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This book is definitely it what I think of as the old style of a history book. It is political history, about “great men” and their ideas and the effects it had on the nation and the world. Not the type of history book I’d usually read but it was recommended to me by my boss as one that would be good background reading on the political situation behind Emigration policy in the early 19th century, and therefore helpful for cataloguing the Emigration pamphlets. I feel like I did learn a lot, the information was clearly presented and a big background in the field wasn’t necessary. (I found myself flashing back to the last time I studied this period at A-level history and such dreaded questions as “how liberal were the liberal Tories?”). Though perhaps reading through the whole thing in one go this morning was not the best of ideas.
This book focused on the idea of government sponsored Emigration as a solution to poverty within Britain. Assisted emigration began in 1819 with sponsored people going to Canada. It was interesting to learn that the biggest problem with emigrants to Canada was that a large proportion of them (1000s every year) would illegally enter the US and that living there was considered vastly preferable to life in Canada. (It is noteworthy to mention here that at no point did Johnston attempt to give an explanation for why people preferred the US to Canada, or any political implications the fact that a free country was more desirable could have – which I felt was a bit of an oversight, on both his part and the politicians of the time).
The book then focused on Wilmot Horton and his attempts to get sponsored emigration to the colonies. Horton came across as the driving force for this movement, seeing it as the end to poverty. With the state of the poor laws some parishes were spending 80 percent of their income on benefits for the poor and Horton felt that their money would be much better spent shipping the poor over to the colonies where they could become self sufficient and Britain wouldn’t be burdened with an excessive population it couldn’t feed. It was interesting to see the social welfare of the early 19th century, and see ideas that were similar, and quite different, to those today. In a way I found this quite surprising as I mistakenly think of “welfare” as very much a 20th century invention. In addition to supporting free emigrants there was also government sponsored indentured servants that were sent out, (in one rather large example to South Africa, and upon their arrival they had to buy their freedom and find their own work). Eventually Horton left office, the politicians changed and the idea of government sponsored emigration went out of style.
I felt that a glaring hole in this discussion was the lack of any mention of indigenous people already living in America, South Africa or Australia. There were a few mentions of tribes attacking settlers and wanting more people to help with the defence at the Cape of Good Hope, but apparently Canada, the US and Australia were completely unpopulated except for the newly arrived emigrants. Needless to say this seemed like another huge oversight on the author’s behalf.
Also missing was much information about the people who were emigrating. We learned about Scots, Irish and unemployed weavers, and little else about the people who moved. While mention was made of the letters they wrote home, this information was used to describe whether or not the different attempts should be considered a “success” and didn’t give much of an indication of what life was like for the people in the colonies.
The last criticism was that only once in the entire book was it mentioned that encouraging people to emigrate and punishing people with deportation to the colonies might be a bit contradictory. Granted at this time they were encouraging emigration to South Africa and Canada, and transporting people to Australia, but it did seem like rather a large flaw in the logic of the time.
Still despite these criticisms I feel like I have a much better understanding of emigration policy in the Colonial Office during the early 19th century and I’m sure this will be very useful to me at work and I find I am tempted to see what happens after 1830, though we don’t seem to have any good books on the subject at work, which I find more than a little surprising. Still I guess that’s what interlibrary loan is for.
This book focused on the idea of government sponsored Emigration as a solution to poverty within Britain. Assisted emigration began in 1819 with sponsored people going to Canada. It was interesting to learn that the biggest problem with emigrants to Canada was that a large proportion of them (1000s every year) would illegally enter the US and that living there was considered vastly preferable to life in Canada. (It is noteworthy to mention here that at no point did Johnston attempt to give an explanation for why people preferred the US to Canada, or any political implications the fact that a free country was more desirable could have – which I felt was a bit of an oversight, on both his part and the politicians of the time).
The book then focused on Wilmot Horton and his attempts to get sponsored emigration to the colonies. Horton came across as the driving force for this movement, seeing it as the end to poverty. With the state of the poor laws some parishes were spending 80 percent of their income on benefits for the poor and Horton felt that their money would be much better spent shipping the poor over to the colonies where they could become self sufficient and Britain wouldn’t be burdened with an excessive population it couldn’t feed. It was interesting to see the social welfare of the early 19th century, and see ideas that were similar, and quite different, to those today. In a way I found this quite surprising as I mistakenly think of “welfare” as very much a 20th century invention. In addition to supporting free emigrants there was also government sponsored indentured servants that were sent out, (in one rather large example to South Africa, and upon their arrival they had to buy their freedom and find their own work). Eventually Horton left office, the politicians changed and the idea of government sponsored emigration went out of style.
I felt that a glaring hole in this discussion was the lack of any mention of indigenous people already living in America, South Africa or Australia. There were a few mentions of tribes attacking settlers and wanting more people to help with the defence at the Cape of Good Hope, but apparently Canada, the US and Australia were completely unpopulated except for the newly arrived emigrants. Needless to say this seemed like another huge oversight on the author’s behalf.
Also missing was much information about the people who were emigrating. We learned about Scots, Irish and unemployed weavers, and little else about the people who moved. While mention was made of the letters they wrote home, this information was used to describe whether or not the different attempts should be considered a “success” and didn’t give much of an indication of what life was like for the people in the colonies.
The last criticism was that only once in the entire book was it mentioned that encouraging people to emigrate and punishing people with deportation to the colonies might be a bit contradictory. Granted at this time they were encouraging emigration to South Africa and Canada, and transporting people to Australia, but it did seem like rather a large flaw in the logic of the time.
Still despite these criticisms I feel like I have a much better understanding of emigration policy in the Colonial Office during the early 19th century and I’m sure this will be very useful to me at work and I find I am tempted to see what happens after 1830, though we don’t seem to have any good books on the subject at work, which I find more than a little surprising. Still I guess that’s what interlibrary loan is for.
