No: 57
|
November 2010
|
News
November
Seminars
21: Finding SA families in newspapers West
Torrens Library 1:30 to 3:00pm
December Seminars
5: Coming to grips with FamilySearch WEA Centre Adelaide10:00am
to 1:00pm
January Seminars
No program
See the seminar program
for more details and bookings.
Trove SA newspaper update
The wonderful web site operated by the National Library of Australia,
Trove, has added more
SA newspapers online. We now have the Burra Record 1878–1954.
Now available and searchable are: The Advertiser 1889–1931
(few small gaps); The Advertiser 1931–49 (significant
gaps); Advertiser and Register 1931; The South Australian
Advertiser 1858–1889 (gaps in 1889); South Australian
Gazette and Colonial Register 1836–39 (significant gaps);
South Australian Register 1839–46 (gaps) 1850–53
(gaps);1862–66; 1883 (Apr, May, Jun)
TNA introduces Domesday Map
Using the latest technology users can now see places in England mentioned
in the Domesday
Book. The feature is part of the labs section of the TNA
web site previously announced.
South
Australian Scottish ancestors
A
significant group of people to emigrate to early South Australia were
the Scots. In the period 1840 to 1850, a number of ad hoc landlord
sponsored schemes were in place. Under Scottish law the laird was
obliged to support his tenants in times of hardship and in an era
of growing farm mechanisation coupled with the trend towards sheep
rather than crops, many estates had an oversupply of tenants and not
much potential for employment. To relieve the burden of supplementing
poor tenants with food and/or to allow for estate clearances it was
cheaper for the laird to give his tenant and the family a one-way
ticket to a distant place with a prospect of finding streets paved
with gold! Of course South Australia was not the only recipient
of these folk, but the number was sufficient to create several Scottish
enclaves such as Strathalbyn in the young colony. As an example, Gordon
of Cluny sponsored 1700 of his tenants and their families in 1851
to leave his estates for Canada and Australia. James Matheson, the
owner of Lewis (an island in the Hebrides) sponsored 3200 people in
1851–53 to relocate to Canada and Australia.
|
In
this issue:
News
November
seminars
December seminars
January seminars
Trove SA newspaper update
TNA introduces Domesday Map
Feature article
South
Australian Scottish ancestors
|
Graham Jaunay
Adelaide
Proformat
Glandore SA 5037
Australia
Tel: +61 8 8371 4465
proformat@jaunay.com
Breaking news:
Services
• Research
• Drafting charts
• Locating documents
• Seminar presentations
• Writing & publishing
• SA lookup service
• Ship paintings
Adelaide Proformat uses
The
Genealogist - for UK census, BMD indexes and more online simply because it contains quality data checked by experts.
Proformat News acknowledges the support by
AWE
|
These programs were formalised in 1851 with the Emigration Advances
Act, which allowed landlords to borrow from public funds to pay the
cost of emigration of their tenants.
At the same time a number of emigration societies were established
to relieve overpopulation in isolated regions with no industry and
infertile land and inner city slums. Probably the most well-known
societies were the Glasgow Emigration Society, the Skye
Emigration Society established in 1851 and the Highland &
Island Emigration Society established in 1852.
These societies were completely funded by subscription and public
donations. The latter organisation benefiting from £300 from
HM Queen as the Prince Albert was patron. After the initial funding
these societies were designed to become self-sufficient in that they
provided intending emigrants with interest free means tested loans
to be repaid after twelve months in the new country. The repayments
often were never forthcoming! Fifteen ships arrived in Adelaide, Sydney,
Portland and Geelong over the period June and July 1852.
Highland
& Island Emigration Society passengers for Adelaide
(† National Archives of Scotland HD4/5) |
Vessel
| Departure
| Departure port
| Passengers |
Margaret
| 28 Oct 1851
| St Anns Cape Breton
| 130 |
HMS Hercules
| 26 Dec 1852
| Campbelltown
| 380 inc transits |
Neptune
| 7 Jun 1853
| Liverpool
| 63 ex-Hercules |
Olivia
| 30 Jul 1853
| Plymouth
| 25 ex-Hercules |
James Fernie
†
| 18 Aug 1854
| Liverpool
| 29 |
Royal Albert
†
| 15 Aug 1855
| Plymouth
| 64 |
Switzerland
†
| 16 Jun 1855
| Liverpool
| 60 |
For more information and details of these projects see, Eric Richards;
A history of the Highland Clearances Vol2: Emigration, Protest,
Reasons, 1985 pp249–283 and WB Clarke; Emigration from
the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, undated.
The trauma of the Hercules voyage itself is worthy of a newsletter
article in its own right.
The Scottish Archive Network [SCAN] maintains a web site
listing passengers in the Highland
& Island Emigration Society. This database covers arrivals
under the scheme for all Australian colonies. The page also has other
interesting information about the scheme itself and how it operated
including a copy of the Society's rules for 1851 and a map showing
the areas the Society focused its attention. The web site called Scotlands
family maintains a number of links to online
passenger lists that may prove useful.
While we have good records of those passengers who came out under
the Highland & Island Emigration Society and know the
vessels engaged, it is not the same for the emigrants assisted by
their lairds, the lesser emigration societies, those who sought assisted
passage through the usual channels, nor those who paid their own way
or received fare assistance from a third party. There was never a
central emigration register kept in Scotland of the many Scots who
left the country. Often the only record we have is the the shipping
manifest, which usually listed all passengers, travelled with the
ship and was lodged at the overseas port of entry. Some of these manifests
were subsequently handed in to archives or libraries, while others
were simply lost. In the case of South Australia, many were simply
turned into papier mâché by the high tides entering
the storage basement of the Port Adelaide Harbour Master's offices!
Prior to 1838 Scottish emigration to Australia was only a trickle
with the bulk opting for North America. For example in 1836, the total
number of emigrants sailing for Australia was only 114.
The turning-point came in 1837, when 1254 persons left Scottish ports
for eastern Australia. It is likely that the new bounty systems in
sponsored by the UK and NSW governments were diverting emigrants towards
Australia rather than Canada and the United States. This may also
have been helped by the political disturbances in the Canadas, and
a financial panic in the United States.
In 1838 the flow to Australia increased and nine ships with 2161
government sponsored emigrants were cleared from Scottish ports for
Australia. In addition, 1054 privately assisted emigrants and unassisted
emigrants took passage from Scotland, making a total of 3215 for
the year. In 1839, the total number embarking in Scotland was 2238—a
seventh of the total number embarking in Britain for all the Australian
settlements, including Van Diemen’s Land, Port Philip, South
Australia, and Western Australia.This trend was largely over by 1846
as a result of the improvement in business conditions in Scotland
due mainly to large-scale railway building. In 1848 the Land Board
reported that it had experienced great difficulty in selecting suitable
emigrants for Australia in Scotland because of the demand for labour
for railway construction.
Pictured: Star of
India built 1864 brought emigrants to Australia.
Unfortunately for South Australia, the boom in Scottish emigration
just happened to correspond with a down turn in the financial status
of life in the colony and the assisted passenger program to South
Australia did not operate from 1841 to 1846 meaning that the vast
bulk of emigration was enjoyed by the other Australian colonies. With
no government involvement in this period, the only arrivals into South
Australia were those who paid their own way or received financial
assistance from another source. No doubt many Scots did come to South
Australia during that interval, but because the colonial government
was not involved, no records exist apart from the occasional list
in a newspaper report and very few of these state the origins of the
passengers. Even those passengers arriving in times when the colonial
government had an interest in emigration can only be distinguished
as Scottish by a mark in the column headed Scottish in the
manifests!
There are very few records in The National Archives of Scotland
(NAS) which list names of emigrants. The Colonial Office, based in
London, was responsible for emigration in the nineteenth century and
its records are held by The National Archives in London (TNA).
They also hold the surviving outward passenger lists from 1890. All
the records predating 1890 have been destroyed.
Even for many Scots, Liverpool was a major departure port for much
of the nineteenth century. The Merseyside Maritime Museum
holds significant information on sources of emigration with a library
of emigration sources in published form, including copies of the indexes
of assisted emigrants to Australia. They also hold an extensive collection
of narrative accounts of emigrant voyages. Detailed information sheets
can be found on their web
site.
The useful link site operated by Cora Num maintains a whole
collection of links relating to emigration shipping into
Australia and some of these links relate to Scottish migration to
Australia. You can also find some transcribed SA passenger lists at
The
Ships List.
|
To
unsubscribe send a blank email via the following link using the same
address you subscribed to:
newsletter-leave@jaunay.com |
|