Dorsetshire Refugees, Not Immigrants. The Blandford Branch of the Colonisation Society and the 1849 Voyage of the Emigrant

Abstract

<p>While it is widely accepted that the Irish and Scottish-Highland peasants who were fleeing oppression, persecution, and the devastating effects of the potato famine were refugees, this is not the case for contemporaneous emigrants from the southwest of England. However, this research into the immigrants who arrived in New South Wales (NSW) from the United Kingdom (UK) during 1849 reveals that there were several Dorsetshire villages near Blandford which provided a disproportionate percentage of their inhabitants to immigration. Home to the likes of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, this area was renowned for its political agitation against low wages and squalid living conditions. Oppressed, persecuted, and facing starvation with the arrival of the potato blight, these immigrants from Dorset had little choice but to flee their homes. As such, just like the rural poor of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands who were fleeing their ancestral homes at this time, they too were refugees.</p> <p>Under the auspices of the Blandford Branch of the Colonisation Society (BBCS), between five and ten percent of the population of the towns of Durweston, Stourpaine and Child Okeford departed for a new life in NSW. Their decision to emigrate was a result of endemic systematic oppression, low wages, poor living conditions, the enclosure of common lands and the arrival of the potato blight. Their choice was stark – flee to Australia or remain and face a constant struggle to survive. Turning to the local clergy who manipulated the rules of the NSW squatters’ Colonisation Society, these Dorsetshire refugees made good their escape to a new life in the colonies.</p> <p>Besides the reclassification of this group of Dorsetshire agricultural labourers and their families from immigrants to refugees, this thesis highlights the devastating effect that the Potato Blight had on the rural poor of Dorset. This research also reveals the role played by the BBCS in helping these Dorsetshire poor find a new life in NSW. It also highlights the nature of Francis Scott’s appointment as the NSW agent in London and the influence that the 1823 Cambridge University Arts alumni had in the ‘Squattocracy’ of NSW. In turn this research shifts the paradigm of the creation of the Society for the Promotion of Colonisation from philanthropy to the exploitation of the rural poor of the UK. Finally, it illuminates the contributions of the BBCS cohort to NSW society during the later part of the nineteenth century.</p>