CHAPTER 2: THE EMIGRATION OF GEORGE AND JOHN
“FIRST CLASS COLONIZING MATERIAL”
CHAPTER 2: THEEMIGRATION OF GEORGE AND JOHN
1851 & 1852
The opportunity to settle in the colonies would never havebeen available to men of George and John's class if they had been obliged topay the full cost of their passages to Australia. However Australia had such apressing need for agricultural labour to help pioneer the land that theGovernment was willing to meet at least part of the cost of the voyage.
Ever since its introduction in 1831, government sponsored immigrationhad been linked with the sale of Crown Land and for a long period was actuallyfinanced by a Land Fund fed by the sales of land. The Colonial Office inBritain pursued the "Wakefieldian" system of colonization, a policyof keeping would-be settlers confined within the declared limits around theofficially-founded port settlements, these limits being revised and extendedfrom time to ~time. There was to be no unauthorized spreading inland to grab afree slice of the seemingly limitless territory; such dispersion was called"trespassing on Crown Land". (1)
The Government wanted only experienced farmers with adequatefinancial resources to take up land and develop it efficiently when and wherethe Government decreed. They wanted to prevent ex-convicts and poorcity-workers from going off into "the bush" to live off the landbeyond the law and beyond the protection of government agencies. Moreover theyneeded these people as a labour force to work within the officially defined"limits of location", in the towns as well as on the farms.
In the meantime, since they could not prevent it, theGovernment was prepared to tolerate approved pastoralists grazing their sheepor cattle on Crown Land provided that they paid an annual "depasturingfee" or grazing licence, and understood that they were occupying the landon a temporary basis only. These pastoralists came to he known as"squatters" and the piece of land they were licenced to"squat" on was their "pastoral run". During the late 1830sand early '40s the whole of the Western District of Victoria had been taken upunder pastoral leases, the squatters sorting out their boundary disputes withthe help of their district's Crown Lands Commissioner.
To achieve this twin aim of preventing dispersion"beyond the limits" and of keeping a good labour supply "withinthe limits", the Government from 1831 restricted the sale of Crown Land toauction only and set the minimum upset price at £1 per acre for rural land -beyond the reach of men of low income. They used most of the Land Fund tofinance schemes to bring out from Britain whatever types of labourers inwhatever numbers were needed in any year, and since Britain had a badunemployment problem, the Home Government was happy to co-operate and sorelieve the tax burden at home. By keeping the price of land high andforbidding dispersion beyond the limits, the colonial Government hoped toensure that farm labourers could not themselves become farm owners until theyhad worked for the squatters and saved their wages for a few years at least. (2)
Various migration schemes, both free and"assisted" (where the passenger was required to contribute a smallpart of his fare) were tried throughout the '30s and '40s with mixed results.Although 200,000 migrants entered the colonies under government schemes between1830 and 1850 (3), the colonists, especially the squatters, werealways less than satisfied with the quality of labour which the Homeauthorities were sending out. They complained continually that "farmlabourers" brought out at the colony's expense could not, or would not, dofarm work. Many refused even to leave the port city and many others who weretaken to the country soon drifted back to the towns causing conflict with theestablished town workers. In short, about one-quarter to one-third of thearrivals were unsuited to pioneer life. (4) There were never enough experienced andwilling rural workers to satisfy demand even though the wages and rationsoffered amounted to almost double the current rate in Britain.
The Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners who handledthe selection and shipping arrangements in Britain claimed in defence that theywere filling the ships with the best applicants who came forward, but that notmany experienced rural workers of good character and industrious habits werekeen to migrate to Australia, unless they could pay their own way and go asfree settlers. They were riot keen to he identified as little better than theconvicts and paupers who had already been shipped out of the country at HerMajesty's expense' Even those who could pay their own way seldom choseAustralia as their destination for the journey was much more hazardous, tookfour times as long and cost five times as much as the voyage to America.Moreover the price of land in Australia was five times dearer than in America,and Australia had the reputation of being populated largely by convicts andsavages - no place for decent families!
The magnet which was eventually to draw migrants by thethousands to Australian shores was of course the discovery of gold in NSW andVictoria in 1851, but even before that date there had been a steady increase inthe number of applicants for assisted passages to the Port Phillip Districtwhere settlement was gradually taking civilized shape. Some of the credit forthis increase was due to more determined efforts and more widespread canvassingby the Emigration Commissioners in Britain, who were establishing offices inmore distant regions (e.g. Aberdeen). But much of the credit must go to theprivate efforts of individuals such as Caroline Chisholm and Rev. John DunmoreLang who had returned from the colonies, where each had lived for severalyears, with the express purpose of finding better types of working classmigrants and facilitating their shipment to Australia. Both saw that Australiansociety needed more women and more families with solid middle-class values tobalance the rawness that had persisted since the predominantly malepenal-establishment days.
Caroline Chisholm was campaigning throughout England,Scotland and Ireland from 1847 to '56, while Dr Lang was vigorously canvassingthroughout England and Scotland in 1848 and '49. He left Ireland off hisitinerary for he was an outrageous bigot and opposed any scheme which resultedin more Irish Catholics than British Protestants being landed in the colony. Inhis view, the Emigration Commissioners had already filled too many migrantships with desperately poor and ignorant Irish Catholics, the victims of thefamine years of the 1840s, and one of his aims was to correct the balance andcurtail the influence of "popery" on the colony's institutions!
Dr Lang, who had been born in Glasgow and had been sent toSydney in 1823 to found the Presbyterian Church there, made several crusadingtrips back to Britain during which he toured the countryside, lecturing andpublishing pamphlets and newspaper articles, particularly in the BritishBanner, an evangelical paper which enjoyed wide circulation at that time. Langstressed the advantages of living in Australia, urging the young men and womento emigrate. He was particularly keen to attract as many as possible of thehard-working frugal-living Lowland farmers who were being d~ced from theirtraditional role in the rural community. He often asserted that "thesemen, born farmers and fiercely ~pendent, were first class colonizingmaterial".(5)
He circularized the Parish ministers throughout ruralScotland asking them to draw up lists of possible emigrants within the parish,to be interviewed and selected by himself personally on his visit to the townduring his promotional tour through Scotland in July and August of 1849 whichtook him northward from Aberdeen to Inverness. There can be little doubt thathe crossed Ellon bridge and was warmly welcomed into the town by the kindlyRev. Brewster. The village hall or probably the pulpit itself would be madeavailable for Lang to address the parishioners, among whom there may well havebeen a sprinkling of Hendersons eager to bear what their famous countryman hadto say about life an the Antipodes.
John Dunmore Lang was a fiery and emotional speaker whogenuinely believed that he was voicing the Will of God, and he saw emigrationas God's answer to the woes of the working class. God had provided Britain withthe colonies pm when they were needed and it was up to the Christians(especially the Scottish Presbyterians!) to go forth and colonize. Let not thePromised Land be filled with Irish Catholics! There would be work for all, foodfor all and eventually farms for all!
Dr Lang (as also Mrs Chisholm) stressed the idea of"colonization", of families settling on land that awaited and neededthem. It was not a case of failed young men and women being shipped out torelieve their homeland of their maintenance. A proud Lowland farm-worker couldembrace the prospect of becoming a "colonizer" where he would rejectthe idea of "pauper migration".
Lang was particularly interested in encouraging migration tothe "Portland Bay" area, i.e. the Western District, which he hadvisited before writing his book, Gippsland (1847) - his name for the as yetun-named ~ of Victoria. His campaign yielded six shiploads of emigrants,approximately 1,400, mostly bound for Melbourne, who were expected to reimbursehim when they had made good in their new land. Caroline Chisholm's shipsbrought around 20,000 immigrants on a similar understanding, but the work ofthese two altruistic crusaders probably influenced many thousands of others toaccept the Government's offer of "assisted" passages which had noobligation of repayment written into the deal.
It is quite likely that the Hendersons had known some of theemigrants who had left Aberdeenshire on Lang's or Chisholm's ships and hadsubsequently read some of the letters sent home, either received by thempersonally or by local people who had allowed them to be circulated amongfriends or even published in the Aberdeen Journal. We have already notedthat emigrants' letters published in the Journal had indeed attracted the attentionof the Hendersons as early as May 1850. Such letters were almost invariablyfavourable and acted as a powerful encouragement to friends and relations tojoin them, just as Jane had thought they would. This chain reaction was alreadygathering momentum before the discovery of gold quickened its pace after 1851.
By 1851 the Emigration Commission had introduced a slidingscale to determine the contribution to be paid by particular applicants forassisted passages. They hoped to attract the most-needed categories of workers(i.e. young single labourers and domestic servants) in greater numbers, so theykept the contribution to be paid by these to a very low level, only £2 perperson, when the full fare was £19. Other types of labourers paid more, e.g. mechanics14-40 years, paid £5 and in all categories the older the person the higher theamount paid, e.g. a farm labourer over 60years paid £15, and mechanics over 60paid £17, almost full fare. Children between the ages of one year and 14 yearstravelled free except when there were more than three in this age-group in thefamily. (6) The colonists did not want an influx of migrants who atemore than they produced, so that elderly people and young children were notfavoured and single men and women with no ties were preferred to marriedcouples at this time, though this preference was to be reversed during the goldrushes.
When George Mitchell Henderson contacted the nearest agentfor the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission at some time prior to July 1851- possibly there was an agent in Aberdeen by 1851; there certainly was in 1854-- he would be informed that under the current regulations (1849) for marriedagricultural couples, he would be obliged to contribute £5 each towardspassages for himself and Christina, but that James could be carried free. Therewas also - as there always had been - "a deposit of £1 for each adult and10/- for each child to be paid towards new bedding and mess utensils providedby the Emigration Commission for use on board the ship. Also provided were"new mattresses, bolsters, blankets, and counterpanes, canvas bags tocontain linen, &c, knives and forks, spoons, metal plates and drinkingmugs".
This deposit was a sort of guarantee against the emigrants'failure to appear on the day of departure, in which case it was forfeited, butthe equipment was retained by the migrants when they left the ship if theybehaved well on the voyage! (7)
The emigration agent would send George the necessaryapplication form, which apart from the usual name, age and address, asked aboutpast employment, education, whether in debt or in receipt of parish relief, ifvaccinated against small-pox and if ever emigrated before. Birth and marriagecertificates had to accompany the form. A second form was divided into threesections each of which had to be signed, the first by "two respectablehouseholders" certifying that the answers on the application form were"strictly true" and that they had known the applicant for so manyyears, and believed him to be "honest, industrious and of good characterand not likely to become a burthen to the colony"; the second section by aphysician testifying to the applicant's good health; the third section by aclergyman certifying that he "had no reason to doubt the truth" ofthe statements in sections 1 and 2 and that the two householders and thesurgeon were "worthy of credit". (8) These regulationswere designed to weed out undesirable elements.
If selected, the applicants would receive a printed"approval circular" calling for the "contributions" to hepaid, and when that was done, they would "as soon as practicable receivean Embarkation Order naming the ship in which they were to embark and the timeand place of joining her. They must not leave their homes before receipt of theEmbarkation Order". (9) Emigrants as a rule had to make theirown way, at their own expense, to the port of embarkation, which at this timewas always Plymouth, but groups of emigrants were brought from the marshallingports of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool and London to Plymouth by ship, thiscoastal voyage being provided free. George, Christina and James would probablyneed to take a coach from Ellon to Aberdeen, where they could go by coastalvessel or by train to Edinburgh, a long distance in itself, and there take shipto Plymouth.
Altogether the journey from Ellon to Plymouth was a verylong one, and the Hendersons would be carrying considerable luggage, at least acouple of sea-chests, for they were obliged to outfit themselves adequately forthe voyage and for their new life. They were given a long list of bed linen andrecommended garments which were to be packed in the sea-chests:
FOR MALES
Six shirts,
Six pairs Stockings,
Two pairs Shoes,
Two complete Suits of exteriorClothing.
FOR FEMALES
Six Shifts,
Two Flannel Petticoats,
Two pairs Shoes,
Two Gowns.
with sheets,towels, and soap.
All of these preparations would take time to accomplish andwould put the couple to considerable expense and anxiety, one would imagine,but in time George received an "approval circular" and was informedthat they should embark on the ship Tasmania which would leave Plymouthon 25 July 1851.
According to the ship's manifest (10) bothGeorge, 25, and Christina, 29, were from "Aberdeenshire", George wasa "farmer", they were both Presbyterians and could both read andwrite. Christina gave her parents' names as "Alexander and IsabellaMitchell". George's second name was Mitchell, his mother's maiden name,and he had a brother Alexander and a sister Isabella. It seems likely thatGeorge and his wife were relatives, though they were not first cousins. JaneHenderson did not have a brother called Alexander Mitchell. She was an onlydaughter but had brothers called John, George, William and Thomas. Her father'sname was John. (OPR Ellon)
The Tasmania took 118 days to reach Australia, so faras we know without mishap, and arrived at Portland on 23 November 1851. ThoughGeorge and Christina had been assured that they would soon find employment,they must nevertheless have been surprised at the eagerness with which theirservices were sought on arrival, for it was during their long sea-voyage thatthe news had reached Britain of the discovery of gold at Bathurst in May 1851,and, before they had finished their journey, the Ballarat rush had occurred inearly September, followed by an even greater one at Castlemaine and ForestCreek area in late October, spreading to the Bendigo region in November.
When the Tasmania dropped anchor at Portland on 23November the normal affairs of the colony were still in turmoil though therewere some signs that sanity was beginning to return to the towns after theinitial mad exodus of almost every able-bodied man to the goldfields. WithChristmas approaching, some of the town-dwellers were drifting back to theirmore comfortable jobs in shops and offices. But the farm-labourers for the mostpart had not yet tired of the diggings and more than half of the male migrantsnewly arrived in Victoria on ships were ignoring their obligations and takingoff for the goldfields as soon as they learned of the fortunes to be won there.One can be sure therefore that the Portland Bay squatters would be very keen toengage any sober, hard-working lowlands farmer, nicely encumbered with wife andchild, who offered himself for hire when the Tasmania dropped anchor.
The Tasmania was the first immigrant ship to sailfrom Britain directly to Portland and the day before she arrived her approachwas heralded by the Portland Guardian (21 November 185l): "Settlersresiding at a distance from this port are informed that an Immigrant ship fromLondon direct to Portland being expected to arrive daily, they will find it aneligible opportunity of engaging the servants they may require".
The usual procedure at this date was for employers of labourto board the ship, make their choice among the immigrants and to engage themthen and there, arranging for their transport forthwith to their new quartersin town or upon country stations. The ship's captain was obliged to allow themigrants to remain on board with full rations for up to 10 days, or else tofind them comparable accommodation on shore for the same period. If any werestill without work at the end of 10 days, they were put ashore to fend for themselves,though that outcome was not common in those days of acute labour shortages.
Tom Browne, writing under the pen-name of "RolfBoldrewood", recalled in his Old Melbourne Memories, an occasionwhen as a young squatter on a property near Port Fairy, he and a party ofneighbours rode one moonlight night along the wet sands of the shore, the tidebeing out, in order to reach Portland by dawn so that they would be first onboard an "emigrant vessel" from which they hoped to hire"men-servants and maid-servants ... exceeding scarce commodities"."It was a large order", he says, for he managed to hire three men andtwo women for his own station, "but all hands had cleared for Ballarat andForest Creek and we had hardly a soul on the place but the overseer and myself.These immigrants were exactly the class we wanted". (11) Brownedid not name the "emigrant vessel" but it might well have been the Tasmania.
The Portland Guardian was published only once a weekso that by the next edition on 28 November the barque Tasmania had beenin port for six days. The newspaper reported:
We are happy to announce thearrival of the Tasmania, the first immigrant ship direct to Portlandfrom London. She left London on 26th July last and
arrived here on 22nd inst,bringing 196 immigrants chiefly tradesmen and agricultural labourers with theirfamilies, the remaining portion being composed of single males and females.They are a superior class of migrants and accordingly look for high wages. Theaddress of the Surgeon Superintendent of the vessel came too late for insertionin our present number.
The Surgeon-Superintendent of the vessel was the officerappointed by the Emigration Commission in Britain to look after every aspect ofthe health and welfare of the emigrants on their voyage. Comprehensiveregulations were laid down regarding their diet, health, hygiene,accommodation, social activities and moral conduct, and it was his duty tosupervise all of these matters, assisted by a matron and by"constables" chosen from among the passengers. At the beginning ofthe voyage the Commissioners furnished him with a list of the emigrants theyhad selected for passage on that ship and the Surgeon- Superintendent tookcharge of them on embarkation. On arrival at their destination, he supervisedtheir engagement,
disembarkation and dispersal, noting in the ship's manifestthe names and addresses of their employers and the terms under which themigrants had been engaged. Often
migrants were met by friends or relatives alreadyestablished m the colony with whom they could stay until work was found."Left with brother, Brighton", was the sort of entry which would thenbe made in the register. In other cases, "Left on his own account, or"Failed to register destination" was entered.
The Tasmania's register informs us that George andChristina were engaged by William Thomson of "Park Hill" for £37 p.a.plus rations, for six months. The same squatter also engaged another Scottishfarming couple, Robert (26) and Catherine (23) McIntyre from Perthshire, at £506s, plus rations. The disparity in the wages between the two couples representsthe usual reduction from a couple's wage if there were children to feed, in thecase of the Hendersons to cover the cost of rations supplied for the 9-year-oldJames, too young to earn his keep.
Other more nationally-important news items had been pubbshedin the 21 November edition of the Portland Guardian which had heralded thearrival of the Tasmania. 17here was a long description of the opening of thenew Legislative Council of Victoria (our first Parliament) by Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe at St Patrick's Hall on 13 November a grand and solemnoccasion. A second item which might have been more prominently featured had itsrepercussions been foreseeable was the announcement of the introduction on 11November of mining licences without which people digging on Crown Land would beprosecuted, a regulation which in time led to the Eureka Stockade confrontationand loss of life.
Be that as it may, George Henderson apparently was, withChristina's help, enabled to resist the lure of gold and signed on for serviceat "Park Hill" for six months, a term which could be renewed if bothparties were willing.
"Park Hill" is situated on the Wannon River about50 ~ north of Portland and 10 miles east of the present town of Merino, andthere is no doubt that the Hendersons' journey to reach it was moreuncomfortable and exhausting than any they had ever experienced on the roads of
19
Aberdeenshire. Tom Browne notes in another essay in hisMemories - "In those days a remarkably deep-rutted miry road connected theport with the promised land of the Wannon - 40 miles of sore affliction to thedriver of any species of vehicle, bullock-drays included"."
It being late November 1851, George, Christina and James maywell have found the day to he hotter than any they had ever experienced intheir lives before and the bush, just recovering from the horrific fires of"Black Thursday" (6 February 1851) of the Summer just past, wouldlook strange and threatening to their Scottish eyes. But if it was land thatGeorge was seeking, there was plenty of it at "Park Hill".
"Park Hill" was a pastoral run of 9,680 acres,capable of carrying 7,000 sheep13, probably a conservative estimate by itsowner, since his lease fee was geared to the number of sheep per acre his landcould run. Tom Browne describes this Wannon country as "that Australianparadise of rolling downs, hill and dale all equally fertile, well-grassed,well watered, favoured as to climate, soil and situation.(14)
William Thomson had held his run on licence since 1841 andon lease since 1848, in accordance with the regulations laid down by theOrder-in-Council of 1847. His lease application (15) describes therun as "woody, the soil is sandy clay except the river-bank which is lightloam". The run plan shows that the property was divided into four parts bythe river and two of its tributaries.
"The 1847 Order-in-Council" (an act passed at aspecial sitting of the Queen and her counsellors in Britain) had granted thesquatters the three "rights" they had campaigned for for many years -(1) security of lease tenure, (2) the right to buy up to 640 acres at theminimum price of £ 1 per acre as a homestead block before their runs were putup for public auction (i.e. their "pre-emptive right") and (3)compensation for any improvements that they might have made during theirtenure, especially for house and buildings on the homestead block. (16)This meant that after 1847 if the Crown Lands Department wanted to extend the"limits of location" to include all or part of a squatter's run, thesquatter had to be given three months' notice before his run could besub-divided into allotments and put to auction. This gave him time to marshal hisresources to buy the allotments, or the best of them, at the auction himself,if he could afford to, and most squatters could afford to buy at least the 640ac. which they chose as their pre-emptive right. These homestead blocks came tobe known as "Pre-emptive Rights" and appear on the maps simply as,for example, "P.R. Park Hill".
With the minimum price of land set at £1 per acre,"public auctions" did little towards "wresting the land from thesquatters", for the only people who could afford to bid were other squattersor land speculators. The Order-in-Council of 1847 had thus virtually guaranteedmost squatters ownership of their runs, whereas formerly they could only leasethem from the Crown.
It was not until 1855 that Alex Thomson (William's heir)applied for the pre-emptive right to buy the "Park Hill" homesteadblock of 640 acres. The Wannon region had remained beyond the limits in the"unsettled districts" until then, whereas in the area within a10-mile radius of towns like Warrnambool and Geelong, some runs were subdividedand auctioned as early as 1849. The Commissioner for Crown Lands in thePortland Bay area (which extended from the Werribee river to the SouthAustralian border) was F.H. Puckle, whose report on "Park HUF' to theCrown Lands Office read: "There is a dwelling house, wool-shed, men'shuts, cultivation and grazing paddocks valued at £1,500. Contains originalhomestead. Run never subdivided. No indication of gold. Will not interfere withany township reserve or any surveyed line of road. There is a crossing-place onthe Wannon at the home station which has always been used by the settlers fromthe northward in conveying wool to Portland and at which I believe the RoadBoard contemplates building a bridge". (17) Puckle valued the property at 20A per acre,the minimum price at which squatters were allowed to buy their pre-emptiveright, and Thomson's application was granted provided that the public's rightto use the river-crossing be reserved. "Park Hill" is today at theend of Falkenberg's Road, which runs off the Glenelg Highway to the south, justwest of the bridge over the Wannon River at Wannon village. It is still a"paradise of rolling downs".
Although George had described himself as "farmer"on the ship's register, working on this vast sheep-run would be an entirely newexperience for him. Almost certainly most of his previous experience would havebeen in ploughing, sowing and harvesting oats, and weeding and chopping turnipsto feed the cattle in the byre during the winter. One wonders what tasks filledhis days on "Park Hill". There were probably shepherds employed tolook after the sheep (Scottish Highlanders were preferred for thesepositions!), so possibly George was put to clearing the "woody" runand making log-fences, for the squatters were busy enclosing their home farmsnow that they had obtained their precious "rights" to acquire them asfreehold. The "cultivation paddocks" mentioned in Puckle's report in1855 might well have been the product of George's activities in the years sincehis arrival in 1851, ploughing being his forte in later years.
Christina might also have been called upon to do farm workas many women did during the gold rush, and she was well-used to working in thefields. The station was probably developing an orchard and producing its ownvegetables, milk, butter, cheese and eggs so there was work aplenty for her andfor James to do outdoors even if the existing "original homestead"was not grand enough to warrant a house-keeper or cook.
Christina might also have found time to teach James histhree Rs, or perhaps he had lessons with a small class of other farm childrenon the property. He probably learned to ride ponies and to muster sheep on"Park Hill"; he was to die from a riding accident later in life. Perhapshe learned to swim in the Wannon on hot summer evenings, or went outkangaroo-shooting with the men - a very different life from that which he hadknown on the "cold shoulder of Scotland".
George and Christina probably lost no time in writing home toAberdeenshire to inform their families of their safe arrival and to expresstheir first impressions of "Australia Felix". Such a letter wouldtake about four months to reach Scotland so we can picture its arriving nolater than at the end of March 1852, and its being read with great interest,especially by George's younger brothers who might decide to follow him shouldhis news be encouraging. Certainly the second-youngest brother, John, must havealready been preparing to leave Scotland, for he sailed from Liverpool on
26 May 1852, on board the Bourneuf, which reachedGeelong on 3 September 1852.(18)
The practice of dispatching emigrants direct from Liverpoolhad begun only a few months earlier, in January 1852. Formerly emigrants werebrought by coastal ships to Plymouth from where all Australia-bound emigrantships departed. (19) The Immigration Agent at Melbourne noted in hisreport for the second half of 1851 (20), that the experiment ofsending the Tasmania direct to Portland had proved successful in everysense. The migrants had all been "landed safely and readily disposedof". This first ship was the forerunner of a regular service to Portland.But departures direct from Liverpool had been regarded as less safe and werenot attempted until the Gold Rush dramatically increased the demand forpassages.
The news of the discovery of gold at Mt Alexander(Castlemaine) had not reached Britain until April 1852, prior to which date theBritish Government and Press had been slow to accept reports of the richnessand extent of the gold discoveries in Victoria. Emigration figures by January1852 had not increased greatly and the Colonial Land and EmigrationCommissioners were reluctant to respond to pleas from the colony for changes inthe selection guidelines to meet the growing labour crisis there. (21)But all that changed in May '52 when six ships carrying 8 tons of gold arrivedin British ports:
There was no doubt now - and thejoyful reaction was instantaneous ... Hundreds of thousands would have sailed immediatelyhad there been shipping available, confident that they only had to make thevoyage to win a fortune. There was shipping for only 60,000 by the end of theyear - and by then most had wisely had second thoughts. (22)
Since John Henderson, an assisted passenger, had sailedwithin days of the arrival of the gold-laden ships, it is clear that hispassage would have been well finalized with the Emigration Agent in Aberdeenbefore all the pandemonium at the shipping offices had broken out, but not soonenough to escape the crush on board vessels sailing after the April pressreleases.
The Emigration Commissioners by mid-1852 had on hand 18,000applications for assisted passages with 700 a day still coming in (23)and by juggling the selection guidelines did their best to provide rurallabourers who would not abscond to the goldfields immediately ondisembarkation. The passage contributions were adjusted to encourage marriedcouples (only £1 each) with up to four (instead of three) children travelling free.Scottish shepherds and country artisans who, for some obscure reason, wereconsidered not as likely to he attracted to the hurly-burly of the diggings,were also given preference. Single men, once keenly sought, were definitely nowsuspect and their contribution was doubled unless travelling with theirfamilies which preferably would contain a greater number of daughters thansons, since the worsening sex-ratio was almost as worrying to the authoritiesas was the rural labour shortage. Single men travelling alone were completelyexcluded from assistance by 1853.
George and family were unlucky to have sailed before thesefavourable-to-families changes took place, but John was lucky to have leftbefore the ban on single men was put in place, and while his contribution tohis passage remained at £2. He was listed on the Bourneuf’s manifest asa farm labourer, aged 20 years, from Aberdeenshire, Presbyterian, who couldboth read and write. (24) The Immigration Agent for Victoria,presenting his Annual Report for 1852, wrote that "in the six monthsending 31 Dec. 1852, no fewer than 33 vessels containing 12,956 souls"(one of these being John Henderson) "arrived, whereas in the correspondingsix months of 1851 the number of ships was seven and the number of passengers198T' (three of these being George, Christina and James).
The arrival of John Henderson's ship, the Bourneuf inthe harbour was reported by The Geelong Advertiser, 7 September, and on9 September the Melbourne Argus noted in its "Geelong" column:
The Bourneuf emigrant ship, arrived off Point Henryyesterday, has been placed in quarantine. There have been 83 deaths on boardsince she left home, chiefly arising from measles and scarlet fever. The crewhas all struck work and I am told a boat is placed near her to watch that noneof them desert. The vessel has upwards of 800 souls on board.
The Geelong Advertiser on 9 September reported thatthe Bourneuf had been released from quarantine and that enquiries hadremoved any possible charge of negligence against the captain and crew byestablishing that "from the highest to the lowest officer there has beenmanifested the greatest degree of judgment and efficiency". Elsewhere inthe same edition an official notice from the Immigration Agent for Geclong, dated8 September, gave a brief account of the procedures which had been taken tofumigate the ship and isolate the convalescents on shore. There being no freshcases, it had been decided to release the ship for disembarkation. However itwas not until Monday, 13 September that The Advertiser ran the customarynotice regarding the hiring of immigrants for the next day, a full week afterarrival. Families and single men could be hired on board from 10 a.m. andsingle women from 10 a.m. at the depot on shore. Steamers would be available tocarry employers to and from the ship anchored off Point Henry, there being nofacilities for berthing ships of this size at Geelong at this date.
In a later edition of The Advertiser (17 September),there is an item reporting the appearance of the Captain and five crew membersfrom the Bourneuf before a Police Court of Enquiry. The men, who hadbeen on strike since 3 September were alleging that the ship had been badly runand that when a small child had fallen overboard little effort had been made torecover it. In reply, the Captain alleged that the five men had beentrouble-makers throughout the journey, were insolent and refused to obeyorders. The court had little sympathy for them and they were sent to gaol.Probably they had joined the crew in England in order to obtain a free ride tothe goldfields, but the Bourneuf had proved to be an unhappy choice ofvessel!
The Surgeon-Superintendent's register of deaths for thevoyage shows that of the 84 deaths 76 had been children under seven years old,who had died of diarrhoea, marasmus (wasting away), measles or scarletina. Onechild had been Am overboard. (25) This sorry tally, representing a10 per cent mortality rate, was a dark blot on the Government's record forassisted emigration, for which in the previous five years the rate had beenonly 2 per cent and overall for assisted migration up to June '51 was only 3.75per cent (26), a record to boast about in comparison tonon-government ships and ships engaged in conveying emigrants to Canada and theUSA, a much shorter and safer run. There were strict regulations aimed atscreening out any carriers of infectious diseases, for containing any outbreakson board ship and for the nursing and care of patients and convalescents, regulationswhich had up till then kept the mortality rate down to about equal to normalfor any population. What had gone wrong on the Bourneuf?
The Annual Report from the Immigration Agent for 1852 shedssome light on the matter:
"Iregret to state the number of deaths which occurred on the voyage" (he is here referring to the total for all shipsin 1852) "amounted to 849, forming a largepercentage of the whole. This result 1 attribute in great measure to the practice recently adopted of embarking largenumbers of from 600-800 people onboard two-decked ships as it will be seen that in only four ships - Bourneuf, Marco Polo, Wanataand Ticonderago - the united deaths amounted to no less than 356. It is gratifying to remark howeverthat during the current year (1853)and since Her Majesty's Crown Lands and Emigration Commissioners have abandoned this pernicious system and refrainedfrom sending out more than 350souls in vessels of moderate size, the percentage of mortality has very much decreased. (27)
The Bourneuf’s sorry record as an emigrant shiphowever did not end there. Less than a year after its arrival in Geelong withJohn Henderson aboard, the Bourneuf was driven on shore on the BarraIslands, on the west coast of Scotland on 3 August 1853. Seven lives includingthat of Captain Bibby were lost in the wreck.
Despite what was obviously a troubled voyage, John Hendersonarrived at Geelong alive and well, and, according to the ship's records, wentto work for James Austin as a farm labourer for six months at £52 p.a. plusrations. The average wage for a single man employed from the port of Geelong in1852 was £51 15s whereas it was £35 Ss at Portland; for a family it was £67 15sin Geelong and £60 17s 6d in Portland, reflecting the effect of Geelong'scloser proximity to the goldfields.28 It is difficult therefore to compareJohn's wages with George's, which had probably been increased since hisengagement the year before in any case.
James Austin also employed two other Bourneufpassengers, both English agricultural labourers, William Atkinson, 21, fromLancashire and Joseph Steward, 24, from Hampshire, both hired at the same rateas was John. The break-down of passengers between countries of origin wasEnglish 73, Irish 140 and Scottish 667, certainly a preponderance of Scotch, asthe Immigration Agent noted, suggesting that this was the result of theClearances in the Highlands. (29)
John's new employer, James Austin, JP, of Geelong, had beenborn in Somerset and had arrived at Port Phillip in 1837. He held a number ofpastoral runs in the Portland Bay District for various periods between 1840 and1870 and was Mayor of Geelong 1851-52, so that he had probably vacated thatposition in June shortly before John's arrival on 3 September 1852. At thatdate Austin held three runs - Pollock's Old Station" (3,553 acres, 300cattle), north of Lismore, "Yoe" (11,000 acres, 500 cattle), east ofColac, and the newly acquired "Buntingdale" (7,000 acres), south ofWinchelsea. (30) However the "settled districts"immediately around Geelong and in particular the Bellarine Peninsula were beingsub-divided and auctioned following the Order-in-Council of 1847, giving thelocal squatters the chance to buy their Preemptive Rights, and other wealthymen such as James Austin the chance to acquire choice allotments at the CrownLands Sales. Austin bought 999 acres at Bellarine in 1852 (31) andsince the first address we have for John Henderson in Victoria is"Bellarine" in 1857, it is not unreasonable to suppose that Austinhad located John there, either on his arrival in 1852 or at some time in theintervening years.
John Henderson would have been eager to contact George andChristina as soon as he had settled into his new surroundings. It was a pitythat the Bourneuf had not berthed at Portland instead of Geelong! Georgeand Christina would have completed their first year at 'Park Hill" by theend of November, a few months after John's arrival, and if the squatter waswell pleased with their services, they may have been granted a few days off toenable the brothers to meet, perhaps to spend Christmas together. The Postbetween Geelong and Portland in 1853 went by coach via The Grange (Hamilton)twice weekly and was distributed from the country offices to surroundingdistricts once weekly? (32) Letters between the brothers would takeabout three to seven days, but meetings would he infrequent while each remainedin his original employment. However we know from his later letters to John thatGeorge and his family moved from the Hamilton district after a few years at'Park Hill", and the brothers were able to visit each other at least onceeach when the one was at Hamilton and the other at Geelong.
One might perhaps wonder why these hard-working young men,used to an outdoor life with few frills, did not try their luck on thegoldfields and perhaps pick up the price of a farm on the first day. 1 suspectthat this would have gone against their religious principles, for the ScottishPresbyterians did riot have much regard for "luck" or tightly wongains. Honest toil and frugal living were more acceptable to them as the meansto obtaining their goals in life, and a place in Heaven thereafter.
We can imagine George and John exchanging letters andswapping information regarding their "bosses", their living quarters,terms of employment and daily tasks. At least John would feel more at homeamong Austin's cattle than George probably did among 'Thomson's sheep.
It is clear from a later (1857) letter from his brotherAlexander that even before John's departure from Scotland, the family had beenbuilding up a fund for other members to follow. Alex recalled that John hadsent back a money order for £2 when he sailed which together with "the £3from your own hand before we parted was £5 and I gave them Mother before sheleft Ellon and 1 gave Brother William £7, £2 of which was to be sent home byGeorge, apparently. Apart from these transactions handled by Alex, John andGeorge may have been able to send further money as they got settled in thecolony. A remittance scheme had been set up in Melbourne by Caroline Chisholm’shusband, Captain Archibald Chisholm, who had given up his career in order torun the Australian end of their Family Colonization Loan Society. His officeprovided facilities for settlers to remit money to the UK in order to financethe passage of relatives to the colony. Government authorities set up a similarscheme though it was not much used until they amended the regulations in 1856.
Be that as it may, the decision was taken among theremaining members of the family in Ellon, in mid 1853, that their mother Jane,their sister Isabella and the two single brothers, William and Allan, wouldjoin George and John in Victoria. Their passages were booked on the newest ofthe new fast clipper ships which were being built to cope with the flood ofgold-seekers clamouring for berths on the Melbourne run. The clippers returnedvia China, picking up a cargo of tea for the British market.
Why Jane's husband, George, the father of this family, wasnot emigrating with them has always been something of a mystery among hisdescendants. He would be 65 1/2 years old by December 1853 and his wife Jane 58years old. The limit for assisted passages was 60, and George would also need ahealth certificate confirming that he was in good health and capable of goingout to work for wages. Furthermore his presence in the family party would havemade for more males than females, not a favourable mix for assisted passages atthis date.
We do not know what changes had taken place on"Broomfield" since the Census of '51 showed the family still farmingtheir 14 acres. What Wilken says about the new land-lord's popularity having"cooled off considerably" (33) when the tenants' leasesexpired, and "the suicidal policy of doing away with so many crofts(34) would suggest that some small-holders in the district may have lasttheir leases when they came up for renewal. George may have been one of them.Gordon may have been one of the ruthless landlords who at that time put theirleases up for auction when they expired, so that sometimes a smaller tenantfound himself outbid by a larger neighbour, who added the acreage to his own ina bigger holding. George Snr might well have been dispossessed in this way verysoon after the 1851 census, leading to George Jnr and John's decision to blazethe family's trail into a new land.
It seems unlikely that Jane would be setting off with theirdaughter and two sons and leaving George Senior behind unless some crisis intheir circumstances called for desperate measures. It was probably planned thatGeorge would follow later when the money for his fare had been forwarded. Inthe meantime he would stay behind near his son, Alexander. His eldest daughter,Margaret, was not far away in Stonehaven and the youngest, Jane, was probablystill living in Ellon in 1853.
Whatever their long-term programme for the family, theirplans were destined to be cruelly frustrated, as we shall see in the nextchapter.
ENDNOTES
1. Roberts,Stephen, History of Australian Land Settlement (1788-1920), pp. 83- 89.
2. Roberts, pp.103-112.
3. Clark,Manning, A Short History of Australia, p. 77.
4. Madgwick,R.B., Immigration into Eastern Australia
1788-1851,p. 216.
5. Kiddle,Margaret, Caroline Chisholm, p. 102.
6. VPP,Immigration Report 1849 (iv), p. 19.
7. VPP,Immigration report Dec. 1851, p. 6.
8. VPP,Immigration Report Dec. 1851, pp. 8 and 9.
9. VPP,Immigration Report Dec. 1851, p. 6.
10. PROV, VA 477Colonial Secretary's Dept, VRPS 3502, Microfilm of Registers of Assisted Passengers from UKPorts 1839-1871, 13k 5 p. 195.
11. Boldrewood,Rolf, Memories of Old Melbourne p. 104.
12. Boldrewood,Rolf, p. 95.
13. Spreadborough,R. and Anderson, H., Victorian Squatters, p. 129.
14. Boldrewood,p. 94.
15. PROV, VA 538Dept of Crown Lands and Survey, VPRS 5920/RI Microfiche of Pastoral Run Files, Fiche No. 655,"Park Hill" PB 278, inc. Plan.
16. Roberts, pp.186-188.
17. PROV, VA 538 Dept of Crown Lands andSurvey, VPRS 5920/RI Microfiche ofPastoral Run Files, Fiche No. 655, "Park Hill" PB 278, inc. Plan.
18. PROV, VA 477 Colonial Secretary's Dept,VPRS 3502 Microfilm of Registers
of Assisted Passengers from UKPorts 1839-1871 Bk 6 p. 26.
19. VPP, Immigration Report 29 Dec. 1851.
20. VPP, Immigration Report 30 Jun. 1852
21. VPP, Letter from Crown Land &Emigration Commissioner 29/12/1851.
22. Serle, G.,The Golden Age, p. 38.
23. Serle, p. 54.
24. PROV, VA 477 Colonial Secretary's Dept,VPRS 3502 Microfilm of Registers
of AssistedPassengers from UK Ports 1839-1871 13k 6 p. 26.
25. PROV, VA 477 Colonial Secretary's Dept,VPRS 3502 Microfilm of Registers
of AssistedPassengers from UK Ports 1839-1871 Ilk 6 p. 26.
26. Broome,Richard, Arriving, p. 52.
27. VPP,Immigration Report 1852, pp. 3 and 3.
28. VTP,Immigration Report 1852, Table X, p. 20.
29. VPP,Immigration Report 1852, Table X, p. 5.
30. Billis, R.V.and Kenyon, AS., Pastoral Pioneers of Port Phillip, p. 8.
31. Wynd, Ian,Bella-wein a History of the Shire of Bellarine, p. 18.
32. MunicipalDirectory of Geelong 1853.
33. Wilken, L,Ellon in Bygone Days, p. 5.
34. Wilken, p. 23.
ÓJeanMcDonald – “First Class Colonizing Material” 1992