Adventurers And Exiles_The Great Scottish Exodus

by Marjory Harper

  11. The Collected Writings of Lord Selkirk, 1799—1809, edited by J. M. Bumsted (Winnipeg, The Manitoba Record Society, 1984), introduction, p. 32. Advertising poster dated 22 October 1802, NAS GD 112/61/1.

  12. Alexander Irvine, An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of Emigration from the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland, with Observations on the Means to be Employed for Preventing it (Edinburgh, 1802).

  13. Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, On the Necessity of a More Effectual System of National Defence and the Means of Establishing the Permanent Security of the Kingdom (London, 1808).

  14. Aberdeen, Alloa, Ayr, Campbeltown, Cromarty, Dumfries, Dundee, Glasgow, Grangemouth, Greenock, Inverness, Irvine, Isla, Kirkcaldy, Leith, Leven, Montrose, Peterhead, Port Glasgow, Stornoway, Stranraer, Thurso and Tobermory.

  15. Lucille H. Campey, ‘The Regional Characteristics of Scottish Emigration to British North America, 1784 to 1854’, 2 vols. (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1998), vol. II, p. 240.

  16. Inverness Journal, 17 February 1832.

  17. John O’Groat Journal, 15 June 1849.

  18. NAC, RG 76, C-10261, vol. 358, file 410827, James Scott, Ayr, 8 August 1906, 7 October 1911; Aberdeen Journal, 25 July 1907, 1 April 1911, 28 February and 1 March 1912, 2 June and 1 September 1913; NAC, RG 76, C-10269, vol. 369, file 497599, Walter Easton, Jedburgh; NAC RG 76, C- 10311, vol. 430, file 636689, Mary J. Farnon, Falkirk, 8 February 1908.

  19. NLS, MS 11976. Thanks to Dr Lucille Campey for drawing this and the following two references to my notice.

  20. Inverness Journal, 28 December 1810, from Beacon Light, a periodical published in Edinburgh. Robertson refuted the allegations in a letter published in the Inverness Journal on 1 February 1811.

  21. NLS, SP Dep 313/1468, 349. See also letter to James Stuart, Writer to the Signet, Edinburgh, 21 July 1819.

  22. NAS, CS235, Box 391, S/47/11, Unextracted Processes, Somerville v. Hemmans, 1844.

  23. NAS, CE87/1/30, 21 May 1855.

  24. Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, vol. XV, no. 388 (7 June 1851), p. 360.

  25. Aberdeen Journal, 5 April 1912; NAC, RG 76, C-10621, vol. 530, file 803485, part I: W. G. Maitland, Longside, Aberdeenshire, booking agent, lists, 1910—19. In the 1912 court case Maitland claimed in his defence that he had withheld the tickets because of uncertainty over the sailing date, owing to a dockers’ strike, but the sheriff ruled that the payment of a deposit constituted the making of a definite contract and that Maitland was bound to issue the tickets in return. NAC, RG 76, C-10325, vol. 450, file 686431, Andrew Spalding, Blairgowrie, newspaper clipping dated 9 May 1914.

  26. NAC, RG 76, C-10644, vol. 564, file 809010, MacKay Brothers, Aberdeen, lists, 1910—19.

  27. NAC, RG 76, C-10644, vol. 564, file 809010, letter dated 2 May 1913. Rait was actually deported on the grounds of insanity a year after coming to Canada.

  28. NAC, RG 76, C-10627, vol. 538, file 803839, part 2: correspondence between Paton and the Department of the Interior; letters from J. Mitchell, Inspector Employment Agents, Toronto to W. D. Scott, 15 February, 12 April and 9 May 1917.

  29. NAC, RG 76, C-10294, vol. 405, file 590687, part I, J. Obed Smith’s report on British agencies, 15 March 1909.

  30. Thomas Rolph, Emigration and Colonization: embodying the results of a mission to Great Britain and Ireland, during the years 1839, 1840 and 1842 (London, 1844), pp. 23—5.

  31. For a biography of Lang, see D. W. A. Baker, Days of Wrath (Melbourne, 1985). James MacDonald’s involvement in emigration is described in J. M. Bumsted, The People’s Clearance: Highland Emigration to British North America, 1770—1815 (Edinburgh, 1982), pp. 60, 75, and Norman McLeod’s odyssey in Flora McPherson,Watchman against theWorld (Toronto, 1962).

  32. PRO, CO 208/124, extract minute of a meeting of the Otago Association, 11 January 1850.

  33. James Adam, Twenty-Five Years of Emigrant Life in the South of New Zealand (Edinburgh, 1876), pp. 9—10.

  34. Henry Jordan, Queensland: emigration to the new colony of Australia, the future cotton field of England, its geography, climate, agricultural capabilities, and land laws (London, 1862); ‘Bush Life in Queensland’, See also W. R. Johnston, ‘The Selling of Queensland’, Aberdeen Journal, 17 August 1865. ‘Henry Jordan and Welsh Immigration’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, vol. XVI, no. 9 (1991), pp. 379—92.

  35. CSP, vol. 8. no. 8 (1875), Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture, 1874, appendices 21, 28. Not all commentators agreed that Queensland was stealing a march on Canada. In 1910 a correspondent of the Aberdeen Journal, lamenting Queensland’s continuing dearth of population, claimed that most of the emigrants who were flocking from Scotland to Canada had never even heard of Queensland, and urged that agents of the Canadian calibre should be sent to Scotland by the Queensland government to redirect the emigrant tide to the Antipodes (Aberdeen Journal, 23 June 1910).

  36. CSP, vol. 34, no. 10 (1900), Annual Report of the Department of the Interior, 1899, appendices 6 (H. M. Murray, Principal Agent for Scotland) and 8 (Thomas Duncan); NAC, RG 76, C-10324, vol. 450, file 682150, Malcolm McIntyre, Glasgow, J. Obed Smith, Assistant Superintendent of Emigration, London, to W. D. Scott, Ottawa, 15 March 1909. See also J. Camm, ‘The Hunt for Muscle and Bone: Emigration Agents and Their Role in Immigration to Queensland in the 1880s’, Australian Historical Geography Bulletin, vol. 2 (1981), pp. 7—29.

  37. Wilbur S. Shepperson, The Promotion of British Emigration by Agents for American Lands, 1840—1860 (Reno, 1954).

  38. CSP, vol. 6, no. 6 (1873), Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture, 1872, appendix 30, Angus G. Nicholson, ‘Report of Proceedings in the Highlands of Scotland’; appendix 17, report by W.J. Patterson to J.H. Pope, Minister of Agriculture, dated 13 December 1872.

  39. University of Cape Town Library, Manuscripts and Archives, B 1038, Laburn Collection, A3.4, Cape Mercury, 20 November 1876; A7, Report on Cape Immigration for the year 1877.

  40. Ibid., A3.5, East London Daily Despatch, 8 and 15 November 1877.

  41. Ibid., A4.4, Public Works Department, 2/66, J. B. Hellier to John Laing, Commissioner of Crown Lands, 25 February, 2 and 10 June 1880.

  42. Ibid., A3.5, East London Daily Despatch,10 December 1881.

  43. Ibid., A4.4, J. X. Merriman to John Walker, 17 December 1881.

  44. Ibid., A3.6, Department of Crown Lands and Public Works, McNaughton to J. B. Hellier, 5 August and 12 December 1882; East London Daily Despatch, 19 August and 20 October 1882, 2 February 1884, 1 July 1885; John Walker to John Laing, Commissioner of Lands, Public Works Department, Cape Colony, 5 May 1881; A4.6, W. Burnet to John Walker, 8 February 1882.

  45. East London Daily Despatch, 1 March 1882. Walker apparently stayed on at Kei Mouth after the collapse of his settlement, but by 1883 had become involved in railway construction in Cape Colony, which occupied his attention for the next two decades (ibid., A14).

  46. Martin Hewitt, ‘The Itinerant Emigration Lecturer: James Brown’s Lecture Tour of Britain and Ireland, 1861—2’, British Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 10, no. 1 (1995), 103—19. The quotation is taken from Brown to S. L. Tilley, 26 March 1862, James Brown Papers, MC 295/3/256, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.

  47. CSP, vol. 6, no. 6 (1873), Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture, 1872, appendix 17, report by W. J. Patterson.

  48. Ibid., appendix 30, Report of Proceedings in the Highlands of Scotland by Angus G. Nicholson.

  49. Ibid., vol. 9, no. 7 (1876), Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture, 1875, appendix 45, Report of Special Immigration Agent, Angus G. Nicholson, 14 February 1876, p.186.

  50. Ibid., vol. 31, no. 9 (1897), Annual Report of the Department of the Interior, 1896, appendix 7, report of W. G. Stuart.

  51. Ibid., appendix 6, report by Peter Fleming. Temporary agent Thomas Duncan thought that Fleming’s selective canvassing of agriculturists through the valuation rolls excluded the general public and resulted in lower �
�� although perhaps more attentive — audiences at lectures than was the case in W. G. Stuart’s area (ibid., CSP, vol. 32, no. 10 [1898], Annual Report of the Department of the Interior, 1897, appendix 8).

  52. NAC, RG 76, C-10294-5, vol. 405, file 590687, MacLennan’s reports for weeks ending 26 October 1907, 16 January and 20 March 1909. For a discussion of MacLennan’s activities, see Marjory Harper, Emigration from North East Scotland, vol. 2, Beyond the Broad Atlantic (Aberdeen, 1988), pp. 28—31.

  53. NAC, RG 76, C-10318, vol. 440, file 662655, J. Bruce Walker to W. D. Scott (Superintendent of Immigration, Ottawa), 26 November 1907; Aberdeen Journal, 8 September 1908;NAC, RG 76, C-4747, vol. 80, file 6968, part 2, J. Obed Smith, Assistant Superintendent of Emigration, to W. D. Scott, Superintendent of Immigration, 18 March 1909.

  54. Highland News, 8 April 1911.

  55. NAC, RG 76, C-10324, vol. 450, file 682150, Malcolm McIntyre, Glasgow, report for week ending 18 February 1912.

  56. CSP, vol. 32, no. 10 (1898), appendix 8.

  57. NAC, RG 76, C-10294-5, vol. 405, file 590687, MacLennan’s report for week ending 4 February 1911.

  58. Ibid., report for week ending 22 February 1908. See also pp. 312.16 for the Clarke City dispute.

  59. Ibid., MacLennan’s report for week ending 16 October 1910.

  60. CSP, vol. 6, no. 6 (1873), Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture, 1872, appendix 23.

  61. Ibid., vol. 34, no. 1 (1900), Annual Report of the Department of the Interior, 1899, appendix 6.

  62. NAC, RG 76, C-10291-2, vol. 401, file 572933, J. Obed Smith to W. D. Scott, 28 November 1911. The request was granted, and W. D. Scott himself later admitted, ‘I do not think there is a single paper in the British Isles which has been more friendly towards Canada than the Aberdeen Free Press and there is no doubt but that the publicity already secured through this paper has been highly advantageous to Canada’ (ibid., 9 January 1919).

  63. Reprinted in the Stonehaven Journal, 26 June 1873.

  64. NAC, RG 76, C-10644, vol. 564, file 808836, J. Obed Smith to W. D. Scott, 15 March 1909; NAC, RG 76, C-10294-5, vol. 405, file 590687, MacLennan’s report for week ending 4 May 1907.

  65. NAC, RG 76, C-10414, vol. 479, file 742357, MacLennan’s report on Bredin; NAC, RG 76, C-10425, vol. 191, file 760771, MacLennan’s report on Grant’s visit to Scotland.

  66. NAC, RG 76, C-10324, vol. 450, file 682150.

  67. NAC, RG 76, C-10294-5, vol. 405, file 590687, MacLennan’s report for week ending 13 February 1910; Press & Journal (formerly the Aberdeen Journal), 20 September 1924.

  Chapter 5: Helping the Helpless

  1. Syrie L. Barnardo and James Marchant, Memoirs of the Late Dr Barnardo (London, 1907), p. 154.

  2. Canada, House of Commons, Journals (1888), ‘Report of the Agriculture and Colonisation Committee’, p. 10.

  3. Peter Williamson, The Life and Curious Adventures of Peter Williamson, who was carried off from Aberdeen, and sold for a slave (Aberdeen, 1801), p. 124. See also pp. 34, 113.

  4. PP 1914—16 [Cd 7886], XXXIV, 491, 76; Report of the Departmental Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools in Scotland. For lists of British reformatories and estimated emigrant numbers, see http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/children/Organizations/reformatory/html.

  5. Phyllis Harrison (ed.), The Home Children (Winnipeg, 1979), p. 16.

  6. Gillian Wagner, Children of the Empire (London, 1982), p. xv.

  7. Gillian Wagner, Barnardo (London, 1979), p. 237.

  8. Quoted on the front cover of every annual report of Quarrier’s Orphan Homes of Scotland, A Narrative of Facts relative to work done for Christ in connection with the Orphan and Destitute Children’s Emigration Homes, Glasgow (hereafter Narrative).

  9. Ibid. (1872), pp. 9, 28.

  10. Alexander Gammie, A Romance of Faith: The Story of the Orphan Homes of Scotland and the Founder William Quarrier (London, 1936), p. 105.

  11. Narrative, vol. 26 (1905-6), p. 19.

  12. Quarrier’s Orphan Homes of Scotland, case files, vol. 9 (1887-8), p. 256. 13. Ibid., vol. 13 (1891—2), p. 354.

  14. Ibid., vol. 28 (1903—4), p. 142.

  15. Ibid., vol. 6 (1884—5), p. 223.

  16. Ibid., vol. 10 (1888—9), p. 32.

  17. Ibid., vol. 11 (1889—90), p. 38—9.

  18. Ibid., vol. 27 (1905—6), p. 32.

  19. Ibid., vol. 6 (1884—5), pp. 210, 139.

  20. Ibid., vol. 7 (1885—6), p. 188; vol. 14 (1892—3), p. 179.

  21. Ibid., vol. 7 (1885—6), p. 177.

  22. Ibid., vol. 12 (1890—91), p. 78.

  23. Ibid., vol. 20 (1898—9), p. 29.

  24. Ibid., vol. 9 (1887—8), pp. 22, 23.

  25. Ibid., vol. 11 (1889—90), p. 5.

  26. Ibid., vol. 6 (1884—5), p. 230.

  27. Ibid., vol. 10 (1888—9), p. 29.

  28. Ibid., vol. 29 (1908—9), p. 117; vol. 30 (1909—10), p. 124.

  29. Ibid., pp. 88—9.

  30. Ibid., vol. 14 (1892—3), p. 24.

  31. Ibid., vol. 16 (1894-5), p. 7.

  32. Ibid., vol. 23 (1901—2), p. 103.

  33. Ibid., vol. 34 (1913—14), p. 75

  34. Ibid., vol. 11 (1889—90), p. 94.

  35. Ibid., vol. 14 (1892—3), p. 328.

  36. Ibid., vol. 15 (1893—4), p. 154.

  37. Ibid., vol. 8 (1886—7), p. 127, quoting from an undated cutting from an unnamed newspaper attached to the case file.

  38. Ibid., vol. 31 (1909—10), p. 60, quoting from the Evening News, 25 January 1910.

  39. Ibid., vol. 32 (1910—11), p. 58, quoting from an undated cutting from an unnamed newspaper attached to the case file.

  40. Ibid., vol. 33 (1911—12), pp. 66—7, evidence from the court case from an undated cutting from an unnamed newspaper attached to the case file.

  41. John Urquhart, The Life Story of William Quarrier: A Romance of Faith (Glasgow, 1900), p. 270.

  42. Ibid., pp. 296—314; JamesRoss,ThePowerIPledge(Glasgow, 1971), pp. 69—70.

  43. Urquhart, The Life Story of William Quarrier, pp. 286, 288.

  44. William Garden Blaikie, An Autobiography: ‘Recollections of a Busy Life’ (London, 1901), pp. 318—19.

  45. Emma M. Stirling, Our Children in Old Scotland and Nova Scotia. Being a history of her work by Emma M. Stirling, the founder of the Edinburgh and Leith Children’s Aid and Refuge Society, founded 1877 (London, 1892), p. 38. See also Philip Girard, ‘Victorian Philanthropy and Child Rescue: The Career of Emma Stirling in Scotland and Nova Scotia, 1860—95’, in Marjory Harper and Michael E. Vance (eds), Myth, Migration and the Making of Memory: Scotia and Nova Scotia, c. 1700-1990 (Halifax and Edinburgh, 1999), pp. 218—31.

  46. NAS, GD 409/1, RSSPCC Fonds, Minutes of Meeting of the Directors of the Edinburgh and Leith Children’s Aid and Refuge Society, 6 November 1885.

  47. Ibid., Minutes of Meeting of 6 October 1887, quoting letter from Miss Stirling of 25 August 1887.

  48. Stirling Council Archives, PD41/1/1, Whinwell Children’s Home, Stirling, Annual Report, 1910, p. 10.

  49. Blaikie, An Autobiography, p. 330.

  50. Ibid., pp. 329—30.

  51. Stirling, Our Children in Old Scotland and Nova Scotia, p. 146.

  52. For discussion of emigration from Catholic institutions, see http://www.parliament.the-stationery-o… 9798/cmselect/cmhealth/755/8061.htm, House of Commons, Select Committee on Health, Minutes of Evidence. Two girls emigrated from Nazareth House in Aberdeen in 1899 and a further two in 1900, but after that no such departures are reported in the annual returns (Marjory Harper, Emigration from North East Scotland, vol. 2, Beyond the Broad Atlantic [Aberdeen, 1988], p. 208).

  53. Narrative (1872), pp. 11—12.

  54. Ibid., p. 14.

  55. Ibid. (1888), p. 49.

  56. Ibid. (1872), p. 13.

  57. Blaikie, An Autobiography, pp. 320—23; Narrative (1886), p. 32.

  58. Ibid., pp. 15—16.

  59. Whinwell Childre
n’s Home, annual report, 1904, p. 11.

  60. Ibid., 1906, p. 10.

  61. Narrative (1904), p. 18.

  62. Stirling Council Archives, PD41/4/15, Whinwell Children’s Home, Reports from Canada, no. 3 (1920); letter from Louisa Birt to Annie Croall, 1 March 1921; undated letter from Mr Merry, Superintendent of Marchmont Home.

  63. J. L. Churcher, Bancroft, Ontario, quoted in Harrison (ed.), The Home Children, pp. 37—8. See also Quarrier’s Orphan Homes, case files, vol. 8 (1886—7), p. 52, and vol. 14 (1892—3), p. 96. Churcher, who came from a broken home in Leith and whose sister had preceded him to Canada in 1887, settled happily into his first placement. He remained there until 1906, and in the Bancroft area for the rest of his life.

  64. The Orphanage and Home, Aberlour, Craigellachie, Journal, vol. VI, no. 7 (14 October 1887), p. 80.

  65. Ibid., vol. VII, no. 4 (July 1888).

  66. Ibid., vol. VII, no. 1 (April 1888).

  67. Ibid., vol. IX, no. 110 (May 1891), p. 24.

  68. Whinwell Children’s Home, Annual Report, 1910, p. 11.

  69. Narrative (1886), pp. 12, 24.

  70. Joy Parr, Labouring Children: British Immigrant Apprentices to Canada, 1869—1924 (London/Montreal, 1980), p. 105.

  71. Narrative (1912), p. 4.

  72. NAC, RG 76, C-4709, vol. 46, file 1532, 13 January 1898, L. Pereira, Dept of the Interior, Ottawa, to James Burges, Superintendent, Fairknowe Home; Burges to Pereira, 14 January 1898.

  73. Blaikie, An Autobiography, pp. 314—16.

  74. Glasgow Herald, 28 February 1883.

  75. Canadian home child’s daughter, interviewed on The Little Emigrants, BBC Radio Scotland, 25 December 1996.

  Chapter 6: Leaving and Arriving

  1. Counsel for Emigrants (Aberdeen, 1834), p. 59.

  2. Robert Louis Stevenson, From Scotland to Silverado (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), pp. 10—12.

  3. John MacDonald to —, n.d., but 1803, Public Archives of Prince Edward Island, 2664, quoted in J. M. Bumsted, The People’s Clearance: Highland Emigration to British North America, 1770—1815 (Edinburgh, 1982), pp. 59—60.

  4. NLNZ, Alexander Turnbull Library [hereafter NLNZ, ATL] , qMS-0370, Jessie Campbell diary, 5 December 1840.