Over the Mountains of the Sea: Life on the Migrant Ships 1870-1885
240
Over the Mountains of the Sea: Life on the Migrant Ships 1870-1885
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| ISBN-13: | 9781775581352 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Auckland University Press |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 11 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
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Over the Mountains of the Sea
Life on the Migrant Ships 1870â"1885
By David Hastings
Auckland University Press
Copyright © 2006 David HastingsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77558-135-2
CHAPTER 1
A great wrench at the heart
D. J. Munro began his seafaring life at the age of fourteen as an apprentice to Patrick Henderson & Co., a firm running migrant ships to New Zealand. It was the start of a long career packed with dazzling adventures for Munro, who became a distinguished captain in the Royal Navy. But he never forgot his humble beginnings on a voyage from Glasgow to Port Chalmers aboard the Wild Deer, a 1000-ton clipper with a carving of the goddess Diana for a figurehead. His recollection of that first assignment as an apprentice includes a vivid picture of a New Zealand migrant ship being prepared for sea. Carpenters were fitting out the hold with narrow tiers of bunks, stevedores were loading cargo through every hatch and aloft the riggers were setting up the spars and 'bending', or fastening, the sails.
Only when these men had nearly finished their work did the crew make an entrance. Each sailor signed on just the day before and in traditional style the newly assembled crew partied all night with wives, sweethearts and a motley crowd including their boarding-house keepers. When they arrived at the docks everyone was still in a high state of inebriation, colouring the scene with a splash of anarchy. Their antics were good natured enough until the moment came to embark and the pang of parting changed the mood like a cloud passing in front of the sun. Some refused to board the ship and much persuasion, including a visit from the Glasgow constabulary, was necessary to make them fulfil their contractual obligations and trudge up the gangway, carrying their sea chests and 'donkey's breakfasts', as their straw mattresses were called.
The drunken crew settled in their quarters under the forecastle as a paddle tug towed the Wild Deer down river towards the Tail of the Bank, where it would anchor and wait to receive its New Zealand-bound migrants. The alcohol, which had made the men by turns merry, maudlin and truculent, now made them violent and the ship had not gone far before they were brawling. Order was restored by the ship's officers, who flushed the men out of the forecastle, confiscated their knives, locked them below and decanted their liquor over the side. By the time the Wild Deer reached its anchorage the effects of the alcohol were wearing off and the men were freed to do their work. They were docile as they anchored the ship and when the job was done the first mate returned their knives, essential tools for seamen. Fortunately for the men, who must have been feeling the effects of the party, the day's work was light. After tea they were allowed to turn in and sleep it off until five o'clock the next morning, when they were roused with coffee. Before breakfast they had to wash down the decks and afterwards they set about making the ship ready for sea.
Although Munro's recollections of the crew and the ship seem clear and precise, he left no impression of the migrants. As an old sea dog, his prime interest was in the ships and the men who sailed them, not the passengers. To get an idea of what it was like for the migrants as they prepared to leave their homeland forever it is necessary to consult the scores of diaries and official records about other departures in other places such as London or Plymouth. Before embarkation they were assembled in depots near the waterfront like the one at Plymouth, which was recalled with some distaste by those who gave evidence to a royal commission into a severe epidemic that killed 26 passengers on the Scimitar in 1874.
William Hosking was appointed surgeon-superintendent of the Scimitar just before Christmas the preceding year in the middle of an especially bleak English winter. The temperature was 15 degrees Fahrenheit below freezing and nearly 10,000 people had died in epidemics of measles and scarlet fever in England. By the time Hosking accepted the assignment in London his charges – 430 migrants bound for Port Chalmers – had already assembled at the depot and his orders were to join them as soon as possible. He arrived on the evening of 18 December to be greeted by the depot master who had 700 migrants in his care – as well as the Scimitar people there were 300 booked on the Mongol, the steamer that was about to begin its record 50-day voyage to Port Chalmers. As the place was in darkness and all the migrants had settled down for the night, Hosking had to wait until morning before he could form an impression of his surroundings.
Daylight revealed the depot to consist of three buildings set around a gravel courtyard on a headland near the outskirts of town. The main building was three-storeyed. Hosking's room was on the ground floor near a large kitchen and a storeroom. On the two floors above were dormitories with bunks lined along the walls and a double row in the middle, not unlike the layout of the steerage compartments of the ships they would soon board. The other buildings were both two-storeyed. One had a dayroom for the migrants on the ground floor with a dormitory above. The third had the depot master's quarters and a baggage store on the ground floor, and a dayroom on the first floor.
In some respects the depot, positioned so close to the sea, must have seemed an ideal first step to acclimatise migrants who had never been on a long voyage before. The ten days they spent there waiting to embark would be enough for them to grow accustomed to maritime sights, sounds and smells – the deep blue water, the murmur of sea along the shore, the cawing of gulls and the salty air. But the ideal was spoiled by the bitter cold and the damp: it rained incessantly for the last three days of their stay. The only place to find a warming fire was the ground-floor dayroom but that was inadequate, partly because it was blocked by the drying nappies of the large number of small children who were migrating before they could even walk. One man complained that the dayroom was muddy and draughty with people coming and going all the time and that the stove was lit only occasionally. It was no better at night when they crawled into bunks with bedding that was damp and dirty. Not surprisingly, many of the migrants had colds and runny noses when they left the depot to join their ships.
The picture of bedraggled migrants embarking in the depths of an English winter for the long voyage to New Zealand was, if not typical, then certainly not uncommon. But not all voyages began so inauspiciously. When John and Emma Fowler left England in 1879 to travel to New Zealand 'a seeking their fortunes', the mood was jaunty. The Fowlers went down to Blackwall Pier in London and pushed their way through a crowd of well-wishers to board the tender that would take them to their ship, the Western Monarch, moored in the Thames. There was a delay of nearly an hour as Fowler and the other passengers sorted out last-minute details to do with their baggage. The delay added to the tension and when the tender's paddle wheels finally began to turn, the expectant crowd let out a spontaneous cheer that was answered by the departing migrants. People were waving hats and handkerchiefs. On the boat a band struck up the tune 'Cheer Boys, Cheer'. As the tender made its way down river and the people on the pier grew small in the distance, the band switched to the traditional farewell 'Auld Lang Syne'. John Fowler noted in his diary that 'there was many a wet eye and sore heart as we said goodbye. It was like a great wrench at the heart.'
Most migrants were, like the Fowlers, tugged in different directions by their emotions. The joy and excitement at the prospect of a new life on the other side of the world was pierced by the sorrow at leaving the old one. Walter Kennaway, secretary of the agent-general's department in London, knew about the great wrench but, in his bureaucratic manner, he managed to describe it without a hint of emotion. 'It often happens, especially in the case of single girls leaving their parents, that the desire to stay at home comes strongly upon them at the last moment.' Kennaway claimed those overcome by the pain were told they were free to go home if they wished but the evidence suggests otherwise. Each migrant represented a substantial investment by the New Zealand government and officials brought enormous pressure to bear on anyone having second thoughts. This could lead to heart-rending scenes like one that occurred in the Blackwall depot in August 1883 when a young woman travelling alone broke down at the moment of leaving her father. Fearing his presence would encourage her to change her mind, colonial officials had him forcibly evicted.
Like Fowler, the young woman felt the great wrench at the moment of departure but for some people it came long beforehand and for others afterwards. Maggie Gray was one who felt it even before she had set eyes on the London docks. A 26-year-old Belfast woman, pregnant with her second child, she was migrating with her husband, a carpenter, and her son. She said her farewells in Belfast before travelling to London to join 400 others on the Alumbagh for its 1875 voyage to Auckland. Her husband, William, recorded the moment in his diary: 'The parting was sad and sorry between Maggie and her mother and sister. However it is all over now and Good bye to everybody and God bless everybody.'
Emilie Letts did not feel the great wrench until she was already under way on her voyage to Auckland aboard the Hermione in 1883. It had poured with rain in the morning, but as the Hermione worked its way down the Thames late in the afternoon, the weather cleared to reveal a glowing sunset and a new moon hanging in the sky. Letts sat in her second-class cabin writing the first instalment of a long diary letter to her parents. Her mood swung to mirror the sudden change in the weather. At first she was excited as she described the sunset, the moon and the 'simply splendid' sea. Then her excitement was blown away by a gust of melancholy. 'How I wish you were all here to enjoy it all with me,' she wrote. 'I cannot forget the dear old home, and the tears will come when I think of you all and your love and kindness.'
Most of the tens of thousands who made the voyage came on government-assisted passages, crammed into the steerage compartments below decks, but they were by no means a homogenous bunch: not only were they divided by religion and ethnic background but some paid their own way and conflict between those who paid and those on assisted passages caused endless anxiety to government officials. Then there were the first-and second-class passengers. Among their number were doctors, army officers, officials, church ministers, people with capital hoping to buy land, shopkeepers and some who were on a quest to find a cure for their tuberculosis. They formed a privileged minority who played a significant role in the dynamics of shipboard life.
The number of people on each ship varied widely. A big clipper like the New Zealand Shipping Company's 1200-ton Scimitar could carry more than 400 passengers as well as between 30 and 40 crew. The company's steamers were even bigger: the Atrato had 762 passengers on its voyage to Port Chalmers and Lyttelton in 1874. At the other end of the scale was the Chile, a Shaw Savill ship of just 768 tons with room for only 111 passengers when it sailed from London to Auckland in 1873. The proportions of different types of passengers varied as much as the overall numbers. On some ships there were significant numbers in first and second class. The Crusader, in 1873, for instance, had 27 cabin passengers, whereas other ships carried 1 or 2 or even none.
Why these people chose to migrate has been the subject of much discussion in the history books. One general explanation is that the migrants came in pursuit of an ideal, a better world free from the ills and inequalities of the one they left behind. Another views the migrants as motivated essentially by pragmatism, the desire to better clothe and feed their families, to 'get on'. One of the reasons the shipboard diaries are regarded as of limited value to historians is that they do not directly address such questions. Few needed to explain themselves because they were writing for folk back home who would have known the answers. Moreover, they were inexperienced writers who felt uncomfortable trying to express anything introspective.
And yet if the diaries and official records are read closely they do reveal much about the attitudes and motives of their authors and others. For instance, there is abundant evidence to show that many people had individual and particular motives that defy general explanations. The recently widowed Ellen Dobie was travelling with her two daughters to join her son, who was a railway engineer. Some women were going out to be married and one was going to keep house for her farmer brother. Others had less straightforward motives. James Worsley on the Dunloe was one of many making the trip because they had tuberculosis and their doctors told them the sea air would do them the world of good. Then there were those who were running away – women fleeing their husbands, a deserter from the dragoons, a young couple eloping and a man who had heard it was easier to get a divorce in New Zealand than in Germany. Still others booked their passage because they had been disgraced in some way. Major James Pirie on the Somersetshire had hoped to leave all remembrance of his 'loss and punishment' behind, but he could not forget the land where he suffered or the man he detested who was, presumably, the author of his never-specified misfortune. On the Oamaru in 1876 there was a young woman who had fallen pregnant out of wedlock and was leaving to escape the murderous wrath of her father. And there were many others who, it seems, were swept from the streets and the workhouses to fulfil immigration targets without regard to their health, their morals or their suitability.
Such particular motives of individual people do not mean that the broad, general explanations are necessarily wrong. It was surely possible for someone to have more than one reason to migrate. If there was one overarching motive that could encompass most of the particular reasons among all types and classes of passengers on the ships, it was the simple pragmatic one: to get on. John and Emma Fowler, who so keenly felt the great wrench at the heart when they pulled away from Blackwall Pier, came seeking their fortunes. John Hillary, in steerage on the Westland, thought his prospects would be much better in New Zealand than in his native Durham where he worked as a village shopkeeper trying hard, like a dog chasing its tail, to make ends meet. William Gray, the Belfast carpenter on the Alumbagh with his pregnant wife and child, wrote about the 'long and perilous journey on which I have speculated everything everything [sic]that we possess'. In the saloon Emilie Letts and John Moore described shipmates with more specific ambitions: to buy farms or to set up in the grocery trade.
Once the ship was at sea the difference in status, comfort and privilege between steerage and saloon was large and obvious, but the first hours on board were equally confusing for everyone. Ships were supposed to be ready to receive passengers a full 24 hours before embarkation. Shipping contracts specified that all work on the fittings was to be completed by this time and all cargo stowed. Although Patrick Henderson & Co. achieved this on Munro's maiden voyage, it seems to have been the exception rather than the rule. Usually the ships were not ready when the passengers arrived; the carpenters were still at work and there was cargo strewn about the deck. The result could be chaos when an influx of bewildered migrants, trailing friends, hucksters and holy men offering comfort and Bibles, met the jumble of an unready ship.
A shipload of migrants and their entourage turned the main deck into something like an open-air market on a busy day. This impression was reinforced by the presence of livestock such as sheep, pigs and poultry, penned on board to provide fresh meat for the captain and the cabin passengers during the voyage. As in any marketplace, the theme was buying and selling and many of the sellers were more intent on turning a quick profit than giving value for money. Enis Priestly reckoned a group of outfitters on the Ben Nevis were charging double what their wares would cost on shore. Foolishly he bought a knife and fork from them which he judged later to be 'scarcely worth anything'. Many of the items for sale were not strictly speaking necessities. Among other things, the hucksters on the Tweed in 1874 were selling Irish whiskey, which proved popular. Elizabeth Brough, a nineteen-year-old from Staffordshire in steerage with her husband, John, a shoeing smith, observed that it was bought up with 'astonishing rapidity by the sons of St Patrick to quench their thirst ere they ventured on to the salt sea'. Religious paraphernalia was the only thing that cost nothing. Missionaries on the Caduceus in 1870 and the Clyde in 1883 distributed free packets of books, papers, periodicals and children's scrapbooks. But sometimes even religion had a price. When two men from the British and Foreign Bible Society came aboard the Ben Nevis and offered Priestly a gilt-edged Bible, he had to pay for it.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Over the Mountains of the Sea by David Hastings. Copyright © 2006 David Hastings. Excerpted by permission of Auckland University Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Dedication,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
1 A great wrench at the heart,
2 The mountains of the sea,
3 A time to every purpose,
4 Enemies easily made,
5 Disorder, crime and punishment,
6 Mutinies and Hyde Park meetings,
7 The virgins' cage,
8 Birth, death and the doctor,
9 Land fever,
10 So here ends my journey,
Glossary of maritime terms,
Bibliography,
Index,
Copyright,