100 Years Of Women's Migration

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30366, 15 February 1964, Page 3

100 Years Of Women's Migration

[Reviewed by M F.L..P.1 New Horizons: A Hundred Years of Women’s Migration. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. 181 pp. “New Horizons” will give much pleasure to feminists because of its emphasis on the important part which women have played in the development of the British Dominions, but it is also useful for the reminder which it gives of the attempts made in the nineteenth century to solve the problem of the employment of women and to bring about orderly emigration. All the would-be colonisers looked to the new worlds for jobs for the unemployed and Edward Gibbon Wakefield and others hoped that the colonies would be filled with the right sort of settlers —sober and hardworking. But often the selection of emigrants was haphazard and irresponsible and employers got, instead of the good seiwants for whom they asked, people of illrepute, prostitutes and slatterns from the slums of English cities. The colonisation societies founded by women must be credited with better choices and tribute paid to their influence on the growth of higher forms of civilisation in the new societies. This account of a hundred years of women’s migration gives the story. In the 1850’s, Mrs Chisholm’s Family Colonisation Loan Society gave help to single women, nearly all of whom were domestic servants but in the 1860’s female emigration took a new form. Miss Maria Rye, a leading member of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, was looking for additional fields for the considerable number of professional men’s daughters seeking employment. She read a paper to the Social Science Congress in Dublin in 1861 which was printed ih the “Englishwoman’s Journal” and published as a pamphlet, en-l titled “Emigration of Edu-| cated Women.” by Emily] Faithful and Company, Vic-1 toria Press. As a result of this pamphlet and a letter in] “The Times” appealing for funds, the Female Middle Class Emigration Society was founded, with the Earl of Shaftesbury as its first President. The society made it its business to send out educated women to the colonies. It lasted for 23 years and started with a set of rules which insisted that help was to be given only to women sufficiently educated to perform the duties of nursery governess, that every emigrant must have a knowledge of cooking, baking, washing, i needlework and housework ] and be able to use these skills I when necessary, that two per-

sonal and two employers’ references should be taken up and that each applicant should be personally interviewed. For its part, the society undertook to make passage loans, to book passages and buy the necessary cabin fittings and to send full advance information about each emigrant so that there would be time for their reception and for plans for placing them in employment. Not all these functions were fulfilled to perfection but it must be remembered to the society’s credit that its main purpose was to send out governesses, many of whom were successful in the new country, contributing as much to the social and economic history of those places as they did in the Mother Country. But, of course, not all those seeking work overseas could shoulder the heavy burden of pioneering. Miss Rye herself travelled to New Zealand and Australia and wrote back to Britain that, altogether she still believed that educated women were necessary, “they must be women of a certain stamp. Women who dislike work or who are not very steady in their principles are a thousandfold better off at home —there are scores of such women in England; . they are not exactly idlers, not at all immoral, but they work because they must and are virtuous because they are surrounded by scores of good homes and by ■ inducements of every kind to go right—all this vanishes . . here and the colonies . . . tries every man’s character to the very core . . _. women who have no individuality . . . lean right, then they lean left and then down they go.” This first society later sent out others besides educated women and Miss Rye was also a pioneer of child emigration. Other women who helped with its work include the remarkable Mrs Blanchard, who at one time ] undertook the supervision of | a party of free passage emi- | grants in "a coffin ship” I which, the captain warned her, would sink if there was la gale in the Bay of Biscay, i Fortunately, only half a gale blew and the women reached i their destination safely and I did well—so much so that 'later Mrs Blanchard supplied ] one with a governess for her I family. Mrs Blanchard acted as agent for the New Zealand and Australian Governments and is said to have helped over 1200 people to emigrate. In the 1880’s, a new Women's Emigration Society was formed, the first to deal from the start with educated | and uneducated settlers, and ]these went to all the British I colonies. This lasted only a ] short time and the British Women's Emigration Associa-

tion, under the comjietent leadership of Mrs Joyce, widow of a clergyman, ,eame into being and speedily established the right sort of contacts In Britain and abroad. From these boginquigs sprang the Society for the Overseas Settlement of Bri tish Women (of which Mrs Joyce became president .in 1924 at the age of 92) Which today is known as , the Women’s Migration and Overseas Appointments Society. This brief account o£ the history of the societies not do justice to the remarkable woman who ctAgted them but space must iiq left for reference to the interesting material in chapters* two to nine, giving the experience of some of the settlers taken from records and letters. The latter are lively and enlightening. One governess wrote from Australia in 1862. declaring that it was a wonderful country which must one day become considerable among the nations. But she warned that "Australian ladies are very different to English and they dislike, as they term it, our particular ways. One thing is the climate is so very different . . . children are very much indulged and have ... no application, do not lite the least trouble.” She added that people were wanted but they should be intelligent and adequately equipped with capital. Another wrote from Sydney in 1864 (and it might be 1964!): “Nowhere is youth more valued than here . . . 1 would put 35 as the extreme age for anyone intending to cross the ocean for this part of the world.” There is much of value in these comments taken from numerous sources and the book also has a number of fascinating drawings and illustrations of scenes on sailing ships, views of early Auckland. Canadian schoolhouses, etc. Today, the emigration of women from Britain to the Dominions and colonies continues to be promoted by the modern society which does a significant job in this field. The description of the work being done is acceptable with one reservation. Women with the Institutional Management Association’s diploma will And difficulty in obtaining work in New Zealand.

Additions to A. H. and A. W. Reed’s “Nature In New Zealand” series of pocket guides are “Freshwater Fishes” by C. S. Woods. “Native Ferns” by Bruce Hamilton. and "Crabs” by R. K. Dell. The books, clearly illustrated 1 and w’ith letterpress by ex- | perts on the respective subI jects, are now well-known ar I valuable reference books for i schools and clubs, and for ■ general reeding.