge (N.Z., C.), 270
Stanford in the Vale (Berks.), 175–8, 347
Staunton (Glos.), 73
Stow-on-the-Wold (Glos.), 121
Stretton-on-Dunsmore (Warwicks.), 168
Swallow (Lines.), 139, 142, 152
Swerford (Oxon.), 122
Swinbrook (Oxon.), 109
Takapau (N.Z., H.B.), 117
Tamahere (N.Z., A.), 285
Tataraimaka (N. Z., T.), 257
Tawataia (N.Z., W.), 61
Taynton (Oxon.), 108, 109, 117, 126–7, 131, 165
Te Aute (N.Z., H.B.), 127
Te Awamutu (N.Z., A.), 91, 284
Te Roti (N.Z., T.), 319
Tenterden (Kent), 186
Tetney (Lines.), 323
Tewkesbury (Glos.), 73
Tikorangi (N.Z., T.), 252, 268
Toughboyne (Ireland), 55
Tua Marina (N.Z., M.), 14
Tuapeka (N.Z., O.), 230
Tunbridge Wells (Kent), 186, 202
Turakina (N.Z., W.) 87
Twyford (Bucks.), 94
Tysoe (Warwicks.), 52, 169–74, 251
Uxbridge (Middx.), 16
Waikiwi (N.Z., S.), 62
Waimate Plains (N.Z., T.), 88
Waipawa (N.Z., H.B.), 118, 126, 126, 315–6
Waipori (N.Z., O.), 230
Wairoa (N.Z., H.B.), 201
Waitara (N.Z., T.), 302
Waltham (Lines.), 155
Webtoft (Warwicks.), 270
Wellesbourne (Warws.), 31–2, 32, 114, 169
West Eyreton (N.Z., C.), 272–3
Westerham (Kent), 310
Willesborough (Kent), 198, 282
Willoughby (Lines.), 161
Wilshamstead (Beds.), 179
Winchester (N.Z., C.), 281
Windson (Berks.), 54, 109, 114
Wingham (Kent), 205
Withern (Lines.), 301
Woodville (N.Z., H.B.), 128, 311–9, 324–5, 341, 357,
Wootton (Oxon.), 49, 53, 91, 100, 112, 113, 115
Yeovil (Somerset), 96
Addington, 181, 271, 272, 378n
Alden, 130
Aldridge, 253
Allenby, 156
Allington, 77, 130, 131, 168, 270, 329
Annear, 13
Ansley, 206
Aston, 241
Austin, 227
Barker, 158
Barnes, 130
Barrett, 229
Barton, 296
Bate, 374n
Bell, 146
Berry, 277
Berryman, 374n
Bevin, 198
Blitchford, 229
Bocock, 243
Bottrell, 227
Box, 245
Boyce, 285
Braddick, 281
Bragden, 281
Brewer, 276
Bridgman, 288
Brocklesby, 285
Brown, 247
Burton, 14
Carne, 382n
Cartwright, 151, 157, 160, 302
Cash, 161
Charter (Lost at sea), 131
Clark, 198
Clay, 274
Clifford, 133
Clough, 161
Collier, 198
Coulter, 198
Cowling, 288
Cox, 127, 128, 176, 300, 316, 326
Crawford, 317
Crowson, 198
Dalley, 382n
Davey, 382nn
Dawson, 147
Dee, 257
Dixon, 146
Drinkwater, 277
Edwards, 227
Epps, 206
Fawdray, 130
Fenwick, 268
Fessy, 173
Fitch, 14
Fowler, 229
Fuller, 181
Gardener, 128
Goodsell, 195
Gelland, 374n
Gerry, 382n
Giles, 230
Gluyas, 276
Goodwin, 210
Green, 167
Greenaway, 131
Grigg, 230
Groom, 340
Handleby, 156
Harding, 117, 126, 127, 316, 326
Hare, 13
Harvey, 382n
Harwood, 61
Hatcher, 320
Hawke, 382n
Hedges (Lost at sea), 131
Hitchcock, 60
Honeybone, 130
Hope, 326
Hoverd, 131
Hutchens, 227
Hutching, 313, 314, 316, 317, 318
Ingham, 156
Ireland, 125
Jeffrey, 128
Jenkins, 382n
Johns, 254
Johnson, 52, 58, 59, 60, 321, 322, 362n, 381n
Jones, 198
Keeley, 288
Keightley, 300
Kneebone, 230
Lacey, 160
Lane, 382n
Langley, 161
Lawn, 228
Leggett, 63, 70, 71, 85, 105, 114, 123, 125, 129, 130, 248, 250, 251, 275, 277, 278, 279, 329, 330, 365n
Lewis, 365n
Lineham, 181, 182, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311
Loomas, 239
Lukers, 227
Lummas, 13
Maltby, 369n
Margetts, 131
Mattingly, 177
Miles, 130
Morgan, 209
Morris, 128
Mortensen, 129
Mumby, 160, 241, 245, 252, 253
Newling, 340
Nicholls, 227
Northam, 382n
Oates, 382n
Packer, 340
Palmer, 80
Parratt, 282
Pellow, 382n
Perfect, 326
Perkins, 300
Perry, 382n
Petty, 278
Phillip, 245
Philpott, 52, 61, 62, 173, 174, 251
Pinfold, 117, 127, 131, 314, 316, 367n
Plank, 340
Pratley, 123, 128, 130, 280, 281
Pratt, 207, 244, 245, 246, 329
Prisk, 228
Randall, 11
Richards, 228
Rickell, 157
Roberts, 230
Robins, 199
Robinson, 281
Rooke, 130
Rout, 245
Rowe, 227
Rowell, 374n
Savage, 198
Scarlet, 308
Searle, 382n
Simpson, 176
Smith, 61, 76, 84, 117, 126, 130, 206, 244, 246, 248, 300, 316
Snell, 227
Sparks, 208–9, 247 (the Kentish shepherd), 322
Stephens, 244
Streatfield, 77
Stringer, 129
Styles, 174
Swaby, 146
Swain, 194
Swan, 198
Tappenden, 206
Terry, 81
Thomas, 382n
Tomlin, 244
Tomlinson, 77, 151–2, 155–8, 249, 328-9, 338, 369nn, 377n, 381n
Towers, 153
Town, 81
Tresidder, 382n
Trevela, 228
Tripp, 128
Tucker, 209
Turner, 128
Tymms, 130
Urry, 160
Venner, 70
Vickers, 248
Vincent, 382n
Vosper, 288
Wallis, 298
Waters, 206
Watts, 130
Weaver, 176
Wedlake, 230
Welch, 371n
Werry, 382n
Wheeler, 125
Whitford, 229
Whiting, 257
Wiggins, 131
Wilks, 129
Williams, 382n
Willis, 177
Wilson, 300
Winter, 173
Wood, 78
Woodhem, 198
Woollett, 195