Letters from Australia
to family and friends at home
from Brighton emigrants,
1849-1855
Edited by Joyce Collins
Contents
Page
Introduction
Chapter 1
Farewell to England
1
Chapter 2
Leaving Brighton: Making Plans
5
Chapter 3
The Voyage of the Harpley 1849
12
Chapter 4
The Juniper & Wood party:
Arrival in Australia
21
Chapter 5
Early Days in Melbourne
and the Gold Rush begins
26
Chapter 6
Gold Fever reaches Brighton:
more Plans to Emigrate
35
Chapter 7
The Voyage of the Statesman 1852
44
Chapter 8
Arrival of the Gold Seekers
52
Chapter 9
Getting to the Diggings
60
Chapter 10 Life at the Diggings
74
Chapter 11 The End in Sight
93
Chapter 12 Conclusion
101
Sources and Acknowledgements
106
Index of names
108
Introduction
This is the story of some of the men, women and children
who left their homes in Brighton over a century and a half ago
to embark on new lives at the other side of the world. They
were by no means the first, and certainly not the last,
Brightonians to cross the seas in search of a better life, but
those who left around the year 1850 are of particular interest as
emigrants bound for Australia, and specifically for Melbourne,
Victoria. At this time, and for several years during the 1850s,
the Brighton Gazette and other local newspapers published
regular items of Emigration News which included letters
received by families and friends of two large parties which left
the town in 1849 and 1852. The first of these ― the “Juniper
and Wood Party”― sailed together on the Harpley, arriving at
Port Phillip for Melbourne in January 1850. A much larger
number of emigrants (probably around 200) left in 1852 on
board the Statesman and several other ships. The letters
written home by people from both parties form the core of this
account but there is a further invaluable source of information
about the experience of the Brighton emigrants to Melbourne.
Among those who left with the earlier group was the Chandler
family ― father, mother and four children, the eldest of whom
was John, then ten years old. John never returned to England,
and in 1893, when he was in his fifties, he wrote a detailed
account of his life and this was published under the title Forty
Years in the Wilderness. His memories, together with the letters
recording fresh impressions of recent experience, enable us to
follow the emigrants’ reasons for going, what happened on the
way and what lay ahead for them in their future lives.
The letters themselves are reproduced in their entirety,
as published in the Gazette. Occasional spelling errors have
generally been left uncorrected. Repetition, e.g. of food prices,
indicates the importance to writers and recipients of particular
pieces of information. These letters are, of course, only some of
the hundreds that must have been written home by the
emigrants who left in 1849 and 1852. Their survival in the
pages of a local newspaper does however enable readers in the
twenty-first century to share in the experience of the men and
women who sought to make new lives in Australia – John
Juniper’s “land of promise.”
By Charles Bennett. Published in the Illustrated London News,
June 19, 1852.
Chapter 1. Farewell to England.
These affecting words were reprinted in the Brighton Gazette on
Thursday July 29, 1852, at a time when the town was full of talk
about the large number of Brightonians then about to emigrate
to Australia. During the whole of the nineteenth century millions
of men and women were prepared to leave their homes in
Europe to seek better lives in other parts of the world. As far
back as the seventeenth century, ships had crossed the Atlantic
taking men, and often their families, from Britain to the
Canadian and American colonies. They went as settlers to the
relatively empty lands where they could establish themselves as
independent farmers or businessmen, still maintaining the
practices and habits of their old life but also enjoying a certain
freedom to experiment in new ways of doing things. Some
crossed the ocean more than once, but very few returned to
settle in the homes they had left in the mother country.
Even after the Declaration of Independence in 1776,
America, with its reputation for freedom and equality of
opportunity, continued until modern times to be the most
popular destination for European migrants. However, one result
of Independence was that America would no longer be available
for the reception of criminals who were sentenced by English
courts to transportation. Happily, from the point of view of the
penal authorities (if not the convicts) new possibilities opened
up after the arrival on January 26, 1788 of the “First Fleet” in
Australia, with its eleven ships bringing the first contingent of
717 transportees. Over the following 80 years there were to be
some 160,000 of these involuntary emigrants to England’s
Australian colonies.
A list of Sentences of Transportation compiled by the
Friends of the East Sussex Record Office includes the names of
nearly 250 men, and nearly 40 women from Brighton sent to
Australia before transportation to New South Wales and Van
Dieman’s land came to an end. (Convicts continued to go to
Western Australia until 1868.) The most usual sentence was for
seven years, but for some it was ten or twelve years and for a
few for life. The Brighton transportees included a boy of eight in
1847 and another of eleven in 1852. Both of these were
sentenced to seven years, like the majority of adult male and
female convicts, though 19 of the men and three of the women
received life sentences. Transportation for life meant just that.
For many years (though not in fact after 1835) it was a capital
offence to attempt to return to England. An important element
in the plot of Great Expectations, published in 1861, was the
return of Magwitch, and the danger he faced of discovery ― not
to mention the danger to Pip and his friends who harboured
him. Aiding and abetting was a crime, however philanthropic the
intention.
Dickens was interested in emigration and it was a topic
introduced into several of his (and other contemporary writers’)
novels. Magwitch of course had made good during his years of
banishment, and become a rich man. He had “done wonderful
well” as “sheep-farmer, stock-breeder and other trades besides
…. spec’lated and got rich.” The Artful Dodger who befriended
Oliver Twist also made good as a drover, but the ultimate
Successful Emigrant must surely have been the impecunious Mr
Micawber who, with a little help from his friends, took his family
to Australia to join Mr Peggoty and Emily, already prospering
there. Relieved at last from his debts, he ended up ― perhaps
rather improbably ― as a “much esteemed colonial magistrate.”
We do not know how the Brighton or other Sussex
transportees had fared in Australia, but by 1850, when our
emigrants from the Harpley arrived, a large number of convicts
would have served their time and earned their freedom. Many
would have settled, more or less respectably, in and around
Melbourne, and there may well have been some interesting
encounters between them and the new arrivals. Thomas Barnes,
transported in 1819 for burglary, may or may not have had any
2
Brighton connections, but in 1838 he had written from New
South Wales to his mother, “Widow” (Margaret) Loftey, then
living at Boreham Street, Wartling, East Sussex:1 August 1838
My dear Mother, ― I have long weighted with a painful
hart expecting To heir from you. I at last received a letter
from my unkell Tos Baker. I was happy to heir you was
alive and I hope that this Letter will Find you and all my
dear brothers and Sisters all well as it Leaves all of us at
present. Thank God for it. My Unkell Stated in his letter
that you thought I was Engarey with you for not wrighten
be fore no no do not Think So. God forbide I should be
Engarey with my own flesh and blood I did think I was
Cast of ― My unkell has revived me once more My hart is
fild with Joy ― It is a great comfort to hir from any of you
The growing population in the Australian colonies was
however far from being completely made up of ex-convicts.
Even from the early days of transportation there were increasing
numbers of “free emigrants” leaving Britain to settle in
Australia. The governments of the eighteen thirties and forties
still clung to their laissez-faire attitude to emigration, neither
encouraging nor discouraging prospective emigrants, but the
setting up in 1826 of H.M.Colonial and Land Emigration
Commission with an office in London had at least provided a
channel for enquiries and information.
Since the 1820s Brighton newspapers had carried
occasional advertisements for shepherds, horsemen, and stock
breeders to take up jobs in New South Wales (which then
included Victoria) and Western Australia. There is interesting
evidence of one settler couple from these early years whose son
was in Brighton in 1852. On April 19 of that year a public
meeting was held in the Town Hall to discuss arrangements for
chartering a ship to take the second “Brighton band” of
prospective gold-seekers to Melbourne. One of the speakers was
(?Henry) Franklyn who said, “When he was there in 1844,
labour was in such demand that the workmen were better off
than their masters, and the shepherds than the sheep-owners,”
and that “if the work was not to their minds they could be sure
of getting it elsewhere.” Franklyn also said that he had been
born in Australia and that he intended shortly to return there.
He in fact sailed on the Hebrides a few weeks later with several
other Brightonians.
The majority of all emigrants to the colonies ― about four
fifths of them ― made their own arrangements for travel and
paid their own fares, from savings or probably loans from their
families and friends. The cost of fares to Australia, which had to
cover at least three months at sea, was several times that of
crossing the Atlantic. Employers who advertised for workers
perhaps paid or helped with fares, and at times of particular
shortages of labour in the colony, the government offered
3
assisted passages to certain categories of emigrants - shepherds
or drovers or house servants. The scheme started in 1838, was
suspended in 1841 and then resumed in 1847.
These were years of economic hardship at home, above all in
rural areas where agricultural labourers were thrown out of
work. Some migrated internally to the towns which offered
greater opportunities, but those left behind in the countryside
were forced to seek help under the Poor Law. Ratepayers were
among the most vociferous in claiming that emigration to the
colonies was the ideal solution to the problem of “superfluous
population.” Even so, poor families seeking (or being actively
encouraged) to emigrate could not have gone without financial
and practical help. Many charitable and philanthropic societies
were consequently set up to help prospective emigrants. The
Brighton Emigration Society started its work in the 1820s and
was still active at the end of the century. In 1849 Mrs Caroline
Chisholm (known as “the emigrant’s friend”) addressed a letter
to the Right Honourable Lord Ashley M.P. in favour of the
“Colonisation Loan Society, By the Grant of Loans for two Years
or more without Interest; or, A System of Emigration to the
Colonies of New South Wales, Port Phillip, and South Australia.”
Mrs Chisholm stressed the need for a Society “that will tend to
discourage idleness and diminish pauperism,” which would help
the poor man “to obtain a passage to that Colony, not as a
pauper, not as a criminal, but in the worthy position of a
borrower.” This was manifestly mid-Victorian Self Help in
vigorous operation.
Economic hardship at home was reason enough for many
to take the enormous decision to leave, almost certainly for
ever, the land of their birth, but this was not always the most
important factor. There were undoubtedly a few “black sheep”
trying to put their past behind them. (Even the Brighton
physician, Dr Christopher Rawson Penfold, who with his wife
Mary, settled in Adelaide in 1844, very probably left England
because of financial trouble. Mary’s special interest was winemaking, and the development of her business was the
foundation for the firm which today is one of Australia’s major
wine producers.) Some emigrants wanted to escape from
business failure (this was the case for at least one Brighton
man) or an unhappy marriage or other personal tragedy; some
were advised to go for the sake of their health. Many
undoubtedly went in a spirit of adventure, and generally coupled
with this was the belief that a new land offered new
opportunities and the chance somehow to make a better life.
4
Chapter 2. Leaving Brighton: Making Plans.
There was one further important reason for people to emigrate
if their political or religious situation was in some way marginal
to main society. Not just from Britain, where there was by this
time a slowly growing, if reluctant, tolerance of religious
differences, but from mainland Europe too, thousands emigrated
because of restrictions or persecution in their homeland. Their
chosen destination was generally America ― “the land of the
free”― but Australia increasingly offered the freedom they
craved.
This was essentially the reason for the departure from
Brighton in 1849 of “the Juniper and Wood party,” who were all
members of, or associated with, the Ebenezer Chapel on
Richmond Hill. As Particular (or Strict) Baptists they enjoyed
freedom of worship and were not persecuted as were many
dissenting Protestants on the Continent, but they deeply
resented the imposition of compulsory church rates. This legal
requirement was enforced to pay for the upkeep and repair of
the parish church and “the providing of things necessary for
Divine Service therein.” There had long been a strong radical
and dissenting tradition in Brighton and church rates (not
abolished until 1868) were a continual source of vexation to
Nonconformists and Jews. Defaulters could be, and were,
prosecuted for non-payment and “suffered distraint” on their
goods. Nine Brighton men were summoned for non-payment
early in September 1849, among them W. Samuel Tankard,
Charles Robert Thatcher and the attorney Richard Mighell. They
had engaged a London solicitor, Mr Boykett, to defend them.
The case was adjourned until later in the month and then
dismissed (probably on a technicality) but by this time Mighell
had already joined the Juniper and Wood party on board the
Harpley and was on his way to Australia. Tankard and Thatcher
were to follow three years later with the Brightonians bound for
the gold diggings.
It was the Ebenezer congregation which organized and
enabled the Juniper and Wood party to emigrate. John
Chandler’s Forty Years in the Wilderness begins with his
childhood in Brighton, his father’s various jobs and the different
houses they lived in according to how well (or badly) off the
family was at the time. Their attachment to Ebenezer, the “joy
and enthusiasm” of the service and the fellowship of their
friends in the congregation helped to make up for the hard
times suffered by the not-quite-poor in a generally thriving town
but where prices were high and there was much seasonal
unemployment. In 1848 many people talked of emigrating and
some went off to America. Then, John Chandler tells us, “Some
of the members of the Ebenezer Church met together, and after
much talk and many prayers, they resolved to emigrate. They
were therefore formed into a church by Mr Sedgwick (who had
baptised John’s father), with Mr John Turner as minister; Mr
5
Juniper and Mr Wood, deacons; members, male, Tyler,
Chandler, Foreman and Vincent; female, Juniper, Wood, Turner
and Foreman.” Juniper and Wood were both ironmongers in the
town and both had families, each of four children. There were
two childless couples (the Vincents and the Dadswells), the two
Newnham brothers (cousins of the Chandlers) a young man (he
was 19) called Thomas Harvey, and the attorney Richard Mighell
(the only professional man in the party was styled “gentleman”
in the ship’s list). James Tyler was a bookseller who had once
employed John Chandler’s father, Stephen, and Stephen Vincent
had been in the Brighton police. Stephen Charlwood, though not
a member of the Ebenezer congregation, came from a Baptist
family near Brighton and joined them on the Harpley.
John Chandler tells us that the Ebenezer party “proposed
taking up a large tract of country and equally dividing it into
farms, and to keep themselves a separate community.” This was
not to be confined to Baptists holding their own Calvinist beliefs,
but would be open to “those who approved of our doctrines.”
Turner, who was to act as secretary, applied (presumably
through HM Colonial Land and Emigration Commission) for a
grant of land from the Sydney government. They were offered
an area of land for settlement near Lake Colac, not far from
Melbourne.
The serious business of preparation for departure then
began. There appears to be no reference to any application for
financial help to any of the organisations, and state aid of any
kind would in any case conflict with their nonconformist
principles of independence and would have been strenuously
resisted. It is possible that the congregation itself helped
families in particularly difficult circumstances ― as the
Chandlers had been and probably were then. Several of the men
had to sell or leave their business and the Chandlers, like others
in the party, sold off their furniture and “bought many things,
such as tools and many kinds of seeds, guns, ammunition etc.”
Fares were paid and passages booked for the whole party on
board the emigrant ship Harpley.The ship left London on
September 6, 1849 bound for Adelaide and Port Phillip where
she arrived on January 6, 1850 with Juniper and Wood and their
friends.
There was a touching optimism among the Ebenezer
emigrants, supported by the strength of their faith, that men
who had never worked on the land would be able to tame the
wilderness that awaited them. In fact just two of the party were
well suited to the task ― the brothers Frederick and William
Newnham. They had “come from the country, and rather
astonished us townies with their rough hats and smock frocks.”
But the Juniper and Wood party said their farewells to family
and friends and prepared to leave England for ever,
strengthened by the thoughts and prayers of the Ebenezer
faithful.
How much they really knew about conditions in the bush
outside Melbourne we do not know. Some may have received,
6
or at any rate read, letters home from earlier emigrants. One
Brighton man, Mr Matthew Cooke, who worked at the post office
received a letter in August 1850 from his brother John who had
emigrated several years before, not to Melbourne but to
Western Australia. Conditions there were clearly difficult and
there was a certain resentment among settlers that the eastern
colonies were doing much better than they were. Another letter
published in Brighton at about the same time – from Henry
Smith to his parents – suggests that life in New South Wales
was no easier. Three months after the arrival in Melbourne of
the Juniper and Wood party in January 1850, a young man with
Brighton connections wrote to his parents from Sydney where
he had arrived nearly two years before. He was clearly in touch
with earlier emigrants from Brighton, none of them doing very
well. Thomas Lambert and his family would be cheered however
to learn in the not-too-far-distant future that among the
passengers listed as aboard the Statesman bringing the second
large party of Brightonians to Australia in 1852 were John
Lambert, engineer, with his wife, and W. Lambert, carpenter,
who were quite possibly relatives.
Brighton Gazette.
Letters received by Mr Matthew Cooke, of the post – office, from
his brother [John I. Cooke] who some years ago emigrated from
Brighton to Australia.
Northam, Western Australia
November 10th, 1849
I had almost forgotten I had promised to give you a
statement of the colony, in my desire to learn something of old
friends. I must begin by answering your first question, - what
sort of country is it? The coast on first sight has a most desolate
appearance in the eyes of all who arrive direct from England,
and many feel disappointed after landing; but I doubt if
Paradise itself will please all. It may be called one large plain
running all along the coast, and averaging perhaps 20 miles in
width from the sea to the foot of the mountains, interlaced with
abundance of beautiful rivers, with good soil on both banks
generally. Many of the rivers are not navigable, not even for
boats from the sea, there being almost always a sandy bay
across the entrance. The country I have so briefly described
may be called poor generally, but poor land in this climate may
be turned to profitable use, although very different to your
boasted English soil. In England poor lands are poor indeed;
here poor lands grow in luxurious perfection vines, olives, figs,
lemons and almost all European fruits. The part of the country I
reside in I will describe in my next.
Your next question – what are the general prospects of
the colony? With sorrow I must state that they are not just now
very bright. The colony is not advancing as it ought; the want of
labour, the high price of land, its internal and external enemies
combined, have all but ruined it; but I firmly believe better days
are at hand. Men begin to open their eyes, and many prejudices
7
are wearing away, for it is plain to all rational minded men that
the colony must possess abundant internal resources, or it
never could have surmounted and struggled through its
numerous difficulties; and after all I believe the colony to be out
of debt.
The emigrants’ chance of doing well or ill I will defer to
my next, also my own affairs; and as the sailors say, I must
hold on now and wind up by forwarding our kindest love to
yourself, sister Elizabeth, and all your children.
I remain, your affectionate brother
John.
Northam, Western Australia
1st January, 1850
I shall digress a little to give you the news of the week.
About ten days since, arrived a Spanish man-of-war at the Port
of Freemantle, the Ferolana, of 32 guns. She brought one
bishop, about 40 priests, shepherds and others connected with
the mission for the conversion of the aboriginal natives. Of
course, they are all Roman Catholics; but as they are said to be
well furnished with cash, you may feel certain they are right
welcome. I feel that their endeavours to civilise the native race
are useless, so long as one of the old stock of men and women
is living.
Since I wrote last a settlement has been made in the
newly discovered district to the northward, about 200 miles
from Perth, which I think promises to do more to advance the
colony than all that has hitherto been done for it, either here, in
England or elsewhere. There is sufficient good pasture land to
feed all the sheep and stock we at present possess. Many
thousands of acres scarcely require clearing. A plough may be
used in places for a mile without any thing to impede it, which
will furnish us with the means of growing corn as cheap as they
can in Adelaide, South Australia. A very superior lead mine,
containing a proportion of silver has been discovered. According
to assays made in South Australia, the silver is not in sufficient
quantities to pay for sending the ore to be smelted; but as the
ore sent to be assayed consisted only of surface specimens, it is
considered very probable that the lower they go down, the silver
may be in greater quantity. At all events there is abundance of
timber and coals in the neighbourhood of the mine to smelt all
the lead required in the colony, and there are good markets in
China and India for all that we could raise for years to come.
Some few tons of the ore will be on board the vessel that
conveys this letter to England (the Mary) intended for smelting
in Swansea. The ship will also convey to England specimens of
copper ore, also discovered on the Geraldine Mining Company’s
land, and not far from the lead mine.
[The writer here indulges in some invectives against
Government officials who, he says, were sent out for the
purpose of investigating the capabilities of the soil,
misrepresented facts, and thus prevented a fine country from
8
being rapidly populated, and its resources from being
developed.]
The ship Mary will convey a full cargo of wool and timber
to England; but I understand that she cannot take in half the
produce ready for shipment, so that you see we labour under
every disadvantage. We cannot even get ships. I firmly believe
that the reason the colony has been so neglected is that so
many of her enemies are interested in South Australia; and
although we are 1400 or 1500 miles nearer England, we are
passed by, whether deserved or not.
I will now endeavour to give you a statement of the
farmer’s position. I mean the majority. The want of population is
our bane in every way. We have no market for mutton or beef;
and hitherto, owing to the great expense of clearing land we
have not been able to grow wheat as cheap by 1s. a bushel as
the South Australians. Consequently we are inundated with their
flour etc; but I believe I may venture to say very little more will
be imported. We hope yet to shut them out of our market. Up to
this time, with the high price of wages, we have not been able
to grow and deliver at the mill, wheat under 4s or 5s per
bushel; but as the Pit colony of South Australia has been well
supplied by England with cheap labour, they can grow wheat at
about 1s a bushel cheaper.
At this time I have 500 or 600 good wethers for the
butcher, and I have offered them at 1d. per lb. when dressed
for sale, but no buyers. The butchers say “What is the good of
our buying? If you were to offer them at one farthing each we
could not sell or eat one pound more than we do now.”
Consequently, I must boil them down for the tallow. But is it not
a disgrace to you Englishmen when you know you have
thousands of poor Irish and Scotch labourers actually dying of
starvation and we are compelled to waste our flocks for the
want of their help? The retail market price of mutton is 1¼d per
lb., beef, 2d. The price of wool will not pay the expense of
shepherds at their present rate of wages, therefore we have no
alternative but boiling them. I began sheep farming when they
were £5 per head. I offered any number, but not a buyer, those
who were inclined to become sheep farmers remarked, “Where
is our market for wethers, and where are we to look for
shepherds? Sheep farming will not pay to import from England
shepherds at our own cost, unaided by Government, therefore
we had better keep our money in our pockets.” So you see the
farmers are living in rather bad times, but hope they will mend.
I must just observe, if the colony ever held out reasonable
inducements for men of small capital to come to it, they never
were so good as at present. Sheep can be purchased at 4s;
cows and calves (good) at £3; horses from £10 to £60; and
plenty of private lands at about one-fourth the Government
price, viz., 5s. per acre. I see I must defer to my next, many (to
us settlers) very interesting particulars respecting our adopted
homes, by again wishing you a happy new year and many of
them.
9
I remain &c,
Your affectionate brother,
John I. Cooke.
Brighton Gazette, 25th September, 1851
Sydney, April 9th, 1851
Dear Father and Mother
This comes with my kind love to you both, as also to my
brothers and sisters and I hope you will excuse me for not
writing before, as I have been so put about. I arrived in Sydney
on the 9th of June, after a fine, but long passage, since when I
have worked at my trade but two months out of a year and ten
months that I have been here. As many others are compelled to
do, I was forced to go up the country, 850 miles from Sydney,
as a shepherd, at the low wages of £15 per year. If you know of
any mechanic who wishes to rusticate at that wage, he will get
plenty of that employment here; but if he is inclined to get his
living at his trade, he must not come here, but had better stop
at home on half a loaf. Tell Jim, it would be no use his coming
out here, without he could bring £200 and his tools with him.
Then he might barely make as good a living as he makes at
home.
I think of working my passage home shortly; but if you
do not see me within twelve months from the present date, you
may expect to hear from me, either from California or some
part of the United States of America, as it is no use my stopping
here. I have had some rankles in my lifetime, but this bangs all.
It took me just six weeks to travel 850 miles, part of which was
a dense forest, 160 miles through, your only companions being
kangaroos, emus, cockatoos, parrots etc, with now and then a
black fellow and his family to be seen, stark naked, and about
every 50 or 70 miles, a lonely shepherd gunya, or bark hut, in
which you can lay on your bed, and count every star there is in
the heavens. I am very well in health, considering the heat of
this part of the world, together with the mosquitos, sand flies,
fleas etc, which breed here in millions and constantly annoy
you, night and day.
I don’t know that I have any more to say at present,
than if you write to me, you must write by return of post, and
you pay the postage, or I shall not get it, they will not let you
pay for a letter here, either going or coming, through which I
believe many letters never arrive. This concludes with my
kindest love to you all; and I remain
Your affectionate son
Henry Smith
PS Tell Jim to show this letter to Mrs Lambert, and let her know
that I am very intimate with Mr Howe; and Mr and Mrs Howe
are quite well and all their family, but, like myself, have been
sadly knocked about, although, like everybody else, in hopes of
doing better. They have not been out of Sydney, but as I have
told you before, he has not been half his time in work. They are
10
sadly disappointed at not receiving any letters from home, as
he has wrote letters and can get no answer. They often hear
from Thomas Lambert and his family, who are all quite well;
but, like ourselves, badly employed. Mr Howe will write again
very shortly.
See letter to Mr Cuttress on page 26.
11
Chapter 3. The Voyage of the Harpley 1849.
John Turner, on behalf of the emigrants from the Ebenezer
Chapel, had booked passages on the Harpley, and preparations
for leaving began in the summer of 1849 for some 60
Brightonians and their Baptist friends. There were at least 14
men (most of them fathers of families), nine wives and about 30
children of all ages. The Harpley a barque of 547 tons, was
berthed at St Katherine’s dock in London, and was scheduled to
sail on September 6. She had been built in Tasmania and
launched in 1847. Her maiden voyage was to England, taking
soldiers and their families to Plymouth. On the return trip she
had carried Nottingham lacemakers, refugees from the
manufactories near Calais, who, because of the political
situation in France, wished to settle in South Australia. Now, on
her second trip to and from England, she was to sail from
London, calling at Gravesend and Plymouth, and thence to
Adelaide and Melbourne. On September 20, the day before she
left Plymouth, the Plymouth Advertiser published a full and
somewhat glowing report on the Harpley and this was printed in
the Melbourne Argus on January 9, 1850, three days after the
ship’s arrival at Port Phillip. The English newspaper must have
been brought out on the voyage and presented to the Melbourne
journal by the captain, Thomas Buckland, or by Mr James
Raven, “a merchant of Launceston,” who was the owner of the
vessel and travelling on board with his wife. Such an account
would be a useful form of advertisement to attract future
voyagers.
Plymouth Advertiser, 20 September 1849
Under her three topsails and jib, with a stiff breeze from
the North East, and a strong ebb tide, the smart ship
Harpley appeared off Plymouth, on Monday morning, the
17th instant, and notwithstanding the opposition of both
elements, she, cutter like, gracefully entered the Sound,
and with conscious pride took up her anchorage at the
appointed station. Comparatively a few years since no
one would have imagined that the far distant colonists of
Van Dieman’s Land would have sent to the mother
country, a fine specimen of naval architecture, so well
qualified to mingle in one of her noblest ports, with the
merchant shipping of the parent state. The Harpley was
launched at Launceston on the 2nd of February, 1847, and
with the exception of her chain cables, was there supplied
with all her materials, stores, rigging, pumps, etc. She is
now, through the instrumentality of Messrs. Ford and Co.
destined to convey a cargo of British merchandise, and a
living freight back to Port Phillip. She is full ship-rigged,
and registers 570 tons, is fitted in the ‘tween decks right
fore and aft, with well ventilated cabins for four and sixes,
for which accommodation each person pays £18. Her
ample poop aft possesses an elegant saloon, into which
12
the superior cabins open. Near the rudder there is a very
convenient entrance to the saloon from the poop deck, by
which this part of the ship is most conveniently separated
from the main deck. The Harpley has all the usual
fitments for emigration, including one of Thompson’s life
boats, the lockers of which are fitted with cork. Mr
Thomas Buckland, a first-class master of considerable
colonial experience, commands her, and he has an able
crew of 10 officers and 24 seamen. Nearly 200 souls are
committed to their charge. Among the passengers is a
Baptist congregation of about 60 persons, who
accompanied by their ordained minister, Mr Turner, have
left Brighton in a body, intending to settle in one locality.
An experienced surgeon, Mr Smith, takes medical charge,
and a medical assistant, Mr Hays, goes out in this vessel.
Few emigrants have left the Sound under more
favourable auspices than those on board the Harpley. Her
agents in Plymouth are Messrs Luscombe, Driscoll, and
Co. and it is understood that at Melbourne she will load
for England, thus assisting to maintain that happy
connection between Great Britain and her colonies which
it is to be hoped will continue for centuries to come. The
Harpley left for her destination this (Wednesday)
afternoon, with a spanking wind from the north-east.
Quoted by Rolicker Chandler in The Migrant Ship Harpley
1847-1862.
Some passengers, including the Junipers and the
Chandlers, boarded the ship a week before she sailed. Memories
of that week remained with John Chandler until he wrote Forty
Years in the Wilderness, published many years later. He had an
uncle in London who took young John, then aged 12, to see the
sights: the Tower, St. Paul’s, the National Gallery, Trafalgar
Square and Westminster Abbey. There was a visit to Vauxhall
and another to a regatta at Gravesend, and one day John and
his friend William Juniper got lost finding their way to the British
Museum and back. John was a high-spirited lad, and on another
day he fell in the river and he was rescued by a Spaniard from
one of the ships berthed nearby.
The Harpley left at last and was towed down to
Gravesend, only to put back because of contrary winds. When
she did set off, the weather worsened, but an even greater
calamity then struck. Two men on board died of cholera. One of
the great dangers for any ship at sea was the outbreak of
infectious or contagious disease, and many deaths were caused
by cases of typhoid, typhus or diphtheria as well as cholera.
Government regulations in 1848 specified that emigrants must
be certified free of infectious diseases before embarkation.
There was in fact a cholera epidemic in England at the time the
emigrants left (in 1849 60,000 died) and later in September
1849 all chapels and meeting houses as well as the churches
13
took part in a Day of Humiliation and Prayer “to avert the
cholera.”(At Ebenezer the Rev. Joseph Sedgwick preached a
sermon on a text from the second Book of Samuel: “And David
said unto God, I am in a great strait…”) The bodies of the dead
men were put ashore at Deal with their families and luggage,
and the Harpley again went on its way. In the English Channel
they encountered very rough seas and took three days to get
round Beachy Head and several more to reach Plymouth. Here
some new passengers joined the ship and, John Chandler says,
one or two of those already on board “lost their passage rather
than go any further.” After three days in Plymouth the Harpley
left on September 23 and the pilot returned to land with the last
letters passengers could send back from the ship. The Brighton
Gazette reported on one letter received which described the
weather conditions, the sea-sickness and “the multitude of rats
with which the ship was infested, and which it was impossible to
keep under.”
In spite of a series of government regulations which
produced improvements over time, it was difficult to maintain
hygienic conditions at sea. Wooden ships often became waterlogged and worms invaded the rotten wood. There was a set
dietary to be provided for passengers and this was increased in
1849 from a weekly 7lbs of bread, flour, biscuits or rice (or the
equivalent in potatoes ― all supplied uncooked) to include also
oatmeal, tea, sugar and molasses (given out twice a week).
Passengers still had to buy (and cook) their own food, and the
smell of their stores in the cabins must have encouraged the
rats.
The 1849 dietary ought to have been operating when the
Harpley sailed, but John Chandler remembered that “Our ship
was very badly provisioned. First, potatoes were all done and
then other things ran short. The biscuits were very bad, and
nothing but downright starvation made us eat them. Our water
ran short, and they had to boil our plum duff in salt water,
which spoilt it.” The ship carried a good deal of livestock ―
sheep and pigs, chickens, ducks and geese ― which no doubt
added to noise as well as smell. All these were running short
when the voyage was only half way, but rations could be added
to by catching the occasional fish, shark or albatross. A few pigs
and sheep were kept to fatten up for Christmas.
Once the passengers had got over their sea-sickness
they were able to settle into some kind of routine on board.
There was no shortage of advice for intending emigrants and the
Brightonians may just have seen a copy of Sidney’s Emigrant’s
Journal, which was published in 1849. Much emphasis was
placed on physical exercise and “self improvement”: reading,
handicrafts, knitting and keeping diaries. Children might be
organised into classes for daily lessons. The Ebenezer emigrants
had plenty to occupy them, for they kept together as a
community. As members of a Particular Baptist congregation
they met regularly for worship and John Turner preached twice
on Sundays. The Wesleyans and Church of England also held
14
services but the Baptists were especially marked for good
singing. Under the direction of Edward Wood, they were invited
several times by the captain to give choral concerts on the poop
for passengers in the first class cabins. John Turner carried with
him a solemn printed Declaration of the Faith and Practice of the
Church of Christ which was to guide the building up of the new
church in Australia. Dated July 5th 1849, its Article Xll stated
“We believe that singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs,
is an ordinance of the gospel, to be performed by believers; but
as to time, place and manner, every one ought to be left to his
liberty in using it.” The Declaration has nothing to say about
dancing, and we do not know whether the Baptists took part
with the other “intermediates” in the dances held by them on
two nights a week, with music provided by the two fiddlers on
board. Passengers were urged to take exercise and drill, and
skipping would not demand much of the limited space available.
The tensions of living so long in crowded conditions were
bound sometimes to lead to quarrels and fisticuffs. One of the
Baptist party, Thomas Harvey, proved himself on one occasion
as a hero and John Chandler clearly enjoyed recalling the
incident in Forty Years in the Wilderness.
There was on man on board who was a great bully, his
name was Johnston; he was a big man. He insulted some
of the young men passengers. One of them threw some
soup and bully in his face. He vowed vengeance on them
when he caught them on deck. Next morning he caught
one of them, a much smaller man than himself, and
knocked him against the side on to some spare spars.
Another young man came up (I think he was going to the
galley for some hot water); his name was Thomas
Harvey, he was only 19 years old, whereas the other was
nearer 40. Johnston at once attacked Tom, but he soon
found out he made a mistake, as Tom knew a little of the
science of self-defence. He could not get a blow at Tom,
but was floored every time he came near him, and he
soon went to his cabin with his face bleeding, and crying.
Tom never got a scratch. All the passengers and sailors
were very glad to see this man taken down, especially by
a smaller man than himself. Of course Tom became the
hero of the ship, and all the would-be fighters had a great
respect for Tom after that. And we were very glad, for he
was one of our party, and his youngest sister is my wife
now.
The Ebenezer congregation might have passed a tolerably
happy voyage if it had not been for the illness of John Juniper.
His letter and that of his friend and fellow passenger, Edward
Wood, tell of his treatment for severe inflammation of the
bowels which brought him close to death. He finally recovered,
as Edward Wood recorded, “by the blessing of God,” for
although he was attended by the ship’s surgeon, Dr James D.
Smith, the medical man seems not to have been a great help,
15
except in the matter of bleeding and mustard plasters. Ships’
surgeons at this time did not enjoy very good reputations. They
might be young and inexperienced, or older men whose
standards had gone down with the years. Having personal
control of supplies of drugs and liquid “comforts” for the
treatment of patients, many became addicts or alcoholics.
According to John Chandler, the doctor on the Harpley used to
drink all day, “and drank all the medical comforts himself.” At
any rate, John Juniper survived, though sadly one of the
(?three) deaths on board was that of the baby delivered to
Naomi Dadswell at the end of November. Generally there would
be a funeral service before the body was committed to the sea.
One ceremony everyone looked forward to was “crossing
the line.” The Harpley crossed the equator at 4pm on October
25. Water on board was very short, so there was no ducking or
shaving of “first timers.” Neptune however decreed an allowance
of grog to all passengers “to return thanks”, the usual tar barrel
was set on fire and thrown overboard and the evening finished
with music and a dance on the poop. The weather by now was
hot and some of the passengers and crew swam round the ship.
One non-swimmer put on a lifebelt and joined them. As the ship
drifted the distance between them increased and once more it
was Tom Harvey who came to the rescue. He jumped
overboard, swam to the man and pushed him to the side of the
ship.
After more than two months at sea the ship was rounding
the Cape when it ran into a severe storm which soon became a
hurricane. John Chandler remembered that all night he lay on a
table “with a strap around me, fastened to one of the uprights
to keep me from rolling off.” The passengers had good reason to
be alarmed. One of the crew, Jim the sail-maker, was lost
overboard when he was blown off the yardarm during the night.
The mountainous seas swept over the sides and flooded into the
cabins, drenching beds and clothing. Men had to be lashed to
the pumps and the wheel to keep the ship going. At last the
winds and the sea died down for the last part of the voyage.
The Harpley was to call en route in South Australia, and
the handful of passengers leaving the ship were transferred to a
small boat for the remaining fourteen miles into port. Some of
the Juniper and Wood party, longing to set foot on land after
more than three months on board, decided to make the trip into
Adelaide and their letters describe their first impressions of
aspects of the voyage and of Southern Australia.
Brighton Gazette 25th April 1850
Early last September Messrs Juniper and Wood and their
families, together with a large party of emigrants from
this town, sailed from the Downs in the emigrant ship,
Harpley, for Australia, where they arrived safe and well
16
on the evening of Christmas Day, as we learn from
letters received in Brighton on Tuesday evening by their
friends. We have been favoured with extracts from
these letters, which will be read with interest. The
following was received by Mr Juniper, of the Western
Road, from his brother. The Australian post mark is
dated 2nd January 1850.
Adelaide, South Australia
December 26, 1849
My dear Brothers and Sisters,
Through mercy, we are all safe, and just arrived in
Adelaide to unship part of the emigrants, and all well, thank
God. We left London, as I wrote you before, on the sixth
September, and Gravesend on the ninth. We then encountered
contrary winds and heavy seas in the Downs, and lost two
emigrants with cholera, and one seaman. Great part of the
emigrants ill with sea-sickness. My dear wife and Mr Wood
continued so for nearly three months. We arrived at Plymouth
on the 20th, and left on the 23rd; and on the seventh of October
I was taken very ill with inflammation of the bowels. I was bled
about seven o’clock in the evening; at ten I had a mustard
plaster over my stomach; and at eleven another. The surgeon
then left me with a gentleman; and I overheard him say, they
would wait till twelve o’clock, when there would be a change
one way or the other. By the blessing of God, there was a
change for the better. I kept my bed about a fortnight; and,
after that, I had my mattress on the skylight of the poop, and
lay down there for about five weeks, sleeping at night in the
saloon of the cabin, as being more healthy than our cabin
‘tween decks. The captain was exceedingly kind, under the
circumstances. My dear wife and Mrs Wood have had hardly a
well day since we left London; but are now getting much better,
with every appearance of continuing so. We sighted three
islands on our voyage and spoke to three vessels only. The
voyage is a long and trying one to those not accustomed to it.
We had a good strong vessel, which only wanted fresh caulking.
We were much annoyed with water running in at our berths in
rough weather. We have a good captain, mates, and crew. We
caught several large birds, called the albatross, some of which
measured eleven feet from tip to tip of wing, and one small and
one large shark. On nearing the Australian land, a sailor fell
overboard and was drowned. We caught a fine porpoise, which
was cut up and eaten by the emigrants and crew, on Christmas
Eve. We had fresh pork, mutton, and goose on Christmas day,
with good plum pudding, green-gage pie, etc., that is me and
my dear wife, from the cabin, plenty of rum, and a bottle of
port wine the owner of the vessel gave me (we have the owner
and his wife with us, who have provisions in Australia for
repairing lead pipes and other things in my line). They have
been very kind to me. We have several passengers and some
freights to leave at Adelaide; and expect to stop five or six
days, and then go on to Port Phillip. Stephen and Susan and
17
Robert and Naomi are all quite well. Naomi (Mrs Dadswell) was
confined with a dead child on the twenty sixth of November,
and has got up again quite comfortably. Louisa and Naomi have
been very sea-sick, and Stephen, like most of the men, had to
provide and do all the household work, but they all got over it
before we came near Australia. Stephen is helping with my son
John in the cuddy, and they get some good scraps. We arrived
at Adelaide on Christmas Day at night, when near the whole of
the emigrants were on deck. It was a beautiful moonlight night;
and this morning is a most beautiful morning, and all well and
in good spirits, the Lord be praised. Mr Turner has preached
twice on Sundays; prayer meetings in the afternoon, and twice
a week with singing, reading and prayers every night, ‘tween
decks. We hope this will find you all well. We wish you every
blessing. Please to inform all our dear friends of our arrival. My
wife’s mother will be very glad to hear, as it will so gladden her
poor heart to hear of our safe arrival. We will write you again
when we arrive at Port Phillip, and get settled a little. It looks a
beautiful country.
From your affectionate brother and sister,
J. and S. Juniper.
Subjoined is an extract from a letter received by Mrs Gillam, of
Russell Street, from her son-in-law Mr Wood, the partner of Mr
Juniper:Port Adelaide, South Australia,
December 25th, 1849.
Dear Mother, We have had a delightful passage. Not one single
storm, and only three days’ rain. We have all suffered from seasickness, except little George and the baby, who is quite fat and
runs alone on the deck. Mr Juniper has had a very dangerous
attack of inflammation; but is now quite recovered. He is as thin
as a lath. We have been weeks together, and not seen a ship.
We passed the Brightman off the Cape of Good Hope. That was
the ship that went on shore at Worthing, before we left London,
and she has not arrived here yet. We have seen a great many
whales, and have caught a shark, and a porpoise. If you direct
to me at the Post Office, Melbourne, Port Phillip, the letter will
reach us. We dined today on preserved potatoes, with sage and
onions, and slices of pork, baked, with a nice plum pudding, and
had a bottle of sherry to wash it down. At the time we were
eating our dinner, it was between four and five in the morning
at Brighton. The weather here is very hot, and in the middle of
harvest, but as we have not been on shore we cannot tell you
anything about the country. We saw a newspaper this morning,
which said that raspberries, and black currants, and apples, and
pears were now ripe, so that we hope to have a feast when we
go on shore. We must now conclude by wishing you a merry
Christmas and a happy new year. We are obliged to send you a
short letter as the mail is expected to leave for England.
Goodbye!
18
May the Lord bless you all, are the prayers of your son and
daughter, Edward and Mary Wood.
The following is an extract of a letter from Mrs Juniper, written
on the cover of the above letter:My husband and me and about 20 more went on shore to
Adelaide on Wednesday, and remained all night, and enjoyed
ourselves very much, after sixteen weeks on board the Harpley.
The place is very new; but as fine shops as in England. I could
not fancy myself anywhere but in London. We had a good bed;
but could not sleep for the musquitoes and bugs. We are just
come back, and going to Port Phillip. The captain has given
orders for sailing today. We expect to get to our journey’s end,
on or about the sixteenth of January.
The following is an extract of a letter received by Mr Gillman, of
St James’s Street, from Mr Wood:Port Adelaide, Dec. 25, 1849.
Dear Brother Gillman
Having been disappointed in not having met any
homeward bound ships to send you any account of our passage
towards the land of our adoption, I now sit down to write to you
some little account of the voyage, and of our safe arrival at the
port of Adelaide, in South Australia. I should have kept a diary
had I not been suffering with my dear wife and children from
sea-sickness during the first part of the voyage; but knowing
the kind interest you feel in our welfare, I shall send you the
principal events of the voyage, as far as memory will supply
them. We left Plymouth with a fair wind and beautiful weather;
but had scarcely lost sight of land before most of us were
overtaken by sea-sickness (Mr Wood here relates his duties as
housewife, in consequence of the sickness of his family.) The
sickness began to abate in a fortnight after leaving Plymouth. It
left us when we came to the line. Mr Juniper was in imminent
danger of his life; but, by the blessing of God, he has
recovered. As regards spiritual things, shipboard is the place
(particularly an emigrant ship) to try both faith and patience. As
regards the voyage from Plymouth to Adelaide, it has been a
most extraordinary one for us. We started with a fair wind,
which continued with scarcely any intermission. We arrived at
32º north latitude, on October 2nd; and a few days later
entered into the trade winds. Oct. 8th we entered into the Tropic
of Cancer, the weather continuing very fine and warm, the
trade winds blowing very regularly with a stiff breeze. Oct. 7th,
saw a great many flying-fish, and some whales spouting the
water. Oct.15th, 8 degrees north of the Line, the wind light and
variable, the heat very oppressive, particularly at night. Several
were obliged to sleep on deck. Saw several homeward-bound
ships; but all too far off to speak to. October 17th, were almost
becalmed, but saw a ship making up to us so that we were
busily engaged writing letters to send to England; but were
19
disappointed in her not being able to come close alongside. Our
captain spoke to her through a speaking trumpet; and reported
us all well, and desired the captain to report us when he arrived
in England. It was the Lima bound to Cork, from Lima in South
America. In a few days after we crossed the line, but did not
find it so hot as we expected. We were favoured with light
winds almost all the time we were in the tropics, our captain
having run the ship considerably nearer the American Continent
than the African, which you will perceive by looking at the map
for the Island of Trinidad, which we passed on the 4th of
November, after which we passed the Island of Tristad Accona,
and then stretched east for the coast of Australia having stiff
breezes blowing us along till we made land, which we saw on
Sunday morning the 23rd December. But here the wind veered
round to the north, so that we did not make the port of Adelaide
till Christmas day, when we cast anchor for the first time since
we left Plymouth. We had no deaths since then; but we have
had two births. One poor seaman fell overboard, and was lost
the night before we reached the land of Australia. I must now
conclude, my dear brother, wishing you and your dear wife
every spiritual and temporal blessing; and may you be
continually favoured with His gracious presence! Please to give
my kindest love to Mr Sedgwick and his dear wife. Tell him we
do not forget him at the throne of Grace. The cause at Ebenezer
still lays near our hearts in affection; and we do not forget to
pray for its prosperity. It is with pleasure and thankfulness that
I sometimes feel that the very propitious voyage that we had,
has been in answer to the prayers of our dear friends in
England.
Yours in Christian love and affection,
Edward Wood.
To Mr W. Gillman
P.S. Please to give my kind respects to Mr Martin and Mr
Mighell.
20
Chapter 4. The Juniper and Wood party: Arrival in Australia.
The Harpley at last arrived in Hobson’s Bay on January 6, 1850.
It was 122 days since the ship sailed from London, 111 days
from Plymouth, without touching land except at Adelaide. There
were no wharves large enough for the Harpley to berth in Port
Phillip, so a small steamer, the Diamond, came alongside to
collect the passengers and their luggage and land them at
Queen’s Wharf.
John Chandler retained vivid memories of his introduction
to Melbourne. He was left alone, with a hot wind blowing, to
mind the luggage while Mr Foreman went in search of a house
in the town. It was four hours before he returned with a horse
and dray, to the great relief of the lonely and anxious boy.
Stephen Chandler had found a house for his family in Little
Lonsdale Street the day before. It had two rooms but only one
door.
First impressions of Melbourne were “anything but
delightful.” John recalled that there were no roads made, and
stumps and logs of trees lay about in the dusty streets. The
shops were mostly one-storied, with canvas verandahs. The
footpaths were all gravel and there were no kerbs.
There were already Baptists in Melbourne, and they met
for worship at the house of the first Baptist minister in the
town, John Joseph Mouritz. The Ebenezer congregation joined
them on their first Sunday in Australia, and Mr Turner preached.
The following week they went to hear him preach at the Collins
Street Baptist Chapel, but after that they took a room for
themselves at the Mechanics’ Institute for worship. The land at
Colac was still waiting for the Ebenezer Baptists to take up their
settlement but disappointment was in store for them. Mr Turner
showed no inclination to lead them to their own promised land,
and instead bought a house in the town where he lived for 46
years, ministering to the earlier settlers and introducing a new
doctrine - “that the Holy Spirit should not be addressed in
prayer” – which was opposed by most of his Brighton flock. The
familiar Ebenezer ways were re-established among them and
new members were attracted, and baptised in the Yarra River.
There now seemed little hope of developing the
settlement at Colac – a matter of bitter disappointment to
Stephen Chandler as he had laid out almost all he had on tools
and seed. He and the other men now had to find work of some
kind. Mr Wood and Mr Tyler bought small farms at Preston close
to Melbourne, while the Chandler family left to work on a farm
about twenty miles away. The horse pulling the dray carrying
their furniture and other possessions bolted and many things
were broken and lost, and the bullocks brought to replace it on
the bush tracks ran into some trees and nearly capsized. John
Chandler’s own words describe graphically this nightmare
journey.
21
My father engaged with Mr Mouritz at his farm as
overseer, my mother as dairy-woman, and I had to
herd the cows. Before we left Melbourne there were
two members added to the Church, Mr W. Wade, of
Bulleen, and another. They were baptised by Mr
Turner in the Yarra, at the Falls, where the Queen’s
bridge is now. A small tent was erected on the bank of
the river for them to change in. This was the first
baptising of Strict Baptists in Victoria. The river was a
beautiful clear stream at that time.
We started to go to the farm which was about 20
miles from Melbourne. Most of our luggage was put on
a bullock dray, with some stores; the remainder was
put on a bullock dray, on which we were to ride. As it
was not deemed safe for us to ride on the horse dray,
as the horse was very excited, we all got on the
bullock dray and made a start. The bullocks were slow,
and of course there were no roads, only a bush track.
We had many exciting scenes, for it was dark, and the
thick forest made it much darker. We ran into some
trees and very nearly capsized, and then in crossing a
creek, the bullocks would not or could not hold the
dray back, so they ran down the steep bank into the
water where they stopped, drays, bullocks, and all
mixed up in a lump. There was very much confusion,
for it was dark, and we did not know whether we
should all be drowned. Then there was a tremendous
lot of hollering and swearing, for bullock drivers as a
rule use very foul language, and when they are
excited, as they were then, it rolls out in such a way to
make one shudder. After some time (and very nearly
capsizing us into the creek), they got the team right,
and we started again; the drivers being very wet and
bad tempered, for they had been up to their waist in
water. We had many narrow escapes, for it was very
dark in the forest, but we arrived safe at our
destination just as dawn was breaking. We were very
tired and half dead with the fright we had during the
night, and were very glad to turn into an old slab hut,
with the ground for a floor, and a few sheets of bark
for a roof. We were all soon asleep.
Work at the farm was very hard, and the young John had to
mind the cows and learn to manage the bullocks, while his
mother did the dairying work – skimming, churning, feeding the
calves and pigs – and his father “soon found that he had to turn
his hand to anything.” The hands employed on the farm were
“Ticket-of-Leave” men from Van Dieman’s Land – convicts who
were allowed to work away from the prison before their
sentence was completed. John Chandler enjoyed listening to
them tell their strange yarns round the fire on a winter’s night,
22
and watched them picking up hot cinders with their fingers to
light their pipes. He said he never wished to meet with betterhearted men.
John Chandler wrote of his memories many years later,
but both John Juniper and Edward Wood sent letters back to
Brighton that tell in some detail of the life in Melbourne soon
after their arrival. Prices of everyday goods were reported in
detail as well as news of various members of their party. The
family letters were published in the Gazette and John Juniper
kept his promise to send an account to the Brighton Herald.
Brighton Herald, Saturday 27 July 1850.
We have received the following letter from Mr Juniper (of the
firm Juniper and Wood, ironmongers, North-St), who lately
emigrated from Brighton with a large party of their fellow
townsmen. It will be read with interest by Mr Juniper’s many
friends.
Melbourne, Port Philip, Australia
March 8, 1850
Sir,- According to my promise, I write to give you the
best information I can get, with the little experience I have as
yet had of this far distant land – the land of Promise. Certainly,
it is a good land and productive a few miles from the sea. I
have seen as fine gardens seven or eight miles from Melbourne
as in England, with fruit trees and vines loaded with fruit, which
fetches a good price in the market, there being but few
gardens, comparatively, to the number of inhabitants, and few
gardens to houses in or near the town; for the people are so
intent on getting money, that they do not look to comforts of
house or garden, so that scarce anyone grows so much as a
cabbage.
Land is getting very dear in and near the town. Some
ground was sold the other day in town at the rate of two
thousand pounds the acre, and in the suburban districts £30,
£40, and £50 the acre. Eight or nine miles from town,
Government is selling land at £1 per acre; but it requires great
labour to clear and cultivate it. Land is being taken up and laid
out in little farms, to the great annoyance of the large
aristocratic sheep and cattle farmers, who are being driven, like
the kangaroos, far into the interior.
The town of Melbourne has more than doubled in size
within the last two years and is a very rising place. Many
persons are making rapid fortunes, while, as in England, many
are not, although I have not heard of any one being in want; for
if a man, or boy, or woman will work, they are well paid.
Meat and bread are very cheap; fine legs of mutton, 2d.
per lb; fore-quarter of mutton, 1¾d. per lb.; best rump steaks
2d. per lb.; and two or three lbs. of meat, off a fresh shin of
beef, given in for the dog. Bread, 2½d. and 3d. the 4lb loaf, and
very good – the best I ever ate or saw. Fine water melons, as
big as a man’s hat, for 3d., 4d., and 6d. each; but for all this, it
23
is not the country for every man. I have seen many that have
come out who have wished they had stopped at home. It is a
good country for a man to come to that works hard at home for
anything under twenty shillings a week; but for clerks there is
no room in the towns; they are obliged to go in the Bush to tend
cattle or sheep. There have been a great many vessels here
lately with full cargoes of emigrants – two from Germany –
within a fortnight, and many more expected, and a large
number of different trades; and my candid opinion is, that if a
person is getting a comfortable living at home, or is in some
things a little inconvenienced, he had better stop at home; for if
he comes here he will not find it all smooth, and the sacrifice
that they make, and the long and tedious voyage, are such as
would not be compensated by the change – that is, in most
cases.
House rent is very high in town. It is a well laid–out town
– the streets very wide and straight, and cross streets at right–
angles; many good houses and shops, and auction sales of
merchandise nearly every day; but the goods brought out from
England in many cases do not fetch the invoice price, by 20, 30,
and 40 per cent, there being a glut in the market; and parties
coming out will do well to bring money instead of goods. I have
commenced in ironmongery again. I have taken a house at £73
a year. Mr Wood, my late partner, and Mr Tyler, have bought a
small farm each, and are about entering on it – about six miles
from Melbourne. The rest of the Brighton emigrants with us
have got into business or into work. Mr Turner, the Baptist
minister, performed service on the poop all the voyage, and is
likely to be settled in Melbourne, as the people are willing to
support him and have taken the Mechanics’ Hall for him, and
some are building him a chapel. The whole of the Brighton
emigrants arrived safe and are, I believe, in good health. We
had what is called a good voyage – 97 days out. We called at
Adelaide on Christmas Day, and they were in the middle of their
harvest.
I visited a boiling–down establishment at Geelong, where
they were boiling down a thousand sheep a day which lasted
many weeks; and then came the bullocks for the same purpose.
The heads were used for fuel for the furnace. The native
population are fast decreasing, as also is the snake. The
Melbourne paper relates a sad circumstance from a Van
Dieman’s Land paper of a boy having being bit by a snake
through the heel of his boot. His heel took to swelling, and he
died in a few hours. Some time after the next brother was taken
with a similar swelling in the heel and died also in a few hours;
and in a short time after the third brother was taken and died.
This caused a physician to go and enquire the cause. He
examined the boy’s boot and there found the tooth of the snake
the first boy was bit by, and the other boys had, one after the
other, worn the boot with the tooth, which had grazed the heel.
The vessel is about to start for England. I must therefore
close this long, and, perhaps, you will say, tedious epistle. If
24
you think that a part or the whole is worth a place in your
paper, you can use it; if not, please send it to my brother,
Charles Juniper, top of North-St., Brighton.
John Juniper, Ironmomger, Melbourne,Port Philip, Australia
Brighton Gazette 1st August 1850.
A letter has been received by Mr Cuttress, miller, 3 Clifton
Terrace from Mr Wood, of the firm Juniper and Wood who left
this town towards the close of 1849 for Australia.
Melbourne, March 9th,1850
Dear Brother and Sister ,It is with great pleasure I write to inform you of our safe
arrival at Port Phillip on the 6th January. We had a very
delightful voyage but a great deal of sea-sickness – Mrs Wood
suffered a great deal, but is quite well now. This is a very
delightful country but trade is not so good as was represented
at home. Provisions are cheap here. We get a fore quarter of
good mutton for 1s.6d.; beef, 2d per lb; tea, 1s.6d. per lb.;
coffee, 9d.; and sugar, 3d. I have opened a shop and am selling
Jones’s patent flour and fine and seconds flour, so that I am
now in your trade. There are no windmills here, but plenty of
steam and watermills. Since we have been here the wind has
not blown strong enough for a windmill. I have just bought a
little farm in good cultivation, with a house, pig stys and sheds,
and ten acres of land, all fenced in, with a nice garden and fruit
trees, for £100. I think of farming and carrying on the flour
trade together, so that I shall have my hands full of work. The
next time I write I will tell you how we are getting on. I have
not seen any snakes since we have been here, but plenty of
flies and mosquitoes. There are no beggars here, and we have
been miles in the country, but very seldom see any blacks.
What few there are very harmless. Very few people here have
any gardens, they in the town keep hens and goats, some keep
a cow, which costs them 6d a week for a man to take and drive
them several hundred in a drove a few miles into the country to
feed. I am going to buy two cows off Stephen Vincent on
Monday next, for £3.10s. The two Mr Vincents and Mighell have
hired three acres of land and a cottage for £12 a year, which I
think is very dear. Mr Juniper has opened an ironmonger’s shop
in Melbourne. Mr Tyler has bought thirty acres of land next to
mine; Mr Foreman is going to have five acres off him. Tell Mr
Waterer and Mr Wigney I shall write soon to them. Give my love
to all enquiring friends.
I remain, yours sincerely,
E.Wood.
25
Chapter 5. Early days in Melbourne and the Gold Rush begins.
The Juniper and Wood party gradually adjusted to their new
lives in Australia. John Chandler, still only 12 in 1850, took a
number of jobs that often demanded hard physical labour and
the strength of a grown man. First he was to handle bullocks,
later pigs and horses. For a time he was employed in a
brickworks. These were hard times for the whole family. John’s
father, Stephen, the main breadwinner, was only earning one
pound a week, seven shillings of which went on rent. His mother
started a school for small children and when this venture failed
the family moved to “a little hut in Little Lonsdale Street” at a
cheaper rent. She then began to take in washing for a boarding
school and John started work as an errand boy, but found he
was not strong enough to carry heavy loads. All the family were
brought low with poor health caused by overwork (in addition to
their outside employment water and wood had to be fetched at
the end of the working day), and an inadequate diet meant
semi-starvation. Sadly for the recent arrivals, the prosperity of
earlier years had been too narrowly based on its wool exports,
and when prices fell a slump followed. Land prices too fell and
there were many insolvencies. John’s job with the 600 pigs he
had to mind and feed was at “Raleigh’s boiling down place.”
“Boiling down” works sprang up where previously valuable
animals were sold for a few pence for tallow, which became a
more valuable export.
Back in England, Brighton continued to expand and enjoy
its reputation as the premier seaside resort on the south coast,
and was by now the well-established “Queen of Watering
Places.” By the end of 1850 however the focus shifted to
London where the Prince Consort had begun to chair meetings
of the committee formed to plan for a great exhibition to be
held the following year. In May 1851 people all over Britain
shared in the excitement as Queen Victoria, accompanied by
her husband Prince Albert opened the “Crystal Palace” in Hyde
Park. It took 18 acres to house this first truly international
exhibition. Special excursions brought thousands from every
part of the country to wonder at the marvellous collections of
objects, many of them made in Britain but also displaying
ingenious inventions and manufactures from other parts of the
world. Early in June the London, Brighton and South Coast
Railway Company was offering its workmen free excursions,
each man given two tickets to see the exhibition. One Monday
morning a special train left Brighton station “at a quarter before
seven o’clock….with the engine gaily decorated with flags and
evergreens, and the railway band playing appropriate airs.” On
that day two trains were needed to carry 1155 persons to
London. In July the Gazette, under the heading “The Poor and
the Great Exhibition,” reported on a trip being arranged for the
“bathers of the town” (women who were employed to “dip”
visitors in the sea) and another for over 300 children from
Charity Schools in Brighton.
26
Meanwhile, at the other side of the world, there was
excitement for quite a different reason. There had often been
rumours that shepherds in the Blue Mountains close to Sydney
had found small pieces of gold washed down in the streams.
Little was made of this talk, and the attention of the world was
focused on the discovery of gold in California. Between 1848
and 1850 the population of San Francisco increased from 1500
to 15,000. In 1850 two hundred ships left Sydney for California.
One man spent little time there digging for gold, but was intent
on seeing exactly where and how the discoveries were made.
From his observations he believed that similar terrain in
Australia might be gold country. In January 1851 Edward
Hargreaves arrived back in Sydney and made for the Blue
Mountains. He soon struck gold. By April operations had begun
at Ophir and in May on the Turon river, earning him a reward
from Governor Fitzroy of £10,000. (The sad death of “poor
Henry Roberts” took place on the Turon. See page 40.)
As these discoveries were being made in the Blue
Mountains, not far from Sydney, preparations were under way
in Melbourne for the formal separation of the Port Phillip area
from the rest of New South Wales. The year had begun badly,
with a great and terrible bush fire in February, known ever after
as Black Thursday. It was experienced by John Chandler when
he took his horses to water at the river and was engulfed by
dust, smoke and ashes. A few months later these events were
almost forgotten as Charles Joseph La Trobe, appointed in 1838
as Superintendent of the Port Phillip province (he took up his
duties in 1839) prepared to assume his new title of LieutenantGovernor of the sixth independent colony in Australia, named
Victoria for the queen. With a new constitution he could now
exercise his powers without reference to the Government in
Sydney. There was general rejoicing in Melbourne, with a grand
procession, flags, illuminations and bonfires. Elections followed
for the new parliament. The discovery of gold in New South
Wales suggested that it might be worth prospecting in Victoria.
A meeting was held at the Mechanics’ Institute in Melbourne on
June 9,1851 and a reward of 200 guineas was offered for the
discovery of gold in profitable quantities within 200 miles. In
July gold was found at Clunes, in August at Buninyong, in
September at Ballarat, in October at Castlemaine (Mount
Alexandra) and Forest Creek and in December at Bendigo.
Shipping across the Pacific now reversed direction and the
“army of ants” all over the colony heralded the beginning of the
great Australian gold rush.
When news of the first discoveries at Buninyong and
Ballarat reached the Chandlers, John and his father were
loading stores at a quarry. One of the other men said “No more
stone, Chandler, we are off to the diggings tomorrow.” The two
Chandlers formed a party with their Baptist friends – Messrs.
Juniper, Wood, Tyler, Allen, Vincent, Dadswell and Fairhall. In
his memoirs, John Chandler remembered that “they all got
tents, stores, tools, cradles, ropes, tin dishes, buckets and
27
everything they thought was necessary” and off they went. The
going was very difficult and on their first night they held a
meeting round the camp fire, and “hymns were sung and prayer
was offered up.” They were among the first parties on the road,
but already there were “all sorts” going – “doctors, lawyers,
tradesmen, farmers, sailors and policemen,” some with
possessions carried in carts, or by horses or bullocks, and
others pushing wheelbarrows. They all had a bad time going
through Bacchus Marsh, then up and over hills, only to find
another marshy area, Blow’s Flat, ahead of them. The drays
were bogged down more than once and had to be lifted up with
levers while logs were put down, and then pulled out with
ropes. After travelling over 80 miles, they arrived at Golden
Point, and made their camp. In John’s words, “There were
about 200 tents there, but no stores; most people had brought
their own. The next day was the Sabbath, and as it was raining
we fixed up a tarpaulin, tied to four saplings, and under this
was preached the first sermon that was preached on Ballarat. A
true, simple Gospel sermon by Mr D.Allen, and the forest rang
with the praise of the Lord. We had some good singers, and
many came round attracted by the singing…”
It is sad to record that the following day Stephen
Chandler was ill with dysentery and quickly became worse.
Stephen Vincent also became ill, and young John, though “much
disappointed for I wanted some gold,” accompanied the two
men on their return journey back to Melbourne. Here he found
his mother unwell too. For a time John stayed in Melbourne,
where the work was still hard, buy generally wages were good
as so many of the men were away at the diggings. Many stayed
at the diggings in the hope of making their fortunes. The
Brighton Gazette published a letter as early as January 22,
1852, received by Mr J.O.N. Rutter, Superintendent of Black
Rock Gas Works, and written from Sydney on August 23 of the
previous year. His correspondent (who may or may not have
originated in Brighton) wrote “You will ere now have heard of
our wonderful discovery. This is the land of Gold! Here I have
been residing more than thirty years in the very midst of
aurifluous treasures; and never knew, or suspected the fact,
until about three months ago.” He continued his letter on
September 10 from Rocky Point, George’s River, near Sydney,
relating the tale of “a person of the name of Hargreaves” who
had rightly guessed that “the Bathurst district (of New South
Wales) possessed gold as abundantly as California.” By the
middle of 1851 however the new colony of Victoria was already
showing promise of an even greater abundance of those
“aurifluous treasures.”
At last, in June there was one letter in the Gazette from a
member of the Juniper and Wood party – Louisa Vincent. This
adds more immediate impressions to John Chandler’s account,
written many years later. Its tone is positive and optimistic, and
shows how the Ebenezer Baptists stuck together and sensibly
shared their time between the diggings and other necessary
28
work (cutting the hay and the corn) and temporary jobs
(particularly carting) which enabled them to make a reasonable
living, with just a chance of finding a golden fortune.
Already, in April, the Gazette had published extracts from
two letters “just received in Brighton” from “Elizabeth” to her
brother and father. Accompanied by “George”- presumably her
husband – she had travelled out to Australia independently
some time in 1851. From her account it seems that they were
first class passengers on the ship and the mention of titled
friends suggests that they were socially superior to, and
certainly had no connection with, the Ebenezer Baptists of the
Juniper and Wood party or the “mechanics and tradesmen’s
sons” who were to follow them in 1852. George’s intention was
to “take a (sheep?) station” – an occupation considered suitable
for a gentleman. Anthony Trollope, whose son Frederic was to
do just this a dozen or so years later, referred to their status as
akin to “colonial aristocracy, what the lords and the county
gentlemen are at home.” Unfortunately the acquisition of vast
acres of grazing land was an expensive business even at a time
of economic depression and George had not got enough money
“so his friends persuaded him to go to the diggings.” George
was lucky in that this was the year that gold had been
discovered in Victoria and the early arrivals at the diggings had
the advantage of the best pickings on or near the surface. We
do not know what happened to George or Elizabeth, though by
November 25 (the date of the second letter,) she was at least
temporarily established in Brighton, one of Melbourne’s new
suburbs facing Port Phillip Bay, and had already acquired from
colonial “old hands” a shaky understanding of aboriginal beliefs
and practices. Unfortunately there is no clue to the identity of
Elizabeth.
One other letter published in the Gazette in 1852 came
from a Brighton man that we do know about. It was sent by
William James Palgrave to his sister, Mrs Kitchner, of East
Street. He had arrived independently in Australia in 1849 – that
is, before the Juniper and Wood party. He does not seem to
have had any connection with the Brighton Baptists, and John
Chandler never mentions him in Forty Years. Palgrave brought
with him his wife’s nephew, Alfred Nye, then aged two. When
gold was discovered he was among the first at the diggings.
Unfortunately his earlier letter to his sister was not published,
but that of August 1852 records that he had already
experienced both success and failure as a gold seeker. (His first
wife died in Australia in 1859 and he returned to England with
his three girls, leaving behind Alfred, then about thirteen years
old. His name appears, with a new family, in the 1881 census,
when he was a boarding-house keeper in Brighton.)
29
Brighton Gazette, Thursday, June 24th 1852
Letter from a Brighton emigrant to Australia (Louisa Vincent.)
Melbourne, February 21st, 1852
My dear Sisters and Brothers,
I am happy to say that I have enjoyed good health ever
since I have been here, and now I must say something about
the gold fields, which I expect you have heard of; for I know
there is a good deal come to England, from here, where it has
made a great change in everything. Although gardening was a
good business, we have left it for a time and are living at
Melbourne. Stephen goes to the gold diggings with loadings
from the stores, and is about four days and a half on the
journey, for which he gets £15, as he has a fine horse and dray
for which he has several times been offered £60. There are a
great many more horses here now than there were when we
first arrived. I cannot describe to you the great change the gold
has made at Melbourne. It was increasing fast before the gold
was found; but now it puts me in mind of London. Vessels come
in from all parts of the world, and are troubled to get away
again, as the sailors run off to the diggings; and they are
offering £100 for able seamen for England. Captain Buckwell,
from Brighton, was here about three months ago. He called on
brother John, and said he would take anything to England for
us; I thought of sending a parcel to you, but his men all started
for the diggings, and then he went off himself. Since then, he
went with the vessel to Geelong, and I could not get to see him,
so I was disappointed, as I mean to send you a nugget of gold,
to let you see how it looks in its natural state.
Some people in Brighton said when we came away from
England, that they supposed we thought to pick up gold when
we came to Australia. Now if we did think so, we were not
deceived; for we have picked it up.
Stephen, Robert and John have all been to dig gold; but
they stopped only two weeks, as they were obliged to come
home because the hay and corn on our land that we bought was
ready to be cut, and they thought it best to secure it, as hay
and corn are dear, and likely to be so for some time, as people
will not turn their attention to any thing but gold digging.
Brother John is gone again today, as his son John is there; and
Stephen and Robert think of having another turn at it when the
wet weather comes, as it is now summer here and the water is
so low that it is difficult to wash the gold. Rents and every thing
are very dear at Melbourne; but that does not matter, for there
are few persons here but what have plenty of gold.
Adelaide and Van Dieman’s land are almost forsaken. The
Americans are now bringing us flour and grain, which is a very
good thing, for we must depend on other nations, for our
colonists will neither plough nor dig except for gold. All wages
are very dear. Flour is £2 a sack, and groceries are dearer than
30
they were; but meat is about the same – two pence a pound to
three pence. Spirits are very dear; and the publicans are
making their fortunes faster than anybody else. There is one
that we knew that is saving £100 a week. Wine is cheap, and
we can get port wine at 1s 10d a bottle by taking two gallons;
but the publicans make their profit by selling it in small
quantities. I only wish you were here; for in six months I know
you could save a fortune. If you were only thinking to do so, I
must say this is the country for it, and I am confident that any
poor man who wishes to be paid for his labour has only to come
here; for there is no comfort in England but what you can have
here; for you have got money…… I can say that there are no
poor people here, but those who make themselves so by their
intoxication.
Believe me, I would not induce you or anybody else to
come if I did not think it would be for your good. I know when
we were in England I was half persuaded to come out, but had
not the gold been found there was a three fold better chance of
getting a living here than in England. I must tell you we are all
happy and comfortable in every respect, and was it not for
thinking of you all we would not wish to call England to our
memory any more.
To W. Tattersall, Jolly Fisherman, Brighton.
Brighton Gazette 15th April 1852
The Australian Diggings
The following are extracts of letters just received in Brighton.
Brighton, November 26, 1852
My dear Father
You will, I know, be pleased to hear we have met with
kind friends in this new country. You will be most anxious to
know what George is doing. He left yesterday, for the gold
mines, where he has gone for a month, and should he succeed
he will go for several months, for he cannot get anything to do
at present, and he has not money enough to take a station, so
his friends persuaded him to go to the diggings. All the people
Lord James Stewart wrote to have been particularly kind to us,
and are very anxious for us to go and stay with them till George
gets something. We have been more fortunate than all our
passengers. Sir Henry Brodie’s nephew has gone with George.
Meat here is only 2d and 3d per lb., bread, 1s to 1s.6d per 4lb.,
butter 1s.6d per lb.; and everything else is very dear. Houses
with merely two rooms and a kitchen are let at £40 a year; and
the lowest sum for servants’ wages are £16 a year. But
everyone appears to be comfortably off, and there is not such a
thing as a beggar in the place. Earthenware is very dear indeed;
for a basin that would cost 2d in England is 1s; and cups and
saucers, such as you use in the kitchen, are 2s a piece. Mrs
Wilson says we ought to have brought all those things out with
us. People in England have no idea what is wanted here. It will
31
cost us a fortune to purchase the things we require for
immediate use. A great many people seem to be making their
fortunes.
From your affectionate daughter,
Elizabeth.
Dear Brother,
I have written to Father and will now write you a few lines
to tell you about our voyage and this country.
We had a nice passage here, especially the first part of
the voyage; but after we had passed the Cape we had miserable
cold, rough, and wet weather, and for two nights and a day we
had to lie to in a storm. George will send you his log-book
home, and then you will have a full account of everything from
the time we left home till we landed here. You told me we
should have plenty of thunder and lightning, but we only had it
twice, and then not much. We lost one poor woman just before
we reached the Cape. You will be surprised to hear I was only
once frightened during the voyage, and that was the night after
the storm. I went on deck with another lady, a Mrs Bourne,
rather younger than myself. No one could stand on the poop, so
we were both tied to the side of the vessel. I was ill in the
morning, and the ship was tossed about so much I could not lie
in bed, so I sat tied in a chair till the afternoon when I went on
the poop to see the grand sight. Everything in our cabin was
flying about. I had a wine bottle broken just by my head, before
I was up in the morning, and we had not a dry place in our
cabin, so you can imagine the state we were in, and the Sunday
we reached Port Philip’s head, we had a very heavy gale, and
were obliged to lie to all the morning, and after dinner we were
compelled to make for the heads before dark, as there were
rocks on both sides of us and only half a mile between them for
our vessel to pass; and the captain and passengers were all
very anxious, and we got through safely and had scarcely
anchored when a heavy gale came on, but we were then quite
safe.
I like the country very much as far as I have seen; the
houses are most singular-looking things, but very comfortable
inside. We have had miserable weather ever since we have been
here; I have had fires every day. It is quite a mistake for people
in England to imagine there is no cold weather here, for it is
dreadfully cold in winter, and in summer the evenings and
mornings are sometimes very cold. Melbourne is like a middlingsized country town in England. The natives are very harmless
but most horrible-looking creatures, and if any of the white
people take a black for a servant, the others are sure to kill him
on a first opportunity; and when they get to a certain age the
young blacks kill the old ones. They only wear a skin thrown
over them. Our passengers were all nice people, and not such a
thing as a dispute arose on board during the whole voyage. The
captain and all the officers never remember such a thing before;
32
they say it ought to be put in the papers, for there is generally
plenty of disagreeable things on board.
I am, dear John,
Your affectionate sister,
Elizabeth.
Brighton Gazette Thursday December 30, 1852.
Letter to Mrs Kitchener, East Street, “from brother in Melbourne
who emigrated about two years ago.” (William Palgrave)
Melbourne, August 20th, 1852
Dear Sister and Mother,
I really wish in my heart you were here in this beautiful
climate, this country of perpetual spring, whose winters are as
mild as the spring in England.
I wrote to you last January, giving some account of my
first trip to the diggings. I have followed it ever since, with
varying success. I have not been at home more than a month
since last November. But I have not been fortunate - that is for
a gold digger, - for hundreds have realized a fortune in the
same time; still I have no reason to complain. Gold digging is
here, the same as elsewhere, quite a lottery; for instance, the
trip before last I got 4 lbs weight of gold in seven weeks, clear
of expenses. I have been away eleven weeks this time and I am
£50 out of pocket. So you see there is some truth in what
Punch says, that a sovereign in the hand is worth a lump of gold
in the bush.
Everything is very dear here. Money is thought nothing of
by most of the people at present. Premises are not to be got in
Melbourne. People are beginning to arrive from Europe very
fast, and when they land cannot get a place to put their head
on, so they have to suffer greatly before they get to the
goldfields.
Taking all things together, I should not advise any one to
come here at present, unless he can make up his mind to rough
it for some time, for at present society is in a very lawless
state, bands of robbers are all over the country, and even in
Melbourne streets you are not safe, unless you are well armed,
if out after night fall.
I delayed for a few days finishing this letter, as I wish to
let you know what I intended doing next. I have tried every
means to get into business, both by advertising, and enquiring
in and around Melbourne, but cannot get premises anywhere.
So I suppose I shall have to go to the diggings again; and if I
happen to be fortunate enough to get a thousand pounds worth,
it would not be many months before we would be in England.
I intended to have sent two ounces of gold with this
letter, but from enquiries I made in Melbourne I learnt that
from the great confusion in all public offices caused by the great
increase in business it was a great chance it was not stolen
before it left Melbourne; but I shall take the first opportunity
that I can get to send it safe, which I think will be before long. I
33
enclose a sample for a ring. It was got in the Forest Creek,
Mount Alexander. The day I got it I took eighteen ounces out
for the day’s work, which was pretty fair.
Steamers will leave England every month, and I hope to
hear often from you.
Yours etc., W. Palgrave
34
Chapter 6. Gold fever reaches Brighton - More Plans to
Emigrate.
It took time for the news about the discoveries in Australia to
reach England, but when it did, another gold rush began. In
contrast to the earnest and prayerful discussions at Ebenezer
and the decision to set up a community in Australia for a
handful of families seeking true religious freedom, the second
party of prospective emigrants from Brighton set about things in
a business-like way with an open invitation to the whole town to
try their luck at the diggings. The 1852 Town Hall meeting was
an extraordinary event. First there had been a public
advertisement, announcing that the meeting was “for the
purpose of taking into consideration the subject of emigration to
Australia.” The Gazette of April 22 gave a full account of the
meeting at which “the large room…was crowded to suffocation.”
Mr Thatcher was called to take the chair and he gave a long and
rousing speech in favour of this “land of Goshen, a land flowing
with milk and honey (interjections were heard: Oh, oh!)…a land
full of gold, a land full of cattle (here Mr Thatcher was so carried
away that he spoke of the “fleeces on their backs, and no one to
shear it”)…a land calculated to make life comfortable and where
the blessings of Providence flowed to relieve individual
necessities.” Coming to more practical things Thatcher spoke of
a plan for reaching the colony cheaply by chartering a whole
ship and buying all the provisions in bulk before sailing. The ship
would cost £2,200, so 200 persons could be accommodated at
£11 per head, while an individual share of the provisions would
amount to £6, bringing the total, including fittings, at £1 a head
to £18. Even better, they could also carry merchandise to bring
in £500 and reduce the £18 to £15.10s.
Of course it did not work out quite this way. A Committee
had been set up and letters addressed to shipping companies,
deposits were requested from prospective emigrants and all
might have been well, but a few weeks later Messrs. Marshall
and Co., owners of the Statesman, informed the Brighton
hopefuls that only 50 places would be available and bookings
would have to be made on other ships. The Hebrides and the
Delgany were suggested.
Mr Tankard, who was in business as a painter, gave those
present information and advice received from his two brothers,
who were already in Australia. Mr Franklyn made his speech
about the state of employment there, and Mr Loveridge
produced a book (price 2s.6d) by Captain John Austin about his
visit to the gold districts. Mr Cox (“a working man”) strongly
urged on the meeting the necessity of emigration on account of
the state of the labour market at home; he said that out of
12,000 journeymen bakers in London only 8000 were in fulltime employment. So the project gradually began to take shape.
By the end of May there were plans for a meeting to take place
at the Regent Tavern (the landlord, William Wight, had more
information from the owners of the Statesman and more advice
35
from his brothers “and others in Australia.”) In response to
numerous enquiries from those present he made some
suggestions about clothing for the voyage and for the colony,
warning parties “not to encumber themselves with more than
was absolutely necessary.” He also “strongly recommended all
that could do so to provide themselves with India rubber beds;
they were not only more wholesome on board ship, but when
uninflated, would take up little room. The bed and pillows could
be obtained for 50s.” He finished with one cheering piece of
news: “his brother, although of weakly constitution and a
cripple, had succeeded in obtaining by his own labour £226
worth of gold in less than three weeks.”
The Statesman was due to leave London on Wednesday
June 23, 1852, to arrive at Portsmouth, where the Brighton
party was to join her two days later. A big farewell party had
been held at the Regent Tavern just over two weeks before. The
evening was “devoted entirely to conviviality” with glees sung
by the Brighton glee singers, as well as songs “appropriate to
the occasion.” In the interval between farewell visits and
packing those departing must surely have found time to visit the
Town Hall where a Diorama of the Diggings was being exhibited,
and to attend a lecture given on Tuesday the 15th by Mr Samuel
Mossman, illustrated by “Scenes of the Recently Discovered
Gold Mines in Australia.” It was accompanied by a Map of the
Country, 13ft. by 9ft, and models of gold specimens. One rather
desperate man (he was in fact James Bickford, who was to
come to an untimely end in the colony) was still trying to get rid
of his stock of jewellery. He took out an advertisement: “Selling
off! Selling off at half price. Dissolution of Partnership. In
consequence of leaving for Australia, the whole of the Splendid
Stock of Watches and Jewellery must be sold at a tremendous
sacrifice. For a few days only. 70 King’s Road. N.B. A number of
Revolving Pistols for Sale.”
A fortnight later they were gone. The Hebrides in fact left
before the Statesman. The party that travelled down to join the
ship at Portsmouth was very unlike that which had left from
Ebenezer with Juniper and Wood. Apart from the middle-aged
Alwin and his wife and seven children (the eldest was 12) there
were very few wives, let alone children. The Gazette reported
on “about a hundred mechanics and tradesmen’s sons” making
for the new colony of Victoria, and mentioned the “party of
mechanics employed at the Railway who intend going out
together.” (It may be more than a coincidence that earlier in
1852 ― in February and March ― there had been an engineers’
strike at Brighton Station, in support of the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers, as a result of which twelve men were
given notice of dismissal.) These emigrants were almost all
young single men ― “respectable tradesmen and mechanics of
the town”― filled with a spirit of adventure and optimism as
they thought of the fortunes to be made at the Diggings.
Even before the second party of emigrants had left
Brighton, gold fever excited the local expectations of
36
townspeople. The Gazette reported on April 22 a curious and
laughable piece of news.:The unearthing of some glittering yellow sand by
workmen engaged in digging in a field beyond Kemp
Town, on Tuesday, gave rise to a rumour that Brighton,
imitating the example of Australia, had invented a
California for itself. Numerous pedestrians started for the
“diggings”; but the only tangible result seems to have
been a larger consumption than usual of the XX of “mine
host” at the Abergavenny. Rumour says that his cellar
became as dry as the walk to the “diggings” had
rendered his customers.
Not everyone took such a light-hearted view of the proceedings.
Emigration News, in the local papers, like reports of lectures
and sermons on the subject, gave rather a mixed picture. There
were, it was true, opportunities but there were also difficulties
and dangers. There was besides much concern from clerics and
others that moral dangers were even more perilous than
physical ones. The voices of warning and lamentation became
much stronger at the time the second party of Brightonians
prepared to take ship for Australia. The previous quotation from
the Gazette suggests that for many Brightonians the idea of
temperance was not uppermost in their minds. Nevertheless the
Temperance Society was doing its best to urge sobriety on
intending emigrants:Brighton Gazette. April 29th 1852.
Temperance and the “Gold Diggings.”
A lecture was delivered by Mr White, at the Town Hall,
to the members of the Brighton Temperance Society, on
the “Gold Diggings” in Australia and California and their
moral effects on the country. The room was well
attended. Mr Johnson took the chair; and after a
temperance melody was sung, introduced the lecturer….
To many gold was not a blessing but a curse… He did not
wish to prevent them going to the gold regions;…. but if
they did go to Australia, let them go with their minds
made up to soberness, frugality, and a proper use of
their gains…He concluded his address by urging the
necessity of total abstinence.
The audience were chiefly of the working classes,
among whom great excitement at present prevails with
regard to emigration; and the Chairman had frequently to
rise to order in consequence of the disapprobation
evinced by parties evidently not members of the
Temperance Society. The meeting concluded with a short
address from the Chairman, and then a temperance
melody.
37
If any prospective emigrants had had time to read the Gazette
published on June 3, they might have seen two letters written
in Australia a few months earlier, and sent on to the editor by
Charles Thomas of Rye. Any optimistic digger might well have
thought again before taking off for the goldfields where Henry
Roberts met his end. They would, however, have been cheered,
and happy to be convinced, by the letter to Mr Ellis, published
on July1st. By this time though they were a week or so out to
sea.
Brighton Gazette Thursday June 3rd 1852
To the Editor of the Brighton Gazette
Middle Street, Rye,
May 27th 1852
Sir – As the news from the gold mines is at present occupying
much of the public attention, I have enclosed you two letters,
lately received from Sydney, which, together, give a brief
description of the life and death on the “Diggings” and show
that “all is not gold that glitters;” but there is a dark side as
well as a bright one there. The first letter is from a nephew of
mine, a young sailor 23 years of age, and the other is from my
brother, who has resided in Australia for the last ten years,
informing us of the death of the young sailor, which happened a
few weeks after he wrote his letter…..
Your obedient servant
Charles Thomas.
Turon River,
September 11th, 1851
Dear George, - I am sure you have been expecting a letter from
me before this; but I thought I would wait and see how things
went on before I wrote. We were ten days on our journey, and
a splendid specimen of travelling we had; for you know our
drays started from Sydney before we did. We overtook them
three days after we left, and then came the pleasure of going to
the diggings. The roads being bad, and so mountainous, for fear
our horses would be knocked up, we assisted them all we could.
So when we came to a very steep hill, having lots of spare rope
and lashings, we soon put ourselves in harness, and, being
twelve in number, I assure you we did what we call a ‘ripping
stroke’ towards getting up the hill. And then came the down hill work. We had to hang back all we could, for fear she would
go too fast; but the worst pinch we had was going down a hill
about two miles in length. The mountain is called Razorback, it
is about two miles from the Turon diggings. We first went down
with the draymen to see what it was like. The first thing we met
were two dead horses, which had been killed by the capsizing of
a dray; a little farther on was a dray turned topsy – turvy; and
a little below that were two drays with their axle-trees broken.
Well, you may be sure this made us begin to scratch our heads,
and ask one another “How are we going to get down here
safely?” After a long consultation we agreed to bring the things
down on our backs, a little at the time; and then assist the
38
horses with the empty drays. I assure you this was the worst
road I ever saw for a vehicle of any kind to go on. It is not only
steep, but it is all sideways as well; and what made it more
pleasant, it was snowing and blowing all the time we were
carrying our cargo down on our backs. But, after all, we got
everything down safe, horses and all; we reloaded again, and
off we went to the diggings. And to make a long story short, it
was ‘going ober de mountain’ in reality, for what with pulling,
and holding back, and pushing up behind, I was quite glad when
the journey was over. We soon picked a place on the river and
began to work. We opened a hole large enough to bury a house
in; but sorry to say, found nothing near enough to clear our
expenses at present. We still live in hopes of finding some of
the precious metal yet; and if not we will come to Sydney and
go to sea again. It will be all the same one hundred years
hence; certainly I should like to clear my expenses, which are
about ten pounds; and then I would not care so much. There
are plenty of people close to us who are making that in one
day; but it’s like a lottery, some have good luck and others
have bad, and I’ve no doubt that I shall be one among the
latter. You would laugh if you were up here to see such a
rocking of cradles; it’s a fine thing to bring a single man’s hand
in, for he cannot tell what might happen some time or other.
We might have to rock something else instead of rocking dirt to
clean gold. Many is the man who wishes he had never seen the
diggings; he gets bad luck, and perhaps has not been used to
such hard work, and what gripes a good many is the mode of
living in the bush. Most of them have been used to a good soft
bed and feather pillow; but instead of that they get branches of
trees for beds and a log of wood with an old jacket or shirt over
it for a pillow, and our tents are after the form of the gypsies at
home. This kind of a house they cannot live in; so they get
disgusted with the diggings and go home to Sydney again to
their different occupations.
Johnny Trots and counter jumpers are completely dished
when they come here; the pick-axe raises blisters on their
hands; they get wet through now and again; and, not being
used to hard work, they get real objects of pity. If some of
them were in California they would starve; but it is different
here, for six days’ good hard walking will bring them to Sydney.
I intend to stay here until my provisions are done; and then, if I
have not earned enough to buy more, I shall sell off and come
to Sydney, for I am sure seamen’s wages will be good in the
summer. I am very comfortable as regards my situation in one
respect. I am my own master, work when I like, sleep when I
like, and can return to Sydney when I like; so when I get tired
of gold-digging I am not bound to stop longer than I like. I am
enjoying very good health; all I want to complete my comforts
and wishes, is to find a few nuggets of gold, five or six pieces
39
the size of a flat-iron would satisfy me. I would then ship myself
for home in a crack; so you see I am easily satisfied…………..
Henry Roberts.
To George Becker, mate, Mr Thomas’s Post-Office Sydney,
N.S.W.
Botney Street, Red Fern, Nov. 24, 1851
My dear Brother and Sister, ― It is my painful duty to inform
you of the death of your dear son, poor Henry Roberts, which
happened on the 30th of October, 1851, at the Turon River,
after a week’s illness of the dysentery, which turned to typhoid
fever. After doing the last sad duties to one that I was very
much attached to, in the best way possible under such
circumstances, and what with the worry of mind over exertions,
I fell ill myself, (our partner, Mr Harris, had been poorly, but
was got better,) and we started for home with little hopes that I
should ever reach it alive, but thanks be to God for his mercy, I
did by travelling night and day; but I was nearly dead and I
remained in greatest danger for some days. Dr Jenkins gave but
little hopes, from the great exertions I had undergone, that I
should ever recover; and now I am in such a weak state, that I
have been unable to write before, or I should have done it. Poor
Henry left his things at two or three places in Sydney; and a
few pounds in the Bank, which I will endeavour to get as soon
as I am able to go into Sydney, which I hope to do in a few
days; and after I have settled with the doctor, and for the
funeral, etc, I will send what money I can give to you, at the
first opportunity. (I am so faint that I cannot write any more
now.)
November 25.― I will try to write a little more. Henry came
up to the Turon some time after me; I was much surprised to
see him; he told me that all hands had left the ship he sailed in.
He came up with two men as partners; they were strangers to
me; they were digging about five miles from where I was; but
in eight or nine days they came up alongside of my party. They
did not do much there; and in about five or six weeks
afterwards they left to go back to Sydney, not being satisfied.
As my party was going to break up in a week, not having done
any thing, some were going back to Sydney, others to fresh
places, so I and one of our party joined with Henry to try our
luck a little longer. We worked very hard for three or four
weeks, and then we were worked out. We then went to look for
another place; but not finding one to suit us, we agreed to
purchase part of a claim near to our tent. We gave £12 for it.
There was a great deal of labour to do before we could get at
the gold. We went to work with good hope that we should now
be paid for our labour, as we were sure the gold was there.
After we had worked clearing off the top stuff, for two or three
days, poor Henry was taken ill. As I had been doing some work
for a doctor in Oakey Creek, I went to him to try and get him to
come and see poor Henry, but he did not like to come, as he
said he did not come there to practise, but as I had obliged him
40
by altering his cradle, he would come to oblige me. He came
every day and sometimes twice a day until his death. I went up
to the doctor three times every day for medicine, or to tell him
how he was. I had to cross the river every time ― sometimes I
got very wet. Mr Harris always stopped with Henry while I was
away. We did all it was in our power to do for him. For the last
few days we had to give up work altogether. We only took
about three shillings worth of gold from our new claim. Poor
Henry was quite resigned; he said if I would lay down and die
with him he would not care; but I told him I had left one in
Sydney depending on me, what would she do? Ah, he says,
your dear wife, she has always been like a sister to me. I shall
never see her, or my dear mother, sister or any of them I have
left at home, any more. I asked him if I could do any thing in
particular for him. He said. No, only after I had paid all the
expenses he had caused, to send what money I could to his
dear mother and sister. I told him we hoped he would get
better yet, and I then washed him up, and we made up his bed,
as he thought he should go to sleep a little. In about two hours
after he became troubled to breathe. He took my hand and bid
me good bye, and that he would leave all to me, and I must do
the best I could, as he had done with this world. I saw there
was a change for the worse, so I started off for the doctor, as
fast as I could run, but it was all of no use. I ran back and did
all the doctor told me, but he went off like one in a gentle
slumber. I prayed with him till the last minute: he was quite
sensible and seemed happy: it was just about sundown when
he breathed his last. We were very much cut up, so that we did
not know what to do; we seemed almost lost with what had
happened; and after we had shed tears, Mr Harris went down to
the Commissioner to let him know, and to see if there was any
consecrated ground that we could bury him in: but he said
there was none, and that we must bury him in the best place
we could find that was not likely to be disturbed. It was a long
way, and very bad travelling at night. It was very late when he
got back. I did the best I could for the poor boy while he was
gone. We were up all night. At peep o’day we went and chose a
spot for his grave. It is on a ridge at the back of the river, at
the foot of a large box tree. Mr Harris got some of the miners to
help him do it (they dug down to the rock), while I and another
made his coffin. I had much trouble to get the boards for it. I
sent nearly three miles for them, and quite a favour to have
them and pay six times the price I should in Sydney. We got all
the things that we wanted better than we expected. I went up
to the Stores and got them to lend me the British flag for a pall.
He was carried to the grave by sailors and miners. Mr Harris
read the burial service; and a good many followed him out of
respect. It was a sad day for us. We put a large piece of quartz
at the head and foot, and I cut his name, and age, and the date
in a board and let it into the tree, and nailed it fast, so that it
will remain for many years, for no one will cut the tree down
when they see that. I wish I could draw, I would send you a
41
sketch of it, for it is always before my eyes. I will write again as
soon as I get all things settled. My Polly joins me in kind love to
you all.
From your affectionate brother,
E.Thomas.
Mr Nelson Thomas
Ore, near Hastings,
Sussex
Brighton Gazette July 12t 1852
The following is an extract from a letter just received by Mr Ellis,
of 7, Upper North Street, Brighton from Fort Philip, Australia.
Melbourne, February 15th, 1852.
In one hour I picked up 13 ounce weight of gold on the
surface, that was after a heavy rain, and I hope in two or three
years I shall see and remain in old England, during the
remainder of my days; that is within a quarter of an hour’s ride
of town, but not till I can drive my pair in hand, for I would
never think of seeing my native shores till then. I purpose
bringing home with me specimens of gold and precious stones,
which I have now already in hand. In a few months I also
anticipate the pleasure of forwarding you a box of gold; shall
insure the same, as I presume the price is £3.17s.10½ per
ounce; the figure here is £3.5.10d. The expense of sending it to
London will be about 4s 8d per ounce; I have 123 ounces I
bought for £2.8s.6d per ounce 470 miles up in the interior of
New South Wales. The whole colony is in the greatest
excitement; thousands are making their fortunes and returning
to England, and why should it not soon be my turn? In fact,
there is supposed to be gold all over the country, more or less.
Provisions are extravagantly high, and every thing in
proportion; a fine speculation for single men to emigrate.
- should have come with me – it is not too late now. Messrs
T. and Co. always know where I am, as they have done all my
business for me since I have been in the Colony, but should Mr
L. come, write previous to T. and Co; but don’t be guided by
me; if he should not succeed, he must not throw the stigma on
me. I will give him the best advice I can, always gratis, or any
thing that lays in my power to perform, as you would do the
same for me, and have done. I well know and feel myself proud
in having such a friend and relation, 16,000 miles off, to show
me such kindness. More news when I write again – have sent
newspapers. Accept of my respects to Mrs E. and cousins, and
not forgetting yourself and Mr L., and hope all well.
Your affectionate cousin,
D. Ellis.
42
Mr O’s brother is dead – left the letter in a party’s hands to
give the widow. (Excuse this indifferent scrawl – so busy,
busy.)
Ophicleide. See page 48
This description of the “Giant” Ophicleide of Monsieur
Prospere was published in the Illustrated London News in
1843. William Wigney’s instrument would have been
considerably smaller.
43
Chapter 7. The Voyage of the Statesman 1852.
Charles Dickens was a great propagandist in favour of
emigration. In his weekly journal, Household Words for
Saturday July 17 1854 he published an article by John Capper
which gives a lively account of the scenes aboard a (fictitious)
emigrant ship leaving London for Australia. Entitled “Off to the
Diggings!” it begins by questioning how a future historian would
decide whether June 1851, or June 1852, was the more exciting
and interesting period:
At Midsummer of the former year, Englishmen were
rushing in tens of thousands to London to witness the
great wonder of the day at Hyde Park. Midsummer of the
present year is sending quite as many, and more, of our
countrymen away from London – to say nothing of
Liverpool and other places – as fast as sailing ships and
steam vessels can carry them, to join in the Golden Fair in
Australia….
1852 was in fact the peak year for emigration to the new
colony of Victoria. Of the 290,000 who went there, 200,000
paid their own fares. Among these were the Brighton gold
seekers.
On Wednesday 23 June 1852 the Statesman sailed down
the Thames from London, arriving at Portsmouth two days later.
She was under the command of Captain G.B Godfrey. Waiting at
Portsmouth to join her were about fifty of the Brightonians who
planned to emigrate to Australia in response to news of the gold
discoveries in Victoria. Not all those who applied to sail on the
Statesman could be accommodated, so others left at around the
same time on the Hebrides or the Delgany. A few found berths
on the Calcutta, the Washington Irving, the Africa, or the Mary
Harrison. Probably the last to leave was Jonathan Streeter, on
board the Strathfieldsaye which departed in 1853.
This was not the first trip of the Statesman to Australia.
She was a new ship when she sailed from Plymouth in
November 1849, and made a great impression on a reporter
from the Plymouth Herald as she left. The account was republished in the Brighton Herald a few days later (1 December,
1849) and is worth reproducing here:Emigration from Plymouth. – On Friday, the 10th instant,
the Statesman, Captain Lane, arrived from London, to
embark her West of England passengers for Adelaide and
Port Phillip. This splendid ship followed others of the
regular monthly line of first-class Australian packets,
which are despatched from London by Messrs. Marshall
and Eldridge, and from Plymouth by Mr Wilcocks. The
Statesman is a new ship, the property of Messrs. Marshall
and Eldridge, for whom she was built in Sunderland, and
combines every improvement, not only as regards the
44
details of ship-building, but all the requirements of
passengers, and perhaps no superior ship has ever been
seen in the port of Plymouth. Her length of keel is 138
feet; ‘tween decks, 145 feet; poop, 58 feet; forecastle,
30 feet; breath of beam, 33 feet; depth of hold, 22 feet 6
inches. She is copper-fastened from the top gallant rail to
the keel; is a thirteen-years’ ship, and 874 tons per
register. She is constructed of teak and green heart, with
a frame of west-country oak. She has an elegant saloon,
with spacious and convenient accommodation, staterooms, quarter galleries etc. etc. She is named the
Statesman in compliment to Lord Stanley, her figurehead being a handsome and artistically-carved figure of
that nobleman, whilst his armorial bearings decorate the
stern. The Statesman sailed from Plymouth on Monday
evening, with a full and select complement of cabin
passengers, among whom were several influential
colonists returning, after a sojourn in England. Her ‘tween
decks were occupied by a full complement of most
respectable passengers…
When the Statesman left Portsmouth in June 1852 she
carried 34 first class passengers ― who would doubtless have
enjoyed the amenities described above on the earlier voyage ―
and 233 intermediate and steerage passengers, together with
her crew and a general cargo. The Brighton party, consisting
mainly of “mechanics and tradesmen” of the town, were for the
most part young and single men, though there were a few
wives and sisters. They seem all to have paid to travel in the
intermediate class, lacking the space and luxury of first-class
but with their own saloon and at least some privacy in their tiny
cabins. The best accommodation was under the poop deck, on
which the first-class passengers were able to promenade. It was
a mark of considerable condescension when female passengers
were allowed, as recorded by Martha Mudge in her first letter
home, to watch the “crossing the line” ceremonies from the
poop.
The passengers on the Statesman were in fact very
fortunate that the ship was under the command of Captain
Godfrey. He was an experienced and highly skilled master
mariner and one of the first to attempt the newly recommended
“Great Circle” route to Australia. The usual passage for shipping
was via Cape Town, where a stop was often made to take on
fresh water and provisions, and then to follow a straight line on
the map across the South Indian Ocean to Australia. But the
earth is in fact a sphere and the shortest distance between two
points on the globe follows the curve. It was John Thomas
Towson, the scientific examiner of mates and master mariners
at Liverpool, who first calculated that the Great Circle route
would save up to one thousand miles on the passage between
England and Australia. The ship would set sail towards the midAtlantic where the prevailing winds would sweep it well south of
45
Cape Town. From there it would continue as far south as
possible and as near to Antarctica as the captain dared to go, as
many risks lay ahead. There were dangers of storms and high
seas and some ships lost their masts and foundered. The
greatest fear was of sailing head-on into an iceberg during the
night. Ships’ navigators were assisted by Towson’s “Tables to
Facilitate the Practice of Great Circle Sailing,” published in
1847, though it was three years before his scheme was
adopted. Captain Godfrey was one of the first masters with the
high degree of proficiency required to follow it, and in 1850 he
reached Adelaide in 77 days in the Constance. The Statesman in
1852 was bound for Port Phillip, Victoria, which was further
away. After 86 days from England, Captain Godfrey brought the
whole of his ship’s company― passengers and crew ― safely to
land at a time when few arriving masters could report no
deaths. In fact there were even two extra passengers to be
disembarked ― babies born on board during the crossing.
Three years before, on board the Harpley, none of the
Juniper and Wood party had, as far as we know, kept a diary,
and letters written later, and John Chandler’s reminiscences,
are all we have to recall aspects of life on board. Happily for us,
one of the Brighton party on the Statesman did keep a record
for much of the voyage and her account is given in the letters
which follow. Martha Mudge was travelling out with her
husband, Daniel, a carpenter by trade, and her two brothers,
George and William. The ship’s passenger list names George
Wigney, aged 27, as an engineer, and William aged 26, as a
labourer (though in fact George was probably a printer). Their
father, G.A. Wigney, came from a well known brewing and
banking family in Brighton. He, his family and their friends must
have been enthralled by Martha’s description of flying fish,
crossing the line ceremonies, stormy seas and ice in the cabin.
Her letter enables us to share in life on board the Statesman in
1852.
Brighton Gazette. Thursday December 30th 1852
My dear Father, - It was my intention to make a daily
memorandum, but sea-sickness and the excessive closeness
below obliging me to remain on deck, prevented my doing as I
could have wished. We left Plymouth Sunday afternoon, June
27th, with a strong head wind, which caused the vessel to lay
much on one side, and we were tossing about two or three
weeks, and altogether in a deplorable condition. The weather
was bright, or I know not what we should have done. Brother
William was not sick long, George entirely escaped. My husband
and self were very bad for a long time.
We could not take our food ‘tween decks, but were
obliged to sit above, and lie down immediately after taking
anything. Gradually, as we approached the line, and the sea
became calmer, we lost our sickness; and now, although the
motion of the vessel (when great) causes an unpleasant
46
nervous sensation, I do not expect a return. Having been at sea
two months, many little incidents I meant to mention have
slipped my memory. One I cannot forget though, which is this:July 16th There was a cry of “Sail a head.” All crowded to
the bulwarks of our vessel. As we gained upon the distance that
lay between us I shall never forget the intense interest that
seemed portrayed in every countenance. All were silent when
alongside, while our captain made numerous enquiries (which
he roared through a trumpet). The vessel was a Dutch one,
named Caroline Hayns from Rotterdam to Batavia. There
followed alternate cheering one another; but darkness coming
on, a blue light, a few rockets, a tune from our little band, and
we were compelled to part. I cannot convey to you how
reluctantly, for although it was a meeting of strangers, yet on
the ocean there is a feeling of loneliness as if banished from all
that is natural and congenial to us, and the sight of a freight of
fellow beings in the same position as ourselves is calculated to
call forth all the best feelings of human nature.
July 18th (Sunday morning) Passed the Island of Palma,
leaving it to the east of us. The mountains are very high. It was
calm, and being just sunrise, I opened my window, fearing we
should pass before I could dress, but the proximity to land
causing a swell, myself and bed were as completely drenched as
if precipitated into the sea. But as salt water does not give cold,
and we expect all sorts of misfortunes here, I did not trouble
much about it, but shall never forget Palma. Next sighted
Madeira and Cape DeVerde Islands.
But the most important matter was “crossing the line,”
which took place Wednesday, August 4th. First, a car, containing
Neptune, wife and children, was drawn up the side of the vessel
(they were sailors and boys secretly conveyed into it). They
proceeded to the cabin, and, in a pompous speech informed the
captain that if he wished the winds and waves to be propitious
to him, he must allow them to perform a few of their
ceremonies on board. He made an appropriate reply, but
begged they would be lenient with the novices. They then
proceeded round the deck, accompanied by the band, which
consisted of William’s ophleclide [more correctly ophicleide] and
three more instruments. A sail was ready filled with water at
the side of deck, at the edge of which a seat was fixed, and the
juniors among the crew were seated and begrimed with a
mixture of pitch, etc; and although a large razor was passed
over their faces, yet they were not hurt; but when finished they
were, one after another turned into the sheet, out of which they
scrambled as soon as they could. The passengers enjoyed the
fun; and about 30 of them (Mr Lackey among the rest) got
served the same. That over, water was thrown about in all
directions, and every one was wet to the skin. Those females
who wished to witness the sport were allowed on the poop, (a
privilege in ordinary allowed only to cabin passengers), but they
did not altogether escape, as a few stray buckets full found
their way up there. The captain watched the sport, as temper is
47
sometimes lost on these occasions; but it all ended in good
humour. The heat at the time of year we crossed the line was
not so great as at a few degrees north of it, and the heat is not
nearly so intense as the representations we had heard of it.
There was a dreadful closeness and offensive smell between
decks when the water was being given out; but I found lying in
the shade on deck very comfortable and seldom too hot. We
had lively evenings, the band frequently played and while many
danced we sat up in the bulwarks and watched the flying fish,
and a kind of a phosphorent (sic) fish that used to sparkle
against the side of the ship. There was a shark drawn up the
poop one Sunday morning. It came floundering along, and
leaped down upon our deck, much to the alarm of many, but
the sailors soon put an end to his capers. They cut it up with
long knives and some parts were cooked, but it tasted very
coarse. The next Sunday a young man, sitting very near me,
was playing with some gunpowder, and displaying his pistol,
having a cigar in his mouth. By some means the powder flask
ignited, and it was quite a providence he did not lose his arm,
and we our eyes, but the wind blew in a contrary direction, and
he escaped with mutilation of his fingers. The captain was very
angry, as the rule is to give up all powder to his care, and it was
understood all had done so; but there are a great many rules
not strictly attended to, this one in particular. All private lamps
are ordered out at ten at night, and all are expected to be quiet.
The married people generally attend to this, but there are six
cabins opposite, with six single men in each of them and they
are often leaping about, quarrelling or playing cards half the
night. I think in most vessels these are put in steerage, but as
there is such a majority of men it could not be otherwise here.
Out of more than 300 passengers there are only 40 females,
children inclusive. In the intermediate, in the cuddy they are
more evenly divided.
September 17th I am just well enough to write a little
additional matter. The last three weeks has been very trying. I
have been confined to my bed, and am still very weak. Hope
revives when I think how soon we may expect to land. The
weather the last month has been very trying. Captain Godfrey
chooses “Great Circle sailing”, as it is called, and runs down
south of Kergueland, or Island of Desolation, and it being winter
here, the cold has been intense, snowstorms and the wind
blowing as I have never heard. The sailors are obliged to have
ropes to walk by on deck, and it is quite dangerous for
passengers to go above. Some have had bad falls, and one
dislocated his shoulder, which was set again with very great
difficulty, but none have lost their lives. Many passengers have
laid in bed, but keep themselves warm we could not, as the ice
was half an inch thick in our cabins. The surgeon allowed one
pint of porter per day from the ship’s stores, or I do not know
what would have become of me…….
48
About ten days ago, we had a tremendous squall. It was
at noon; and we were flying before the wind. Suddenly the loud
voice of the captain was heard. All was hurry; the sails could
not be furled before a storm of snow and wind caused a frightful
heaving of the vessel; the topsails were carried away, and
minor injuries sustained. The passengers (doctor with the rest)
all ran to assist. It was for a short time very alarming. All next
night we went under nearly bare poles, and for a few days it
was very squally. I was too ill to see the water at the roughest;
but I have seen the waters form an almost perpendicular wall
on one side. The sight at such times is more awfully grand than
I could ever have imagined, and one I should rather witness
while on land. Our bed being the short way of the ship is very
uncomfortable, for when the wind is aft the vessel rolls, and our
feet rise, then sink so low that we can scarcely retain our
position; indeed some have not been fortunate to do so. One
Saturday night a large wave struck one side of the bows of the
ship; and about ten men were dropped with the bottom of their
beds and bedding on to their neighbours in the bunks below.
There being but one dim lamp, you can imagine the confusion
and fright that ensued. Fortunately, none were hurt, but the
carpenter had a good Sunday’s job. At first there was a great
deal of sport in this front part of the vessel; the sailors would
throw down a pig in the night. The weather was fine and each
one brought out a little stock, which kept up their spirits……
Sundays are particularly dull; there are prayers in the
morning in fine weather, but there have been none lately. Our
thoughts and conversation then turn more particularly toward
the little spot called home, rendered doubly dear by the
increasing distance that lies between us.
21st September. I can scarcely collect myself to write,
that land, the long looked for land, is seen at last. We are near
the coast of Cape Otway. The wind is not very favourable, but
we hope to take in the pilot by tomorrow. It is 86 days since we
left Portsmouth.
22nd September. The wind changed last night. We
rounded the lighthouse at Cape Otway; the pilot is on board,
and we shall soon be in Portland head, I hope. One thing I must
not omit. There has not been one death; there has been one
little girl born; Mr Tankard’s sister, Mrs Hardy, is the mother.
Give my love to Mrs Sharp and family, also all friends.
Glad to hear of anyone.
Care of Mr Juniper, ironmonger, Swanston Street, Melbourne.
PS Necessary for comfort for intermediate passengers:- Filterer,
spirits and port wine, lamp, portable saucepan and kettle, tin
plates, baking dish, bowl etc; flour, biscuits, gingerbread,
semolina, arrowroot, sago – all these must be in tin cases; for a
couple, 4lb raisins, 4lb currants, 6lb sugar, 2lb or 3lb coffee, 1lb
tea, small jar of butter, salted over, after crossing the line it will
get solid and good; Dutch cheese keeps best; some ham or
49
bacon, nice relish for breakfast, which we were allowed to cook
(little tobacco for the cook); jam, onions, baking powders for
bread, effervescing drinks, seidlitz powders, few pills, lamp oil
and cotton, eggs greased and put in salt, some tins of
preserved meat, little suet, Normandy pippins; warm wrappers
and clothes; anything is good enough to wear.
Brighton Gazette Thursday December 30th 1852
Letter received by Mr G.A. Wigney
Collingwood, October 8th 1852
My Dear Father, – Our vessel anchored in the beautiful bay
opposite William’s Town on 23rd September. William and I left
by the first steamer, which brought us up to Melbourne. Oh, the
delightful sensation of setting foot on land! We found the
Junipers quite well, and spent the evening with them, and they
kindly slept us. Next morning they directed us where we might
find a lodging. The town is so full that we could not get lodgings
in it; but through their recommendations we procured two
empty rooms at Collingwood, a distance of about half a mile
from the town, and upon a beautiful hill. Our rent is £1 per
week, which is far less than two rooms could be got for in
Melbourne. My husband and brother George came on shore with
the luggage on Saturday, 25th, and on the following Tuesday got
situations at a coachmakers – my husband £4 and W. £3 per
week. This may seem astonishing, but I must tell you how trade
stands here. Everything is enormously dear. Many of the
successful gold diggers do not mind what they give for things.
Then there has been, and still is, such an influx of emigrants
that provisions have risen very high. The passengers from the
Statesman, finding things so dear, were obliged many of them
to sell clothes and other matters before they could pay to get
up to the diggings. Some have done as we are doing, staying
and earning, and then going some future day. Those trades
people who have been here some time now reap the benefit, as
they get cent per cent for their goods; but to a settler it is
trying, and many from our ship, when they landed, were quite
discouraged; they were obliged to pitch their tents upon the
beach, or some distance from the town (as it is against the law
within a certain distance). Poor things, it was quite distressing.
But meat is cheap, 4d. and 5d. best pieces; and after getting up
their strength they are, no doubt, in better spirits. Bread, 2s the
4lb loaf; English cheese, 2s.6d. per lb; colonial 2s.; butter,
2s.6d.; a load of wood, from £2 to £3.10s.; a large cask of
water from the river is 2s.6d.; bakings, 6d. weekdays, 1s.
Sundays; tea is only 1s.8d, per lb; sugar about the same as in
England; cabbages, 1s each, and fruit proportionately dear.
Servants in general cannot be got; and washing is from
7s.to10s. per dozen pieces, so that those that wish to get on
must work. My husband has the offer of making a number of
50
cradles to sell to the diggers. He will accept the job, and as
George is not in anything yet, he will teach him to assist, ……
carpenters, bricklayers, brickmakers, paperhangers, bakers,
tailors, watchmakers and shoemakers are trades that command
good wages, and there are plenty wanted; also any one that
can take care of horses, and drive drays. When a man can get
forward enough to get a horse and dray he can go and cut wood
or fetch water, and his earnings are incredible. If we have our
strength and health, I have no doubt we shall do very well.
Furniture is very dear. I much regret we could not afford to
bring ours; I think it would have sold for three times as much
as we gave for it in England………. Mr Juniper and John are soon
going to the diggings. You hear only of the fortunate diggers;
but there are many tradesmen here doing far better than the
majority of diggers. So that altogether our party seem most
inclined to grasp the substance rather than run the risk of
catching at what might prove to be a shadow. Mr Juniper only
goes when he can spare time to leave his business for a short
time. At present the roads are so muddy that it is £5 10s. per
cwt. for luggage from Melbourne to the diggings, and one gets
nearly up to the middle, as it is not possible to ride. There are a
great number of auction sales. Anyone that has goods to sell
takes them to the auction rooms, so that if George had had his
type he might have done well at jobbing; as it is we are all
living together, and I dare say he will do well under my
husband’s superintendence. There is certainly more scope for a
working man when he has once got a little money. The town is
not paved nor lighted, but it is nicely laid out, and has plenty of
places of worship in it. ……. Last Sunday we went to a church
close by us; and heard a good gospel sermon, preached
extempore in a plain manly manner. It put me in mind of
Exeter. We all liked it much; but as my time is hastening, I
must conclude. Please write soon. I am anxious to hear of Mary,
indeed I long to hear of all. My heart yearns to see you, and all
my dear friends. I hope to have that privilege again. This
country is beautiful; but there is something so inexpressibly
painful in the thought that you are so far away. I enclose a note
for Uncle Benjamin. The boys unite with my husband and
myself in love to Joseph and all the family. Mrs Juniper desires
her love and thanks to your wife. We are all picking up, and eat
heartily. I intend, if spared, to write again in a month. Write
soon, and you will oblige,
Your affectionate daughter, Martha Mudge.
Address, care of Mr Juniper, Swanstone Street.
51
Chapter 8. Arrival of the Gold Seekers.
The first impressions of Melbourne and the expectations of the
“gold seekers” of 1852 were very different from those of the
Juniper and Wood party some three years before. The Baptists
were a smaller group of families who were strongly united in
their religious beliefs and practice, and, though they knew noone in their adopted country, they came with the expectation of
soon moving out of Melbourne to the land allocated to them
where they could settle together and build their new
community. As we know these plans failed to come to fruition
when their pastor, John Turner, found he could attract a
congregation in Melbourne amenable to the doctrinal shift he
had adopted on board the Harpley and his companions from the
Ebenezer had to find work for themselves and a congregation of
already established Baptists to worship with.
The Brightonians who arrived in 1852 numbered between
one and two hundred. There were very few families and the
great majority were young single men whose principal objective
was a chance to try their luck at the diggings. Although as many
as possible had travelled on board the Statesman others came
in small groups or as individuals on a number of other ships (at
least seven have been identified as carrying passengers from
Brighton) over a period of several months. For many who had
known the Ebenezer families in Brighton there was the chance
to renew old friendships with people who now knew the country,
had experienced (and were experiencing) the turmoil brought
about by the gold rush, and who could be relied upon for sound
advice and help in adjusting to their new lives.
There was, of course, a natural impatience to disembark
after so long at sea but first the new arrivals had to pay to be
taken ashore and they would need to know where they were
going to stay before leaving for the diggings. Many took the
opportunity of the enforced delay to write letters to their
families in Brighton, and a number of these, published in the
Gazette on January 13, 1853, are reproduced here. Apart from
one, written by John Hughes from Adelaide, and one sent from
Sydney, all those brought back by the Australian were from
passengers on the Statesman. They give a very good idea of the
scene on arrival on September 23 and the immediate problems
to be faced.
One surprise was the arrival on board of people offering
to buy many of their possessions at inflated prices – cutlery,
jewellery and above all pistols and revolvers. This came as a
relief to those short of immediate cash and anyway regretting
the amount of luggage they had brought because of the cost of
carriage and storage. There were also offers of temporary jobs.
Often the whole crew of an arriving vessel bolted to get to the
goldfields and there were no men to crew the homeward
voyage. So some new arrivals may have been tempted to work
their passage back to England as seamen, but we have no
evidence of Brighton returners. There was a particular interest
52
in prices in Melbourne, especially of food and rent – but in any
case it was difficult to find any accommodation at all. A huge
tent town had sprung up near Williamstown, where the ship
berthed, to take in homeless arrivals. Rumours went round
about the way up to the diggings – the appalling roads and the
bands of robbers waiting for people coming down.
All this was recorded in the letters received by anxious
families in Brighton. A favourite story, related more than once,
was of the famous “equality at the diggings” as new arrivals
were told by hotel staff to clean their own boots. The long delay
in receiving the letters was explained by the newspaper:Brighton Gazette. January 13th 1853
The Australian:- This vessel from the gold regions, so
long and, since the arrival of the “Marco Polo” a fortnight
ago, most anxiously expected, has at last arrived,
bringing mails of unusual bulk. The postage on unpaid
letters alone, received for delivery in Brighton, amounted
to nearly £13. Among these were communications from
many recent Brighton emigrants….
Brighton Emigrants to Australia:- The long delay in the
arrival of the “Australian” terminated on Tuesday, and
yesterday’s noon mail brought a number of letters from
Brighton emigrants who left in the “Statesman” and
previous vessels. We have been favoured with a sight of
some of these….
Brighton Gazette 13 January 1853.
From Mr Herbert Humphrey, to his father, Mr Humphrey, tailor,
Bond Street.
Dear father, mother, sister and brother,
This is the first time I have taken a pen in hand since leaving,
having left all the writing to Henry, who is keeping a log, from
which you shall have more particulars in our next. Circular
sailing is tedious and very monotonous; we have not seen a
vessel for about six weeks till our arrival in port. You will be
pleased to know that we have not been idle (we have earned
between two and three pounds together) and also I was never
better in health than I am at present. This is a fine climate; and
we think it is sure to agree with us. We hope everything goes
on as comfortable at home as when we parted – with plenty of
trade. The ‘Statesman’ is a splendid sailing ship, with a very
clever captain; but a great many are dissatisfied with the diet
and regulations, though there has been very little to trouble us.
I am sorry we brought much luggage, as storage in Melbourne
is difficult and expensive. I hope in our next we shall be able to
give you fuller information as to future intentions, but at
53
present everything is very exciting. Can’t think of anything
more at present.
From Mr Herbert Humphrey, to his father, Mr Humphrey, tailor,
Bond Street.
Ship “Statesman”, September 24, 1852
Dear Father, Mother, Brother and Sister
This is the first opportunity we have had of writing to
you, and hope you are all quite well, as we have been
throughout the passage, and are at present. We have had a
most remarkable voyage, not one serious case of illness on
board, but an addition to the ship in the shape of a child. We
made the run in 83 days, from land to land, with very fine
weather and favourable winds from the Line. The temperature
has been as low as 52° very cold, with squalls of snow and rain.
Sighted land Wednesday 22nd, 80 miles west of Cape Otway,
passed the heads into the port at 9am on the 23rd, the pilot
came on board soon after, and we dropped anchor off Williams’
Town at 3 pm, same day. It is a most beautiful harbour with
beautiful scenery around.
The accounts from the diggings are most prosperous.
Diggings more prolific than Alexander have been found at
Adelaide, and there are now lying here more than 150 ships of
all descriptions, deserted by their crews, who have gone to the
diggings. We have not yet been ashore, but are waiting for the
greatest number of townsmen to go with. We are about a
fortnight too soon for the diggings. Have had several settlers
and others on board, to engage people for shearing sheep and
some tradesmen wanting to engage, bakers from 30s to 40s a
week, and their board and lodging; tailors, 1s.6d. an hour, with
rations; shoemakers, 25s for soling and heeling a pair of boots;
but at the same time meat is 4d to 5d per lb; bread, 2s the 4lb
loaf; sugar, 3½d per lb; butter and cheese, 2s.6d to 3s.6d per
lb; but any man of any profession may get his 10s a day with
board and lodging, for rowing to and from ships or unloading
them, - in fact no man may fear starving here, the diggings
make everyone independent.
Today, one of our cuddy passengers went on shore, and
at the Hotel asked to have his boots cleaned, but to his
astonishment was instantly told to go to ---- We have sent a
very short account, in consequence of the steam mail starting
at 4p.m., tomorrow, but as soon as we have been to the
diggings and the next mail starts, we will send a better account.
Don’t know which way to advise Fred about coming out, for
there is not a room anywhere in the town to be got for love or
money; innumerable tents are pitched about the town, and we
must put our tent up. The steamer is now waiting, but will write
again as soon as possible.
54
From Mr Henry Pepper, to his father, Mr William Pepper,
Western Road.
The “Statesman” at Anchor
William’s Town
September 24, 1852
Dear Parents, ―
We arrived at Port Philip after a very fine voyage of 84
days from land to land,― thank God ! All well. I cannot give you
any account of things, as I have not been ashore. The account
of the produce at the “diggins” is very encouraging, as there are
new fields discovered continually. Every thing is very dear – a
loaf of bread from 1s.6d to 2s; beef, 6d per lb and mutton the
same. Any person that will work can get it, for men even come
aboard to engage the new comers from 10s to 25s per day. It
will be quite impossible for you to come out as all the houses
are let, and hosts of tents around the town. I will give you a
long account when I get to the “diggings” which will be about a
fortnight or three weeks. In that time we shall be able to get
there, as the roads are very swampy. Please to read this letter
to all friends, in case any of the letters should miscarry. I must
conclude with my kind love to all, and accept the same
yourselves.
P.S. Tell Aunt Cook to tell her boys that there’s a chance for
them. Excuse haste as the mail is just making up to go off.
From Mr William Pearmain to his brother Mr John Pearmain,
agent, etc Brighton.
Melbourne, Sept. 28th. 1852
Not a death on the ship, nor any sickness. I have not been on
shore yet. William H. Beck went yesterday and returned today.
Melbourne is very full, not a lodging to be had at any price; but
splendid news from the diggings: people are making rapid
fortunes in a short time. We intend to pitch our tent in the bush
by Melbourne. Things are very reasonable considering the
quantity of gold brought in daily. Money appears no object
here: all spend it like dirt. Bread is 1s 6d the 4 lb loaf; beef, 6d
lb; mutton 5d; but some things enormously dear, for instance,
any kind of labour. To work scraping roads, 10s per day;
mechanics, 16s to 18s per day. Immediately on the arrival of a
ship, parties come on board ready to engage anyone that like;
but the diggings is all the cry of our party, and is the case with
nearly all. Nil desperandum is our motto. From what we can
hear, the generality of the diggers are a rough lot. Today a
great many are starting; they carry all on their backs, with a
pistol on one side and a large knife in the other. There are
regular bands of robbers from 20 to 30 strong, on horseback,
armed. We are making our party 30 strong, to go to the
diggings. The robbers do not attack people going up, but those
coming down with the gold.
As soon as we arrived, we had parties on board ready to
buy anything we had to sell – particularly pistols. Several were
silly enough to sell them, £5 a pair for which at Brighton we
gave 15s. Turner was offered £20 for his six barrel revolver,
55
which he gave £3 in Brighton for; but he would not sell it,
thinking we might have use for it ourselves. There were three
robberies in Melbourne last night. But we are one and all in
excellent health and spirits, and fear no robbers. The wet
season is just over and the Spring just beginning. The roads
are awfully muddy; and we are told the road to the diggings is
three feet deep. We shall be obliged to carry all our things up
on our backs, as we cannot get a dray to take us up to the
diggings under £100 and some charge more, and then they
object to carry more than 1½ tons. We nearly all starved;
dreadful bad provisions for the first six weeks. Had it not been
for the ham and cheese, etc, we took with us, I do not know
what we should have done. But it is better the last six weeks;
as we are got more used to it. I should like you to have seen us
sometimes at our meals (if you can call them meals). First
imagine to yourselves a lot of pigs scrambling to get what they
can, - salt beef as hard as iron, also pork, and hard biscuit; but
thank God it is all over, and when our feet are on shore all
hardships will be forgotten. Brandy is 1s per glass; wine, from
25s to 50s per dozen; bottled ale and stout 16s per dozen. The
“Hebrides” is not yet arrived. We wait here for our other party
till her arrival, which is daily expected.
From Mr Samuel Packham, son of Mr Packham, Ironmonger,
Western Road
Dear Father,
Melbourne, Sept. 22, 1852
The voyage of 84 days, barring the “Melbourne,” is, I
understand, one of the shortest passages yet made. I disposed of
the whole of my goods, but with some little difficulty. People
made a sad mistake with regard to the quality of the cutlery; if
they had sent the very best, I might have made 100 per cent by
them, but as it was the very most I could make was 30, which
only one ironmonger in Melbourne would give, the others offering
as low as 5 or 10 per cent only. The jewellery I succeeded much
better with, clearing 120% by every thing I sold. I really wish I
had brought £500 worth of it. I could have disposed of it without
the slightest difficulty, and made £500 by it….. We are now
preparing to start for the Bendigo diggings, as yet the richest that
have been discovered. I have not been idle during my stay here.
I have sold goods on commission for parties who came out in the
same vessel, and have done uncommonly well. I would not go to
the diggings, but men coming down day after day with such
immense quantities of gold, it is impossible to resist. Mr and Mrs
Juniper are quite well, and have been very kind to us, and
obtained us very comfortable lodgings. He is shortly going to the
diggings. Pistols are greatly in demand. I have sold my revolver
(cost £6) for £18 and purchased a pistol for £5.
Address to me, care of Mr Juniper.
56
From Messrs. Alfred Chate and Stephen Cottrell, to Mrs Jeffery,
Montpelier Road.
On board “The Statesman”
Off William’s Town Sept 24.
The place is quite deserted – nearly all the inhabitants are gone
to the diggings. Tell ― she had better make up her mind not to
come, as the females here don’t know where to get lodgings,
houses are so scarce. Bread is 1s.6d a loaf; tea 2s. per lb;
coffee, 1s.6d; mutton is rose from 1d to 5d per lb; eggs, 3s. a
dozen; butter, 2s.6d per lb; tobacco,7d.; and English stout 2s.
a pot. Only wish we could have a good draught of the Brighton
ale just now. Tell any friends they must not come until they
hear from us, as we have not been able to go on shore yet, and
therefore cannot give a description of the place. Tell all the
single chaps that think of coming out; they will have to work,
for there is none of your fine dressed gentlemen here, and
everybody looks after No.1, and lets No.2 do as he can. The
captain went on shore yesterday, and slept at an Hotel, and
when he called the waiter next morning to clean his boots, the
answer he got was, go to ― and clean them yourself.
Mr Bambridge desires to be kindly remembered to all friends.
From Mr W.P. Pentecost to his father, Mr Pentecost, boot and
shoemaker Brighton.
On board the “Statesman,”
Port Philip, Melbourne, Sept. 24, 1852
Dear Father and Mother,
Here we are at last ― scarcely had any rough weather, and
no sickness, not a single death on board, which we consider a
great blessing, as there is one ship lying here, which came from
Liverpool with 800 passengers on board, out of which number
100 died in the passage. I could not manage to eat the food, it
was such dreadful STUFF; but the passage has made a man of
me, and I was never in better health. Never did I hear so
welcome a cry as at three o’clock on Thursday afternoon, “Let
go the anchor.” The tidings we got was that no one could be got
to do work. Tailors were earning 1s.3d per hour; carpenters,
15s. per day; shoemakers, 25s. for soleing and heeling boots;
labourers, £1 per day at the wharf. There are no lodgings to be
got under the small sum of £2 per week, and then perhaps you
will have to sleep out in the verandah. I shall not go to the
diggings yet, as I think I can earn plenty of money here. The
people that came on board are very strange looking, like the
Yankees with their broad brimmed straw hats and blue
Guernsey shirts. As we lay in port, there is no less than 150
ships that cannot get away for want of men to work them. They
have offered £150 per man to work them home. Boots and
shoes fetch an enormous price, two guineas for a pair of water
tights, and £5 for Wellingtons. In fact every trade does well;
people MUST make money if they come here. Of course there is
the black side of the question. The passage is bad; only fancy
13 weeks on the water, without amusement or any thing to
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pass the time. I don’t wish to deter any body from coming, but
it is a wonder to me that so many live through it. I must in
honesty say that hundreds of times I wished myself back again,
and was sorry that I ever came; but I do not now.
Mr John Hughes, former assistant to Mr Cockran, writes:Mount Barker, Adelaide,
Sept. 24, 1852
Our run of 94 days was pleasant, and without rough
weather till we passed the Cape. We had concerts, theatrical
amusements, etc., on board, and the captain was so pleased as
to request a repetition.
We got into the Bay before the steamer (which lost four
boats and had disorderly sailors who immediately left on arrival)
and many cracked up vessels. We fell in with the “Negotiator,”
bound to Melbourne with about 250 passengers. She had lost
her topmast, portside bulwarks, all stove in, and her sails rent
to pieces; a large ship in the night having run into her, and
made off. Nothing but confusion on board, and drunkenness.
There is cold weather here, and I have seen the white
frost. No fire places, but logs on the hearth. The wet season will
be shortly over. Parties are very sanguine about the new
diggings here; but I intend on Tuesday going to Port Philip to
try my luck. Labourers 10s and carpenters 20s per day, boots,
42s the pair (and about 9 months notice necessary), English
cheese and bacon, 2s, beer, 1s.3d per quart, brandy 9d a glass.
I have seen many diggers call for their dozen of
champagne. The colonists are great spendthrifts and drunkards.
It is a land of milk and honey if you choose to work, and keep
from the grog shops. Although drink is so dear, they will have it.
You may see a fellow in the grog shops, apparently not
worth 2d, pull out a bundle of notes a foot high and plenty of
nuggets. They think nothing of £20 a night. For dress, woollen
trousers, lace-up boots, straw hats, common blue shirt, with
blue serge shirt over and belt round, - such is my dress now.
Shepherds, 16s. a week, rations and lodgings.
The whole of our crew bolted on getting into port. Large
sums have to be paid for taking ships round to Melbourne. I
should be glad to receive the Brighton Gazette, now and then,
for old association’s sake.
Brighton Gazette
3rd March 1953
A batch of letters from a party who left England in June, for
Australia, has been handed to us by a townsman. The party
had, as a fellow passenger, Mr Dexter, husband of the Bloomer
lady of that name; and the vessel was in company of the
“Hebrides” for three days, while becalmed, a few degrees on
this side of the line.
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Sunday at sea is thus described:We have service every Sunday morning, on the poop.
The captain reads the prayers admirably; and we all come out
regular swells. Somehow my mind generally reverts to Old
England; and I fancy I can hear the bells ringing in the breeze,
and see my absent friends quietly walking to their several
churches. We have no sermon; so that we leave church about
half past twelve. We dine about one. We have preserved meat
on Sunday; and after dinner we do our port, or our champagne;
and the toast I usually propose is, ‘All our absent friends.’
One of the letters is dated from the White Horse Hotel,
George Street Sydney, October 23. The land sighted, the
anticipated breakfast on land was the topic of conversation; and
here is the description of it:
We had a tremendous feed. I had four or five mutton
chops, some rump steak, some pig’s cheek, five eggs, tea and
coffee, cigars and a little dram of B and W. The rest did about
the same.
Speaking of the country he says,
I like the look of things uncommonly. The climate is fine,
the scenery magnificent, and every body making a fortune. All
of our passengers who sought employment have got it at
remunerative prices; and there is lots of work for many more.
The fact is, there are hardly any workmen here; they cannot get
them under from 11s.to15s. a day, and as meat is but 2d.a lb.,
and bread but little dearer than at home, you may fancy they
are doing well. We are stopping at a very nice hotel.
Cleanliness, civility, and cheapness the order of the day, £1.1s
per week for board and lodging, three real sound good meals
per diem. We have sold our goods and made nearly 50 per cent
profit on them. I have been offered £26 for my revolver, to
send to Port Philip; but, as the bullet mould was packed, I could
not sell it. If I had sold it, it would have paid me nearly 200 per
cent. You must not expect to hear very often, as the crews of
vessels are deserting at every chance.
We start in a few hours. Hurrah for the diggings!
59
Chapter 9. Getting to the Diggings.
The Statesman berthed at Williamstown late in September 1852
and the majority of the second party of Brighton emigrants
disembarked for Melbourne to find a handful of their fellow
townsmen already there in addition to the established families
from Ebenezer. The Mary Harrison, bringing Henry Scarborough,
had arrived in July, to be followed in August by the Woodbridge
“with several emigrants from Brighton” on board. Many of the
newcomers lost no time in writing home, and a large number of
letters to Brighton were carried in the Australian, as recorded
above.
There were by this time more regular sailings to England
and the Gazette tended to publish batches of letters from
Melbourne once the recipients showed their willingness to share
their news. Not all did, and some delayed handing over their
letters, but there were several published together on December
30, and on January 13 in the New Year 1853. Some of these will
be found in the previous chapter, describing the arrival at
Williamstown, early impressions of Melbourne, and the first few
weeks in the new country. Very few of the writers had at that
time actually attempted to get to the goldfields (the Humphrey
brothers were among the first to do so.) It was one thing to
arrive in Melbourne but quite another actually to get organised
to start on the difficult and dangerous overland track. Besides, it
cost money to amass equipment and stores, and more still if
they did not want to do it on foot, so the letters received in
January are mainly about earning some money and making
preparations to go.
The next batch of letters received in March came back on
the Hebrides which had taken out six of the Brighton men who
couldn’t get on the Statesman. (They were Dyer, Leney, Henry
Franklyn, Francis and John Tillstone and John Lawrence.) On
March 3 the Gazette reported the arrival of the letters but
delayed their publication until seven appeared on the 24th. Not
all the recipients were happy or willing to pass over their
correspondence to a newspaper – a fact regretted by the editor
who felt it was important that the people at home should learn
the truth about the goldfields. Recent reports (“by Electric
Telegraph”) suggested that the heady early days of enormous
finds at the diggings had given way to more modest yields,
though there was “no real cause to believe that the gold has
come to an end.” The Gazette decided that a cautionary note
was called for:
Brighton Gazette. Thursday March 3rd 1853
Emigration.
The Diggings.
The accounts from the gold fields of Australia are varied
and not altogether satisfactory. We take up a paper
containing the first glowing description of the state of the
new El Dorado; but on the other hand we occasionally
60
obtain a sight of letters which are not altogether of so
encouraging a character. On reading these varied
accounts, we arrive at the conclusion, that persons should
pause before leaving a comfortable though perhaps not
lucrative, home for a change of scene, which, for aught
they know, may result in one of disappointment and
misery. These observations are addressed more
particularly to persons with families, - to young men the
change does not carry with it the same serious
consequence. In the morning papers of Tuesday last we
read of a large arrival of gold from Australia, as if there
was no end to the riches of that country, and we believe
that thousands are preparing to embark for this land of
promise. But that “it is not all gold that glitters,” even in
that prolific country, may be gathered from the fact, that
so late as Monday morning last, letters were received by
three or four highly respectable tradesmen of Brighton
direct from their sons at the diggings, of a highly
discouraging character, so much so as to induce one of
the tradesmen to abandon his intention of himself going
out. We learn that he had advertised his business, and
had made every preparation for proceeding to Melbourne,
when his letter arrived. One of the letters states that a
crisis is approaching, but what that crisis is we are left to
surmise. The parties from whom these letters came have
been to the diggings, toiled hard, and opened several
holes, but with no beneficial result; and they have
returned to Melbourne, for the purpose of getting more
profitable employment than “digging.” We are in
possession of the names of the parties, and regret
exceedingly that the parents of the young men, all of
them highly respectable, should, after the most pressing
request to make the information public, think proper to
withhold it. Every letter from the diggings, not touching
upon private or family connection, should be published for
the information and benefit of the public, as it is a matter
which concerns the interest and welfare of thousands,
more especially information on which the public can place
implicit reliance.
Although accounts from the goldfields are mixed and the
situation is often “disappointing” or “unfavourable,” at least one
correspondent still urges a family member to follow him to
Australia where “there is a great deal better chance for living
than in England at present.” Prices were high, but there was
plenty of money to be made in trade, or as a policeman.
Another correspondent at the same time says “it is almost
madness to come” but nevertheless he intends to go to the
diggings in spite of dangers (especially robberies) and the
likelihood of failure.
In fact some of the Brighton men were enjoying moderate
success at the diggings. Friends got mutual support from
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working together and enjoyed meeting up with fellow
Brightonians on the goldfields or back in Melbourne. Such news
was always passed on in letters home. One, from the Humphrey
brothers, is included to close this chapter. Henry and Herbert
had joined up, perhaps not too wisely, with Alwin and his boy,
and the gloomy prognostications heard in rumours and read in
newspapers proved only too true.
One letter, written in Melbourne on November 11th, and
published on its own in the Gazette on March 17th1853 is
something of an oddity. Received “by a lady in this town” it had
been written by a lady in Melbourne with an interest in
governesses, and getting a music master for the children. She
writes of the hundreds returning disappointed from the
goldfields and suggests (rightly) that, as the surface gold is
exhausted, there will be no individual digging and “it must be
worked for by companies.” She also notes that the people then
making profits from gold were the merchants buying and
shipping it, business men and (not surprisingly) the publicans.
The writer dislikes “low, vulgar men” and her generally
disapproving tone suggests a clear social distance between
herself and the “respectable” but class-bound tradesmen and
mechanics from Brighton, whose immediate concerns were not
about governesses and music masters. A selection of their
letters appeared in the Gazette the following week (Thursday
March 24th) after the arrival of the Sydney. Although these were
“upon the whole….of an unfavourable character,” few of the
correspondents were completely put off from at least trying
their luck at the diggings.
Brighton Gazette
Thursday March 17 1853
The Diggings
We subjoin an extract from a letter with which we have been
favoured by a lady in this town, who received it last week from
Australia.
Melbourne, Nov 11, 1852.
The influenza has been most prevalent in the whole town
lately; and many have been seriously ill. Whole families have
been prostrated by it; and very few have escaped. In Sydney
people have died of it; but no lives have been lost here.
The children have begun music with a master, the first
here, to whom we give four guineas a quarter for half an hour
twice a week.
Notwithstanding the thousands coming here, the price of
labour is still very high, and men will rather suffer privations
than take moderate wages; but they must eventually come
down. The yield of gold is evidently decreasing; and, of course,
when we consider the immense number now flocking together in
quest of it, we cannot suppose each one will be successful.
Hundreds are returning disappointed; and hundreds more at the
diggings are doing nothing. Many scientific men now are of
decided opinion that after a time, and not a very long time, the
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surface gold will be exhausted, and that there will then still be
gold to be had, but not by individual digging. It must be worked
for by companies, in a methodical organised manner. This will
be a most desirable result, if we come to it gradually; for were
the diggings suddenly to fail, one can hardly bear to anticipate
the effect. As it is, those who got gold by digging are almost
always working men, who, not having hitherto had money, are
ignorant how to use it, and riot, profusion, and waste are the
almost universal consequences. Some few are prudent, and
saving with their gains; but they are the exception. As it is,
those who really profit by the gold are the merchants who buy
and ship it, and the publicans, and all classes in business. The
shops are crowded with low vulgar men ―and worse women―
often throwing down notes and nuggets and rejecting change
with contempt.
As to ―’s project of sending out a contingent of
governesses, I should not consider it expedient just now. A
great many respectable established families are now going
home, at any rate for two or three years, until the present
unpleasant state of things passes away, as many prophesy it
will. There are already several newly arrived governesses
seeking situations. A lady told me, last week, that almost every
one she had seen lately had a governess to recommend; added
to which, the pay is not good. Houses, too, are so
inconveniently small, that few people have accommodation for
resident governesses.
Brighton Gazette
Thursday, March 24, 1853.
News from “The Diggings.”
By the ship “Sydney”, which arrived from Australia towards the
close of last week, a great number of letters from emigrants
were received, and were delivered to their relatives and friends
in Brighton on Friday last. Upon the whole, they are of an
unfavourable character. We have succeeded in procuring
extracts from several; but in some instances, our applications
have received a positive refusal, and we understand that in such
instances the accounts are of a most unsatisfactory character.
We hear that some of the emigrants, after a short trial, have
returned to England, and the account which they give of this
new El Dorado, does not at all tally with many accounts which
are still published. We had hoped that the parties receiving
letters here would have thought it advisable to give the public of
this county all the news which they possess, so that persons
might not be misled. Our population places greater reliance on
the statement of known friends than on accounts from those
unknown. The letters which we publish will, without doubt, be
read with much interest; and to those who have kindly favoured
us with extracts, we tender our thanks on behalf of the public at
large.
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To police constable Vincent, of Brighton, from his brother in
Australia, who was formerly in the Brighton Police Force, but
who has been settler in Australia for some time. There is no
date to this letter.
We are all well and happy and comfortable, and every
thing to make us so. I must tell you that I have got a very nice
place, a nice house, and 3½ acres of land. I had 5½ acres, but I
sold 2 acres for £130. I have just sold one horse for £85, and I
have got another worth £100. Every thing is very dear now
since the gold diggings; we came just in time. My place is worth
£500. I never was so comfortable before. I can play when I like,
and work when I like. Flour is £5 per sack, and every thing is
dear in proportion to it; we get 2s.6d. a pound for butter, 2s for
a dozen eggs, cabbage is 15s a dozen, and hay £30 per ton. I
can go to work with my horse and cart and get £12 a week, and
I could have plenty of work at that. When I hire a man I give
him 5s. a day and his board. The police are wanted out here. A
policeman gets three pounds a week. People are coming in by
thousands from all parts.
Give my kind respect to Mr Crowhurst, Mr White, Mr
Barnden, Mr Martin, and the rest.----To Jessy Vincent, another brother living in Sussex.
I have just received your kind letter which informed me
that you wish to come out. I have been making every enquiry
what to do for the best, as the times are so much altered by so
many thousands coming out, but still there is a great deal better
chance for a living than in England at present, so I have sent
the money for you to come. If your mind should be changed
when this letter reaches you, you can keep the money and do
the best you like with it; but I hope you will come. You will
receive another letter in a month after this, in case you do not
receive the first. If you can get any one to cash this check (sic)
for you, then you can come sooner, for you will have to wait one
month for it at the bank. Write to me if you intend to come; and
when you arrive in Melbourne go to Mr Juniper’s in Swanston
Street, and they will tell you how to find me. I want you to bring
a round Dutch cheese and as many pairs of shoes as you can,
because they are so dear.
Stephen and Louisa Vincent.
From the son of a tradesman in North Street to his brother. The
emigrant’s father has received another letter of a similar
tendency.
Prahan, Near Melbourne, Australia
Dec. 1st 1852.
My dear brother,― At last I have the opportunity of writing a
few lines to you, hoping it will find you and dear father and
mother, and all the rest, well, happy, and comfortable. I only
wish I could say it left me so; but unfortunately I am neither;
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well I have not been since I came on shore; happy or
comfortable in this place is out of the question altogether. I
intend, if any way possible to go to the Diggings in the course of
a week or so. The accounts from them are not very flattering,
inasmuch as the number of diggers increase by thousands, and
there is less quantity of gold found; but I mean to take my
chance. I fear very much it is a poor one; but I mean to get
some.
I must first tell you I have been very ill indeed; I have not
had one day’s good health since I have been on shore, and I
hardly expect to have while I stop in this vile country, which I
can assure you won’t be very long. When I have been to the
Diggings and found the “big nuggits” that are waiting for me, I
shall return home immediately, and even if I don’t find them, I
shall come home; if I have to work my own passage I don’t
care. I would not stop here on any account. It’s very evident the
climate does not agree with me---- I would not have you, my
dear brother, come here for all the world; as I am here it cannot
be helped; but I wish to God I had never come.
I will tell you how it is you do not hear more of the “black”
side of the question; it is because the people that come here,
when they find themselves so disappointed, do not like to own
it; they do not wish to own they have been “humbugged”
consequently they send home flattering accounts. And if they do
not actually do that, they do not tell the truth, which is as bad;
if they told the truth, they would say almost every one is
attacked with coughs, colds, influenza, rheumatism, fever,
lumbago, bad eyes etc. They would also say that hundreds die
off, like “rotten sheep”, and likewise that the climate is nothing
like so good as England, all of which I swear to be true. These
things are all contradicted in England. They said at home, too,
that the consumption was never known here; why I scarcely
meet a soul but what looks more like a tenant of the grave than
of this earth! I firmly believe the climate is more calculated to
kill people than cure them. Whatever you do, “don’t come here.”
Never mind what you may hear or read; take my advice and
“don’t come”’ I have given it plenty of consideration; and
positively say I would rather “starve” in England than live here
in plenty. There is no society, no enjoyment, no comfort, in fact
“no nothing.”
You are expected to have plenty of money, and to spend it;
if you have not, you are no use here. The Irish are the most
wealthy here; and some time ago, I am told, an English man
dare not go out after dark, if he did, the Irish would almost kill
him; but now the English are too numerous, consequently all
those disturbances are quelled. The way the Irish make the
money here is either by “gold digging” or else “bush ranging.”
They have got a plan of “sticking” people “up,” that is, they stop
them on the roads, and even in the town and rob them of all
they have. The “game” is carried on to a fearful extent; but I
have no doubt it will be put a stop to, as the police and soldiers
are becoming very numerous here now. A few weeks ago four
65
men “stuck up”’ no less than twenty two persons in the public
highway, and robbed them of all they had just by a town called
Brighton, at four o’clock in the afternoon. What do you think of
that on a bright sunny afternoon? Some of the persons stopped
were on horseback. The four men stopped everybody on the
road for two hours and a half. I believe that’s what you may call
business. They don’t do things by halves here: they make you
strip to the skin; and if you have any money about you, they’ll
have it, and no mistake.
Dec.7, 1852: Dear Den, - Since I wrote the above, I am
happy to say I have improved in health wonderfully; in fact I
begin to feel all right. I am off to the diggings tomorrow
(Wednesday), a favourable opportunity having occurred of
getting up there. Mr Livett and I are going together. We are
sure of getting up safe, as we have plenty of protection. It is
time I was off, for having been so ill, my money is almost all
gone; but I have enough left to get there. It is my only chance:
if I fail, why it can’t be helped; but I shall try hard you may
depend. I would write more, but cannot, as I have so much to
do in the shape of getting things ready for the diggings. I shall
be very glad when all this worry and bother is over, I can tell
you. I would sooner be at home in the shop than out here; but
“to the diggings – to the diggings.” That’s the only chance;
there I must either make a “haul” or lose “all”. Whichever way it
is, I shall return home as soon as possible; for, as I have before
said, I cannot bear to be away from home, even supposing the
country was ever so beautiful. The accounts from the diggings
have been more favourable this last week. There has been more
gold found than lately.
I met Thatcher the other day in Melbourne; he is very
well. Tucker, Bambridge, and Chate and all that party are at the
diggings; and I believe, are doing very well. Mr Mussell is at the
diggings, but I hear he is not doing much good; in fact it is a
mere lottery, scarcely one in a hundred get any money at all,
and not one in a thousand makes a fortune. Under such
circumstances, it must appear evident that it is almost madness
to come.
Your affectionate brother.
P.S. – I will write by the next mail, and let you know how I get
on, in case any of my letters have miscarried. Direct to Mr
Juniper, Ironmonger, Swanston Street, Melbourne.
To Mr and Mrs Tillstone, from their son, Francis J. Tillstone.
Melbourne, Victoria,
Sunday, November 28, 1852
Dear Father and Mother, ―I heard of a situation to cook for a
gentleman who was living in the bush, about seven miles from
Melbourne, under government survey. I accordingly made
application for the place and succeeded in getting it. Here I have
been ever since, living in the bush. We are as happy as princes.
66
I have a tent to myself (18 feet by 10 feet), and nothing
to do except cook for my master and myself, and mind the
tents. You would scarcely think how comfortable we are, with
nothing but a piece of canvass for a house. We have several
heavy showers of rain (I was going to say, but it never stops to
rain in this country but comes down by buckets full) since I have
been here; but none can come through the tents. My wages are
£1.5s.a week clear, with my rations. There has been a
considerable reduction in wages within the last month or two, on
account of so many emigrants having arrived. There have been
as many as two, three or four thousand in a week, in fact there
were four ships, besides the Hebrides (our ship), sailed into the
Bay together, being five ships containing upwards of 1000
emigrants in one day. The Great Britain arrived here about ten
days since, and landed 635. She was 85 days on the passage.
That is much longer than was expected; but she could not make
the Cape of Good Hope, and was obliged to put back to St
Helena for coals, on account of unfavourable winds.
The accounts that are received from the Diggings are very
indifferent ― some persons are making their fortunes whilst
others are starving. There are about 150,000 persons at the
Mount Alexander and Bendigo Diggings; and the amount of gold
brought from there last week was only 50,000 grams, which is
only ⅓ of an ounce to each person on average in a week. The
truth is, it is a day too late for the Gold Diggings; there are too
many there already. We have two persons in our party that
have been there; they both say it is no use to go, unless you
have a capital of £50 or £100, so as you can afford to sink three
or four holes before you find anything. No man can live under
50 shillings a week at the Diggings, although he has no houserent to pay. Bread is 6s. the 4lb loaf; meat, 1s.6d. and 2s.;
candles, 2s10d per lb; butter 7s. a lb; milk 2s. a pint; salt,
2s.6d. per lb; and other things in proportion.
In Melbourne, you cannot get a bed under 2s. a night, and
then you cannot call it a bed. In this colony it is termed a “shake
down”: they throw a lot of straw mattresses down in a row
along the floor, and then some blankets stretched over them. In
this way some six or seven people are accommodated in one
room or more according to the size of it, for which, as I said
before, you pay the moderate sum of 2s. For a dinner you must
pay 2s.; tea or breakfast, 1s.6d.; or if you go and get board and
lodging it will cost 30s.,35s., and 40s.a week; in fact 30s.is the
lowest I have heard of yet.
It is much the best plan for new comers to get a situation
on first landing, even if it be only for a month, just so as to be
able to look about them, and see what the country is. It is
impossible to form any idea at home, for the country is so
changeable, on account of so many people coming which overstock the place. Directly there are any new diggings discovered,
everybody that has any money is off, and the town is quite
empty. If there are many more emigrants come here, wages will
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soon be down to a mere nothing; but if things keep as they are
now, any person may get a decent living.
The best trades are carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers,
and sailmakers. As soon as I can save a few pounds I intend to
start a little shoemaking on my own account. I tried a shop; but
found my work was not ornamental enough. Shoemakers can
earn £4 or £5 a week. I wish Uncle Charles was out here. Him
and me together might do well. I shall send you one or two
newspapers with this. I hope you will write often, and also send
me some papers. I should advise any one coming out here to
bring no luggage whatever, except just a change and a few pair
of boots. There are no black clothes wanted in this colony; in
fact, everything in the way of clothes is almost as cheap here as
in England, except boots: Bluchers are 28s.a pair, Wellingtons,
50s.; and you cannot get a patch put of any description under
2s.6d., which you would give 3d. for in England.
One of the greatest nuisances in this country are the insects:
millions and millions of ants (not such ones as in England, but
some of them are an inch and a half long). The flies are the
greatest nuisance in the world; it is a day’s work for any man to
keep them off his face. And as to the meat in this country, you
have to kill it as you want it, and then think yourself lucky if you
get it fresh. The other day we killed a sheep at dinner-time, and
when I went to cut some for tea it was as full of maggots as
ever it could stick; and this morning I cooked some chops for
breakfast and in half an hour afterwards it was covered.
The towns in this country are laid out far superior to any of
the towns in England; but I must stop here: that is all I can say
in favour of them, for as to the houses they are not fit for
pigsties compared with the houses in Brighton and London,
unless you go to Lissom Grove for them. The best houses are in
Collingwood, just outside Melbourne; but the chief of them are
built of wood, and only one story. Rent is enormous; you cannot
get a room under 25s. or 30s. a week
I have never seen anything of any Brightonians since I have
been here, but heard that one party was gone to the diggings
and had been “stuck up” (robbed) on the road. I think I have
said nearly all. I shall conclude with my kindest love to you all.
I remain
Your most affectionate son, Francis J Tillstone.
P.S. – We expect to be moving our tents on Wednesday next,
when we shall be going much nearer towns. We shall encamp
between Collingwood and Flemmington, about a mile and a half
from Melbourne. When you write you will, of course, direct to
me at the Post office, Melbourne, Port Phillip Australia. (To be
called for)
68
From Mr J Spencer (late of Cannon Place) to Messrs Beck and
Pearman, Kings Road.
Melbourne, November 28, 1852
Dear Friends – I had a capital passage. At present I am
doing well. But at first we were all out of spirits. Think of getting
a penny loaf for a penny in England; and then paying 6d.for one
here, and no change! They never give any change out of silver.
It is a fine country: cabbages 30s.per dozen; and potatoes
6d.each! The principal inhabitants are the scum of that dear
native land, Ould England; and half of them from Ould Ireland.
They all keep horses, and ride like fury; and are as independent
as possible. There are a number from Brighton, that I am quite
sure would like to be on her beach again; because hard work
would kill them. I was very lucky on board the ship; for when I
left Gravesend, I had but 18s. in the world. I bought goods to
that amount; but when I got to Melbourne I sold them well,
having cleared £5, and before I left the ship. There is plenty of
buying and selling on the way, when the people land; and being
quite at home among them in that respect, I laid out my money,
and bought and sold again, and I think I can say, with a clear
conscience, that I have cleared, in a little more than a fortnight,
£20 clear of all expenses, and I am paying £2.2s.a week for my
board and lodging. There is plenty of money to be made here, if
people know how to go to work; but they must not be stupid.
Had I known when I left, I might as well have cleared £500 or
£600; for guns and pistols are fetching no end of prices. Some
of them which cost not much more than £1 are fetching here
from £15 to £20.
If you like to send out some, I will give you 20 per cent on
the outlay, and send you gold dust to the amount as soon as the
goods arrive. [The writer here gives instructions how they are to
be packed, and then directed to ‘J. Spencer, at Mr Tankard’s
Temperance Hotel, Lansdell St., Melbourne’] I have sold some of
the goods that I bought out of Mr Roger’s; and I have put the
£20 away to buy some gold the first opportunity to send home
to him. Goods not made up are very cheap; in fact there is no
selling them at any price, and I have got about £5 worth. I
dress like the inhabitants; and the people take me for an old
inhabitant. I bought 40 pair of boots and shoes yesterday, and I
sold them to a person to sell again, and cleared £4.18s., and
very little trouble. If I had any one to sell for me, I could do
twice the business.
I think there will be a great alteration before long in this
country. We shall be in a pretty state if the gold fields fail. I see
diggers every day; some give you good accounts, some bad;
but I must have a go myself after the specimens I saw this
morning. I want to sell out my little stock; and then I am off like
a shot, and no mistake. I saw Mr Mackarell today; but I do not
know what he is doing. Everything is falling in price. Flour is
much lower, and horses is lower than when I went first to the
69
auction mart. There is nothing but auctions, as you will see by
the newspapers. I am afraid to meddle with horseflesh, for they
steal horses every day from one place or another. A man with a
horse and dray earns about £4 or £5 per day. They will not
move you a box a mile without you pay them 8s. or 10s., and
then it is a favour. There are several hackney carriages, and
they will not move a wheel without a sovereign; and that must
be under a mile. These men are making money like dirt. The
beer is 6d.per glass; what do you thing (sic) of that for a price?
I wish you could move all your goods here, you would make a
fortune. I have left off drinking beer, and all kinds of drink; for I
cannot think of giving 6d for a glass of ale.
To Mr Humphrey, tailor Bond Street from his sons.
Dear Father and Mother, Sister and Brother,― This is the
first opportunity we have had since leaving the ship for giving
you an account of our proceedings. We joined a party on board,
a young man named Wood, about the same as ourselves, and a
middle aged man named Alwin, the latter of whom having a wife
and seven children. Our object in joining with them was to share
the expenses of passage and luggage, it coming cheaper in
boats than by steamers. The captain made all pay their landing.
The Brighton party and the captain had disagreed; so he
was not very polite. We left the ship on Monday morning,
September 26, and landed at Le Hardy’s Beach. Alwin has a
large tent in which we lived and stowed our boxes for two or
three days.
Melbourne is crowded and excited, lodgings and storage so
expensive. We left the beach for a place called Prahan two miles
to the right of Melbourne. After tenting a few days, we started
for Forest Creek, Mount Alexander.
The rainy season is not over, the roads very bad; and in
the Black Forest the dray stuck fast in the mud up to the axle.
Here and there were bullocks lying putrid, the stench from
which was awful, 14 and 16 two - wheeled carts. This is the
worst and most dangerous part of the journey, 12 miles across
and hundreds in extent. It is the resort of bush-rangers. Four of
us and Alwin’s eldest boy, aged 12, were five days on the road,
two nights very wet; and we found our oil cloth very useful.
We met a few diggers returning, but there was no getting
any account of the extent of their luck. The distance to the
Mount is 80 miles, and we arrived quite well, without being once
molested, though some of the “Statesman’s” people were
interrupted but trifling. We pitched our tent on a hill looking into
Forest Creek, and made it partly of boughs and partly of our
own materials. The ground bordering the creek is all upturned
like a new churchyard, and covered with numberless tents of all
sizes and shapes for three or four miles. The holes near the
creek are all full of water and abandoned everywhere, having a
gloomy and stagnant appearance.
70
For the first two or three days we set about washing the
earth in the creek, and only got five or six pieces the size of a
pin’s-head. We had only tin dishes and sieves (as a cradle was
not to be had under eight guineas); and the most industrious
could get no more than would pay expenses. Myself, Herbert,
and Alwyn (sic) then commenced sinking a hole; but Wood,
having no funds, returned home. We began twelve feet square
and seven feet deep, and then reduced the size about one third,
and continued sinking till we reached 23 feet, having to pull up
the earth in a bucket. The work lay principally between Herbert
and myself, Alwyn having the dysentery for eight days; and we
all thought he would have died. We washed the earth a dozen
times, but no signs of gold were to be seen; plenty of glittering
mica. We had got through the pipe clay into the rock, which is
called the bottom, when water made its appearance, and we
then gave over. Three out of four are complaining – many are
sinking ten or twelve holes without a sight of it. Expenses are so
great: a quartern loaf (short weight), 6s.; sugar, 2s.to 2s.6d.
per lb; salt, 2s.6d,; cheese, 3s.6d.; rice 10d; oatmeal,1s.3d;
mutton, 5s.the hind quarter, 4s the fore ditto; bottled porter,
14s.; bottle of rum, 25s.
The place where we sunk is called Sailor’s Gully, one of the
number of valleys running into Forest Creek.
At sunset the firing commences. Guns, pistols, and
revolvers are fired off at intervals, which continues till midnight.
No one leaves his tent after dark. We have not heard of any
successful Brightonian; most of them are on Moonlight Flat.
After a fortnight’s stay, and nearly half our money gone,
we decided on returning at once, before situations became filled
by the swarms of new comers. We started on Saturday, October
22nd, at noon, a fine day, rather warm, and reached Kyneton, a
pretty village, 20 miles away, where we slept in a half built
house, with no roof. We had a good night’s rest and were off
again early, reaching Carlsruhe, where we fell in with Wood,
who had a place on the road, at £3 per week. We walked on to
Five Mile Creek, which has an inn and a few houses, in fact a
rendezvous for desperados. We afterwards entered the Black
Forest, reaching the Bush Inn, another depot for scamps. This
was on Sunday, the 23rd, at 4p.m. We saw a bush-ranger taken
by four of the escort, his horse shot under him; he was a smart
fellow and well dressed; he had just robbed a man of 1s.6d.
We got a loaf here (4s.6d.) and kept on five miles further,
slept in the open air, rose before daybreak, and took a different
road here from the one coming up, passing some most romantic
spots of fine looking country. We got into the plains now.
Hitherto it was all trees like Hyde Park, but such a sameness,
only two or three varieties all the way, mostly the red gum tree.
Passing the deep creek, a beautiful but wild precipitous winding
valley, we continued over a fine open grazing country, and
passed a pretty spot called Green Gully. There are no more
places worth speaking of till we reach Flemmington, three miles
from Melbourne, which we entered at 6p.m., being three miles
71
more from Melbourne to Prahan, and became quite exhausted
having frequently to rest. We walked 35 miles this day!
Oct. 24: We boarded and lodged in Alwyn’s tent with great
inconvenience. We now looked out for work, which is scarce for
labourers. We got two and a half day’s employment at wooden
house building, 10s.each a day. Then fell to at wood cutting,
10s.a load; but could only make 15s.a day between us, too little
for such hard work, and gave it up.. We stayed in the tent a
week, and were charged 22s.each. We were glad to leave then.
We took a house for which we paid £4 a month in advance. Two
rooms: live in one, let the other at 10s.a week to two men off
the Statesman. Most of the houses in the country are of wood.
A week after we entered, I went into Melbourne, called on
several tailors, and got work at last in Swanston Street. The
master, a little man called Bardwell, came out four years ago
quite bad off at first, talked of going home again, raised £5, and
is now worth £2000 or £3000. It is nearly opposite Juniper’s. I
get there at 9a.m., and leave at 6p.m. Two miles walk does me
good. I have been poorly twice with dysentery, and lost a day’s
work, but am quite hearty now. Wages are, 12s.6d. and 15s. for
trousers;12s. and 14s.for vests; £2.5s.for coats. I can earn £3
to £3.10s.a week, at trousers and vests ― some earn £4.10s,
and more.
Herbert got work about the same time, close to our house.
He is at work building cottages, has a comfortable master,
earned £2 the first week, and has the prospect of more if he
suits and gets tools. He is likely to keep on for some time, and
prefers it to hairdressing. With £100, a man who can handle a
few tools can make his fortune in a few years. Many talk of
returning to England to retire. Numbers predict unfavourably of
the future, such myriads of arrivals. Some say a famine will
ensue; too much labour in the market of the wrong sort
―clerks, drapers, tailors, shoemakers, shopmen etc, not
wanted. Hundreds are tented: no house to be got. Living is
dear, 4lb loaf, 2s.; meat, 5d.per lb; cabbage, 1s.each; potatoes,
8d.per lb; butter, 2s6d.; cheese,2s.; ale 1s.per quart; milk,
1s.per quart; sugar 3d.,4d.,and 5d.per lb; tea, 2s.6d,; coffee,
1s.6d.; green peas, 1s.per quart; bacon, 3s.6d.per lb; wood, £3
a cart load; water, 8s.a buttful.
Now a little about the climate and locality. In a month’s
time it will be midsummer – it is now very warm, morning and
evening cold, dark at seven, and clearer and lighter excepting
when the hot winds are blowing, when it is insufferable. Men
wear veils. The air is filled with dust, and appears like a mist,
with swarms of sand flies which injure the eyes. We have had
heavy thunder and lightning lately. Last winter was long and
wet. The rainy season being now over, the earth begins to dry
up – weather variable but rarely foggy. Melbourne is a healthy
place, regularly laid out, with some good shops. We are quite
comfortable. And have resolved on bettering our condition. We
shall certainly prefer living in England, some future time, and
advise any one who is getting a living, and can save a little to
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stay at home contented, and not let gold digging induce them to
leave a certainty for an uncertainty, unless they have good
friends here to receive them.
Just picture 1000 or 1500 more tents encamped around
Melbourne, exposed to wind and weather, occupied by a large
portion of a nondescript class, having a long distance to go for
wood and water! Numbers, some with families, applying for
situations, none to be had! It is truly pitiable, roughing it with a
vengeance. Tell Fred not to think of coming out yet till he hears
more from us; a few months will tell tales about labour in this
country if fresh diggings are not discovered. Tell him to stick to
industry, economy and his freehold. We hope you are all in good
health and plenty of trade……. You will be glad to know that we
have made no sacrifice and not been put to any extremity yet,
but are saving money while in work. Tell our dear sister that
pinking is much worn here; but we have had no chance of
getting a connection yet. We are most anxious to know all that
has transpired since we left home…. Lockyear has gone
shepherding, but I have not seen him. The Brighton party are all
scattered. Herbert wishes to be remembered to Mrs Overton,
and me to all enquirers. We sent a letter on our arrival in port
Phillip by the “Australian,” which we hope you have got. We will
send more particulars in our next, and endeavour to write for
every mail. We are most anxious to hear from you, and have
enquired several times at the post office, but no luck. Six
steamers have arrived, not one in less time than a sailing ship.
The “Great Britain” has just come in 82 days. We were 83 days
land to land. We now conclude, hoping you have had a merry
Christmas, and that you will enjoy a prosperous new year.
From your affectionate sons,
Henry Humphrey
Herbert Humphrey.
73
Chapter 10. At the Diggings.
At last the gold-seeking Brighton men (no women are recorded)
reached the destination they had left home for – the Diggings.
Letters published in the Gazette in June and July 1853, written
at the beginning of the year, give their families dramatically full
accounts of their day-to-day experience, their occasional
successes and many failures. The addresses from which the
letters were sent show how the early discoveries in and around
Ballarat had now been extended further afield, to the area round
Bendigo and then to the Ovens goldfields, close to the border
with New South Wales.
The Gazette of June 2nd is particularly interesting as, in
addition to five complete letters written in January – February,
there is a long editorial comment which quotes from others not
published, and gives a good deal of information about what has
been happening to a number of the emigrants. This is included
below, together with news items of interest to Brightonians in
England and Australia. Not all the emigrants’ letters came from
the Diggings. Some give addresses in Melbourne (Prahan and
Collingwood, then first outside the city, are now part of it).
These show that some of the emigrants had found sufficiently
lucrative occupations to wean them away from a search for
those elusive nuggets, though they probably made occasional
trips to the diggings to try their luck. Besides, life in Melbourne,
if a man had a job, was beginning to assume a more normal
“English” aspect. Prices were high, but some social life was
possible, with regular concerts and other kinds of
entertainments, while the churches provided an important focus
for respectable God-fearing citizens.
Whatever the reason,letters published in the Gazette
between July and November 1853 are fewer than at any time
since 1850. Perhaps people in England were less interested in
News from the Diggings. Perhaps fewer letters were being
written or handed over by families to the newspaper. There is
certainly evidence that the earlier enthusiasm of the gold
seekers was beginning to give way to thoughts of returning
home. Not all though had given up hope of making something of
their new lives. On August 4th the Gazette published an
affectionately moving letter from James Wooldridge to his wife
about his (and their) future life. Charles Thatcher - one of the
most colourful men to leave Brighton and spend much of the
rest of his life “down under” – wrote with news of fellow
townsmen, including the missing Franklyn and the ill-fated
Bickford. His letter, and another from William Wight to James
Mockford with news on Brightonians, were both published in
October, and the last that year was from John Mitchell to his
friend, young William (?) Pentecost who had returned to
England after a few miserable weeks at the diggings.
Mr Thom, who was then on the point of returning to
England with his wife, had been one of the founders of the
Brighton Amateurs’ Symphony Society which had given its first
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concert in Brighton in 1850. At least three more performances
were given before the Thoms left for Australia with other
members of the orchestra—Alfred Chate, H(enry?) Bambridge,
Henry Edwards and John Tucker (known in Australia as “the
English Paganini”). Some of these musicians were soon playing
at promenade concerts in Melbourne, where Tucker was leader
of the orchestra at £5.5s a week. He then moved to Sydney to
play concerts with Winterbottom’s musical corps. Alfred Chate, a
tailor by trade, was paid £4.4s. a week to play in Melbourne and
he too divided his time between there and Sydney. Mr Thom,
also a violinist, had been leader as well as conductor of the
symphony orchestra in Brighton.
Brighton Gazette June 2, 1853
The Gold Diggings
The Sarah Sands arrived on Saturday last from Australia, many
days overdue, bringing numerous letters from emigrants. A
great number were delivered in this town on Monday, copies of
which we subjoin:Ovens Gold Fields,
January 2, 1853
Dear Brother, - We left Melbourne for the Diggings about
23rd October, a long journey of about 200 miles, that took us
about a fortnight to walk. The weather at times was very hot.
The roads here are not like they are in England: they are
very bad particularly in the winter. We went about 15 miles the
first day. I had to carry our provisions, which was such a weight
that I was obliged to lighten my load and leave a portion
behind. The other day we were caught in a thunderstorm on the
top of a mountain, which made the roads so bad that the cart
could not be got on for a day or two. We did not like the idea of
sleeping on the top of the mountain, everything being wet
through, so we all went up to a place called Killmore, where we
stopped for three days. Here things were very expensive: 2s.6d
for every meal, which consisted of bread, meat and tea, and
2s.6d for sleeping on the floor. We went on and left the others
behind, and fortunately fell in with two young men going to the
Diggings with provisions. They kindly took a portion of our load
on their cart; the other we carried between us. We had to sleep
on the ground every night. You can get nothing to drink but tea
and coffee. We were very glad when we arrived at the Diggings.
There we had to wait until the arrival of Mr Moon, who had the
provisions with him in the cart.
I will now give you an account of the Diggings. We were
very fortunate. The first three or four weeks we did hardly
anything. We sank two holes. The first was one was a blank. We
got 6 ounces out of the other, which was nothing when divided.
There are several diggings where we are that are called the wet
diggings, where some have done exceedingly well. One party
took out of a hole a piece of gold 53lb weight. They frequently
get 20lb pieces out, so we thought we would try the wet
75
diggings. Only very strong parties can work them. We joined
another lot of diggers and began to work one. We had to cut
trees down to get piles and bark to put round the hole to keep
the sides from falling in. We were nearly a fortnight there, and
then fell in with the washing stuff, but the water came in so fast
we were obliged to give it up. Mr Moon got tired of the diggings,
having to keep baling out the water all day without ceasing,
which is enough to kill anyone. Mr M. went back to Melbourne,
and our party broke up, which I was glad of, as we could do
better by ourselves, which has been the case since. Within the
last three weeks we have got 2lb weight of gold, which made up
for lost time. If fortune should continue to favour us we may be
back sooner than expected.
The diggings are falling off very much now. We daily
expect to hear of new diggings here as gold is being found for
miles around. There are a great many people doing nothing; it
is quite a lottery. I should advise no one to come out who could
get a good living at home, for hundreds express their
disappointment at gold digging, for it is much harder work than
is made out by the news sent you. Three of four holes may be
sunk from 10ft to 30ft and nothing got out of them, which soon
disheartens new comers. There are too many of our class out
here to obtain situations. Wages are about the same. We mean
to stick to gold digging. The most we have got any day has
been four ounces. We are just as likely to dig a hole and get lbs.
out of it as not. Some of our passengers took 12lb. out of one
hole. Australian life has so altered us that we should not be
known. We live and work hard, with nothing to eat but flour and
water baked in wood ashes: what we call damper. Meat is
plentiful, but it is obliged to be eaten directly killed, or in a few
minutes it becomes fly-blown and full of maggots. Our bed is a
sheet of bark on the ground, where we sleep as sound as on a
feather bed at home, with large emmets (ants) for companions
crawling over you. A great many murders have been committed
lately by the bush-rangers. Everybody is compelled to carry
fire-arms with him. The diggers, with their watch fires,
resemble an army encamped. You hear hundreds of guns and
pistols fired off during the night. We are not far off the Snowy
Mountains. The weather is very changeable: sometimes very
hot, then quite the reverse. It is not such a climate as
represented in England. We spent Christmas Day by ourselves,
having beef and plum pudding for dinner.
J. and C. Over.
The subjoined three letters have been received by a tradesman
[almost certainly the tailor Humphrey of Bond Street] from his
sons, whose statements may be perfectly relied upon.
Communications from these young men, giving a graphic
description of the country, have appeared in former numbers of
our paper.
76
Prahan, February 4th, 1853
Dear Father and Mother, Sister and Brother,
I have another opportunity of letting you hear from us. A Jew
that started in the “Ferozepore” a few days after the
“Statesman” from the London Docks and has been a long time
seeking employment in vain, has decided on returning in the
“Sarah Sands” and will be good enough to take this for me. I
have nothing to contradict in my former letters. I dare say you
will hear of many bad accounts. You may believe them. The few
good ones are quite exceptions. I hope to hear from H―(the
writer’s brother) shortly from Bendigo diggings. This country is
not to be compared to England in many respects, so much
annoyance from insects and vermin, and colonial insolence,
selfishness and independence. Those that have done well and
are doing well are grasping and over-reaching; they won’t give
new comers the least chance or encouragement. There is not a
house, room, or bit of ground to be got in Melbourne on
scarcely any terms. We are both determined on returning to
England some time or other, and myself especially. If tailoring
should get slack, it would not be worth staying for; but H―
might remain longer. He probably could go as a rough carpenter
again, but I leave it entirely to him; it will depend rather on this
his third journey to the gold fields. It is very tiresome trade
being so uncertain; cannot average more than three or four
days work a week, which spoils calculating. A person in work
can certainly save more here than at home, and so he ought;
for unless he gives way to drink or lives extravagantly he
cannot help saving, as there is no society and very little
amusement. It is not safe to be out after dark, for there are a
great many bad characters about. I hope you have given up all
idea of coming out. I am sure it would be the death of some of
you. There are numbers starving, and many dying with
dysentery and disease in Canvass town and round Melbourne.
They are even charged 5s. a week by Government for pitching a
bit of a tent anywhere out of the town. It is a strange state of
things. Lots of swells and dandies from home working on the
wharfs as labourers: some as carters, and others as road
menders. I assure you, although I cannot average more than
half a week’s work, I consider myself very fortunate in getting
work as I did. Numbers are constantly applying for work, which
threatens to lower wages. It is only house rent and diggings
have kept it up to what it is still. Ours is 1s.3d per hour.
Sometimes I change my walk home through Canvass
Town, which I described in former letters. It is a study for a
political economist. Five or six streets of tents of all sizes and
shapes, the inhabitants in a state of filth, rags, misery, and
disease; dirty tents with scribbling outside, styling them London
chop and coffee establishments, with board and lodging. One
cannot help laughing when he might cry to see such a squalid
scene of misery with so much pretension. There is something
awful and ridiculous too in its appearance. Doctors, quacks,
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anti-quacks, dressmakers and washerwomen, shoemakers and
tailors, clerks and drapers and nondescripts.
A large nugget of gold has just been dug out at Ballarat,
upwards of 120lbs. weight. It has created some sensation, but
it is only an instance of luck; thousands have been on the
diggings for months and have not earned their expenses, and
thousands return thoroughly disgusted and penniless. Tell Fred
not to think of coming out here. Everything is very unsettled,
and likely to be for some time to come. Carpenters,
brickmakers and bricklayers, are doing best. A fancy bazaar has
been got up by the parsons, ladies and elite of Melbourne, the
proceeds of the sale to go in aid of lands for erecting temporary
shelter for houseless emigrants.
There is great difficulty in selling anything out here now.
So many people coming out has stocked the colony with
everything wanted. I can scarcely tell when Herbert and myself
will make up our minds to return.
Your affectionate son,
Henry….
P.S. I have not been able to find the Jew, and will therefore
send it per “Sarah Sands”. I hear pretty good accounts of
Bendigo Diggings, and I think Herbert stands a pretty good
chance if he stays long enough.
Prahan, February 7th 1853
Dear Father, Mother, Brother and Sister, ― Since my
last, I have received this from H―(the letter subjoined). I
thought it would satisfy you that we were all right, though not
together. Patteson and Verrall (from New Road, Brighton) are
with H―. I have great hopes of their doing well this time.
Although trade is slack, I do not like to give it up. What lots
would jump at a comparative certainty. If you get all our
letters, you will see that we have been consistent in our opinion
of this country, and also in advising you not to think of altering
your affairs at home. Clothes, mantles and boots and shoes are
largely imported here. They are three of the worst trades going.
Carpenters and bricklayers are getting from £1 to 25s per day,
while tailors cannot average half that sum. W. Hill is quite well.
Davis got his letter. The Brighton band are pretty well
scattered. I must now conclude,
Yours affectionately,
Henry……
Golden Gulley, Bendigo.
January 30th, 1853.
Dear Harry,―I hope you are quite well and have plenty of
work. On Friday we arrived at Pickfords’s Office, Golden Gulley.
We looked about till Tuesday afternoon, and then began sinking
on the flat south of the Golden Gulley, bottomed the hole on
Wednesday, and took nearly half an ounce of gold from it
Bottomed another yesterday; but, being late, we did not like to
wash much, but picked up a piece on the pipeclay, nearly ¼oz,
78
and other smaller pieces. We expect the hole will turn out
pretty well. Things at the store are middling cheap: bread (4lb
loaf), 3s.; flour, 6d per lb: meat 6d; black tea, 2s; sugar, 5d.
and 6d.; cheese, very good, 2s. Tell —, if he comes up, to
enquire at Pickford’s office for us. It is just above the blue
blanket . I have no fear but that we shall do very well here. We
are very economical; and can always be certain of enough to
live on.
Yours truly,
H —.
Collingwood. January 18, 1853
Dear Parents,— We came from the diggings about five
weeks ago, and glad of it too, for it was no great thing, after
being nearly three months digging and working up to the
middle in water, and only to get 11oz. amongst all of us — in
fact, we stopped there until almost all our money and gold were
gone, for we only had enough to carry us back to this place,
where we very soon got employment. I got work for Mr Killick’s
son, at carpentering. I get £3 per week; but I hope to do
something better than that, for as soon as I have saved enough
to buy a few tools, Steve (Stephen Cockerell) and I are going to
set up for ourselves. Bainbridge started back for the Diggings
after staying here a week, as he heard of his brother being
there. I can only tell you the truth, that the Diggings are very
different to what they have been represented by persons in
England, for there are thousands like ourselves not doing much,
and although there may be some making money, they are old
diggers that know the ground. But we do not mean to give it up
till we have been up there two or three times more, for we
know there is plenty of gold. The living at the diggings is rather
rough, for you can only get mutton, damper and dirty water. I
cannot say any more about the diggings at present. We are
almost at home at this little town, for there are a good many
Brighton people here. I heard that Mr Fleeson and son are out
here and two or three others. We had a very cool summer here,
so at least the old colonists say, but I never experienced such a
one before, for the hot winds were blowing so hot that you
could not face them, and in the evening it was altogether the
reverse, for you had to put on a great-coat to keep yourself
warm. The climate is, I should think, very unhealthy, as the
dysentery is very bad. We have all had a touch of it. Tell Aunt
Cooke that this is the place for Nat to get on. It is the best
place for a person in the carpentering line to come to.
I am, dear Parents,
Your affectionate son,
Henry Pepper.
To Mrs Purcell, Bedford Place, from her sons.
Melbourne, February 11, 1853
Dear Mother—I arrived in Williamstown Bay on the 24th
after a tedious passage. I am in company with brother Harry,
and he is quite well. Things here are first-rate. I am going to
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work at 12s per day. Victuals cost £1 per week. Harry and I are
going to the diggings together. Harry has been to the diggings
but left before he had done any good. I can enjoy myself firstrate, and save £2 per week comfortably as a common working
man. There are plenty of clerks and shopmen dying every day
from hardship. Directly they come on shore they get robbed,
and they have no home; in fact, most fresh comers have no
home for a month, and then they can only get tents; in fact old
colonists now are living in tents. There are more tents in
Melbourne than built houses. Nobody has any business here
except their constitutions have been well tried. It is common for
people to go in the bush, night after night, to sleep, because
there is no accommodation here.
Your affectionate son, J Purcell.
Dear Mother,—I arrived here on the 21st of December
after a very good passage; I should have written to you before,
but I was waiting for Fred and his fine clipper brig that was to
do such wonders. We beat her by more than two months. I find
Australia a very good place for young men like us that can
work. I have earned as much as 15s. per day, with food , &c.
Provisions are cheap — meat, 3d to 5d per lb., tea and coffee
from 1s.2d to 2s.4d, sugar, 3d, bread, 1s per 4lb loaf.
Vegetables are dear, and so are boots, shoes and clothes.
Your affectionate son.
Henry Purcell
Extract of a letter to Mr Pointer, of the Windmill Inn, Upper
North Street, from Mr Albert Godden, brother of Mr Godden,
butcher, Upper North Street.
Port Phillip, Melbourne,
January 23rd, 1853
My dear Friend,—I now avail myself of the opportunity of
fulfilling the promise I made previous to leaving England. I am
now staying at Melbourne, and am only paying £2 per week for
board and lodging. I have nothing to complain of about the
diggings on my first visit, although the work generally is
desperately bad. It is very hot just now, and we are getting
very short of water and it is not very good. (The writer proceeds
to speak of the dearness of provisions at the diggings.) It
matters not what you are at the diggings, you are always called
“mate”; you may be talking to a doctor, an officer in the army
or navy, or a parson, and it would be impossible to tell what he
is, as the diggers dress in a loose blue shirt, short fustian
trousers, with belt and straw hat, and a beard six inches long.
There are now supposed to be about two or three hundred
thousand on the whole at the diggings. I can compare it to
nothing else but a city of tents reaching some eighteen or
twenty miles each way, and the holes are very similar to those
sunk for wells. Thousands are disgusted with the state of
things, but I am of the opinion that it is the hard work that
chokes them off. Hundreds pack up and go back to Melbourne
80
and get work on the wharf for 10s. per day, or on the roads for
Government; and then they write home to their friends telling
them they have obtained situations under government! Some of
our first-cabin passengers are actually working for government
at 8s per week. These are clerks, who have left situations in
England with their £200 or £300 per annum.
The state of society is becoming fearful, almost equalling
California: robbery and murder are occurring daily, in fact,
almost hourly, and some of them most brutal. Melbourne is in
such a state of excitement, that it is not safe to walk the streets
after dark without being well armed. I was sitting at breakfast
yesterday morning, when a man having about 10lbs weight of
gold by him was passing along the street. Two men pounced on
him, took his gold, and dreadfully ill-used him. Our servant
hearing a noise, and looking round, saw two fellows climbing
over the wall. The police were called and the men were taken.
The man attacked was so disfigured that you could scarcely
imagine there could be such brutes; but the principal part of
those fellows are convicts across from Van Dieman’s Land,
some of the very scum of the world. As for women, I have
hardly seen a respectable female in the colony.
Tate, the spirit merchant’s son, Bainbridge, and
Wooldridge are digging; but as yet have been unfortunate.
All you can say is, it is a money making colony. I consider
a man coming out here with a little capital may, with
perseverance, realize a fortune.
You talk of the value of land at Brighton; I saw some sold
here as high as £180 per foot.
I am very much deceived as regards the country. It
shows no trees like we have in England; and the grass is very
poor. Tell my friend Watson there is very little shooting
excepting oppossums, kangaroos and wild fowl; and unless you
go a long way in the bush you find nothing to shoot at. I have
met several Brightonians. Thatcher and Tucker are playing at a
sort of cider cellars, and get 30s. per night. Evans is still in
Melbourne. Wight, of the Regent Tavern, is at Forest Creek,
close to where I am digging; and Mussell is digging somewhere
near me. We are all on equality here. I saw Henry Scarborow
from North Street, Brighton, a few days ago.
It is a curious place to me. Everyone seems to me drunk
all day long, and if you ask a question there is nobody knows
anything at all. I asked a baker where such and such a street
was; and he told me he did not know, and on looking round I
found I was in the very street I enquired about.
Your sincere friend,
Albert Godden.
(These are parts only of a “ very long and interesting letter” the
Gazette had not room to publish in its entirety.)
81
Brighton Gazette. June 2, 1853
Society in Australia.— As descriptions have been given of the
state of society in Melbourne calculated to alarm intending
emigrants, or the friends of those who have already proceeded
to that colony, the following extract from a letter written by a
lady residing in Melbourne to her friends in this country will be
read with interest:Melbourne, November 24.
As to the state of society, it has never in the least degree
interfered with our comfort, further than the hearing of it. We
enjoy the ministrations of a godly man; we have our Bible and
Auxiliary Missionary Societies, our Sabbath–school and
Benevolent Societies; we have never, on any occasion, been
kept from our Sunday and week evening meetings, nor suffered
the least annoyance; and even at the diggings people may, and
do, live as retired as in town. That there are large numbers who
belong to the worst class in society is undoubtedly true; that
the plentifulness of money has led to a great increase in
intemperance is also painfully visible in our streets; but the
large number of our respectable working population now in
comfortable cottages of their own, and the large amount of land
and house property sold at high prices, show it does not all go
into the tavern. Even yet, our numerous strangers expressed
themselves surprised at the decency and decorum with which
the Sabbath is kept; I say it not without consideration – equal
to any town in Scotland.
The writer of the above has resided several years in
Melbourne, and from her position in society there has had
ample opportunities of observing what she writes of.
Brighton Gazette Thursday July 7, 1853
Enormous Mail from Australia
On Saturday morning last, a number of bags and boxes,
containing letters, arrived in London by the Melbourne from
Australia. The weight of these boxes and bags was 12½ tons.
They were in number 30 boxes and 217 bags. A good deal of
curiosity was excited in the arcade of the General Post Office by
the appearance of the empty boxes, when piled up after being
deprived of their contents.
A large portion of these letters, with a quantity of newspapers,
were received in Brighton on Saturday evening.
The following are extracts of a letter received by Mr Strudwick,
tobacconist, New Road, from two of his brothers-in-law, sons of
Mr Edwards, Fly Proprietor, Kings Road, who left England in
company with Mr Thom, the musician.
Melbourne, March 4, 1853.
Dear Henry, - I am still living with Postlethwaite, although the
wages are low for the colony, being only £2 per week, but I am
82
able to have Harry with me. We are both together making up a
bed on the counter, which serves us at present, as it is
impossible to get a bed in a private house under 10s. per week
each, and then perhaps five or six in a room and eaten up with
vermin. So it is better as we are though, only it is not at all
safe. I am obliged to sleep with loaded pistols under my head,
as there is such an awful set abroad. They think nothing of
getting through a brick wall, the walls being only one brick in
thickness. We have luckily escaped as yet, but they will no
doubt try it some night. Houses are robbed every night, and
they have been very near us, the next door but one. In short,
they have every facility for doing such business, as a policeman
is a rare thing to see of a night, and only a few oil lamps about
the town, and they generally go out by ten o’clock, so you may
guess it is not very safe to be out after dark.
We have promenade concerts here every night now,
conducted by Winterbottom, in conjunction with Ellis, late of
Cremorne. Harry is engaged there at £2 per week, which is too
little, although it is only for two hours, from eight to ten. I am
also engaged as a check-taker at 24s. per week. So you see I
manage £3.4s per week, which in England would be first rate,
but here it is only to be compared to a £1 in England, on
account of expenses. We have to pay 1s. for washing a shirt;
stockings, 6d. per pair, and other things in proportion; butter
and cheese very dear at 3s.per lb; eggs, 6d.each, bacon 2s.6d..
Ham, I have never had the pluck to ask what that is, fearing
something dreadful; milk, 1s.per pint, a glass of ale 6d., bottle
of porter, 3s., wine, 5s.per bottle, and beastly stuff too. The
lucky diggers fancy champagne, 15s.per bottle. A man in
England with £1 a week, is better off than one with £3 per week
here, especially a married man with a family.
It is impossible to get a house under £2 per week, and
then there is wood and water to find, the wood £2 per load,
water, 7s. It is a place I would not advise any person to think of
coming to. There are hundreds of families living in their own
tents at Canvass Town, and the poor creatures are dying there
like rotten sheep, with dysentery and typhus fever, and the
doctors say it is lucky that this has not been a hot summer, or
there would have been fearful work, for there are no drains or
sewers, and water very scarce, cesspools and closets all open to
the street. In fact, on a hot day, it is horrible.
On Tuesday last, we had what they call here a hot wind ―
a wind that blows right from the deserts, and I can assure you I
never witnessed anything so frightful in my life ― the wind a
perfect hurricane, blowing with heat as from a flame of gas on
to the skin, and not able to see anything before you for the
dust. Shops all closed and all kinds of business suspended,
houses blowing down, the bush for miles round on fire, the
smoke, ashes, and dust together truly awful, the dust and stuff
coming through the roofs and crevices laying about two inches
thick on the floor and counters. However, we got over it at last.
83
I do not like the climate, and as for Harry it is doing him
more harm than good, and I have tried to persuade him to
return, but he will not without me. I do not think I shall stay
here much longer. I think of going to Sydney in the winter. I do
not know whether I shall have another turn at the diggings with
a friend of Thwaites, whose brother discovered a new spot a
week or two back.
Ellis is going to open Cremorne Gardens at Richmond,
about two miles from here. If they answer I shall endeavour to
get a horse bus on the road, if I should be here. But perhaps I
shall be home before then, as I hate the place altogether and
most of the people, who consist chiefly of Jews and Irish. All the
principal hotels and inns on the road are Irish.
The books and works that are published concerning this
country are the most lying things that were ever written. In
most of them they say the climate is the finest in the world,
especially for consumptive people. I will just give you an idea of
it. This is supposed to be the summer. When we get up in the
morning, if it is a little gloomy, you require a great coat as bad
as in winter at home. Perhaps about ten the sun comes out, and
then the heat is overpowering. If it happens to come over
cloudy and any breeze during the day a great coat is required
again till the sun comes out again. And up the country of a
night, you require about six pair of blankets to keep you warm.
And then again sometimes of a night it is so dreadfully hot you
cannot get any sleep. I can assure you that one night as we
were travelling down to Forest Creek, the cold was more intense
than ever I felt it in England.
The rain here, too, is rain indeed, not in drops but in
buckets full. You would hardly believe me when I tell you we
had one night when returning from the concert after two or
three hours rain, to walk up one street and down another to find
a safe place to get over, the water being four or five feet deep,
and running like a river. Now, that is summer; what the winter
will be I dread to think of.
I have received neither letters nor papers from you. I got
a lot of English papers the other day; but they belonged to
another person of the same name. However, it was all the same
to me, for I dare say they have had some of mine before. Young
Evans, him that ruined my horse, has been rascally hard up. He
has joined the horse police for twelve months. They get 8s.per
day, and found in everything; but it is a hard and dangerous
life, often out for days in search for bush-rangers ― dangerous
fellows. There are lots of new chums (as they are termed)
arriving here every day. All trot for the diggings, poor devils!
Many of them would be glad to get back again as soon as they
have landed.
We remain
Your affectionate brothers,
C.N. & H. Edwards.
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Thursday July 14, 1853
A Brightonian in Australia. — Mr Juniper, of Western Road, has
recently received a letter from his brother, who emigrated to
Melbourne some three or four years ago, in which the latter
states that rent has risen enormously. The premises which he
engaged originally for 30s. a week, in Swanston Street, have
risen to £12 a week; and rather than continue to pay that sum,
even with a large and increasing business, he hired a piece of
land, on which he has built himself a house and a shop, at an
outlay of £700. He is now in the occupation of his new premises
and doing a great business in the ironmongery trade, his returns
being something like a £1000 a month.
Mr King, the Governor of the Workhouse, has received a letter
from Melbourne, informing him of the death of his son-in-law,
Mr Richards. It will be remembered, probably, that Mr Richards,
only a few months ago, kept an eating house in Queen’s Road.
Not being successful here, he thought he would try his fortune
in Australia. He left England unaccompanied by his wife and
family, the latter preferring to stay behind. The letter received
by Mr King was partly by Mr Richards himself, the latter part
announcing his death, by a friend; and it appears that he died of
dysentery early in February. There are five children left in
Brighton.
Brighton Gazette Thursday August 4, 1853
The “Diggings.”
The following are extracts from an encouraging letter, the most
encouraging we have seen, received recently by Mrs Wooldridge
from her husband, who emigrated to Australia about twelve
months ago.―
Melbourne Victoria
12th March, 1853
Dear Wife, ― I have no doubt but that you have been
impatiently waiting to hear from me again; and I should have
written some time since, but for circumstances of a very
unpleasant nature, which will be explained as I proceed with my
letter. My last acquainted you with my safe arrival in the colony,
also the difficulties we encountered in procuring lodgings and a
place to leave our superfluous luggage while we proceeded to
the diggings; but ultimately we left our things with Mrs Barlow,
who married Mr Atkins’ sister. He is attached to a Circus
company here as a nigger singer. Having remained a few days
in Melbourne, to prepare for the journey, we started for Forest
Creek. I will not pain you with a recital of what I endured in the
six days’ journey beneath a broiling sun and such a road. It was
through a densely-wooded forest, and two thirds of the distance
(a hundred miles) was actually a muddy swamp, knee deep and
frequently up to the waist in water, and a weight on my back
between sixty and seventy pounds; and walking in heavy nailed
boots added not a little to my discomfiture.
85
We arrived at Forest Creek on the fifth day. I there
received my impression of the gold fields, and the nature of the
work. The ground was torn up for miles in every direction;
holes, or more properly speaking, wells from ten to thirty feet
deep had been sunk as close to each other as possible, and the
ground underneath tunneled from one hole to another in a
manner that to a newcomer the danger appeared frightful. The
unexpected state of things was quite a damper to me. My bodily
strength had already been over-taxed by the fatigue of the
journey, and then to receive such a disheartening prospect
when I expected the realization of all my hopes, was almost too
much for me ― and you know I am not one to quail at trifles.
Several of the Brighton party were so dismayed that they cut off
back to Melbourne, and some from thence to England without
doing a stroke. We remained at Forest Creek, looking about the
whole day; and the more we saw the less we liked the prospect.
At last some sailors advised us to go on to Bendigo, 25 miles
further up the country, as being better suited to new hands, and
we accordingly shouldered our packs once more and started for
Bendigo, our ardour for gold digging considerably diminished.
We made Bendigo the next day, and found that the sailors had
not deceived us. We pitched our tents; and the next morning
made our first attempt.
I omitted to tell you that we had added two more to our
party, making four. After a week’s work the whole of us had not
found as much gold as would fetch a sovereign; and the next
week was worse; and provisions selling at enormous prices, the
4lb loaf 5s, and every article of food in proportion, with the
exception of beef and mutton, which was 6d. per lb. Bad luck
produced a grumbling amongst us; and the consequence was,
that Atkins and I separated from the other two. The next
fortnight produced no change in our luck, and the cause of our
ill success I attributed to a want of knowledge and experience,
and a proper and complete fit out of tools, which Atkins was too
miserly to shell out for us. Our living, too, was of the
commonest kind. Our eatables consisted of two articles, mutton
and damaged biscuit; and the tea we drank was the worst
apology for that beverage that ever I tasted.
Our bed was the ground. I had nothing but the oilskin
coat and the small blanket under me, and the double blanket for
a covering. It was hard to deprive you of it, seeing how short
you were of such things; but neither you nor I knew of what
service it would be to me. In fact, I owe my existence to the use
of it; for at the time I arrived in the colony the days were
excessively hot, and the nights bitter piercing cold. For two
months I never had my clothes off, but I felt no inconvenience
from it; for I used to return from work, which is very hard, so
tired, that supper, although hungry, was no inducement to keep
me awake. My hands suffered very much from the first fortnight
with blisters; they are now seasoned. But to my tale.
The first month at the diggings passed away as
unpleasantly as it is possible to conceive. There were occasional
86
growlings between Atkins and me; he was continually bewailing
his unlucky destiny, and at times in a manner not very pleasing
to me, and so we were never very great cater cousins.[Close
friends.] We had been five weeks at the diggings, when chance
led us to a spot where there was a number of men at work, who
had found a considerable quantity of gold. Atkins and I turned
to, and sank two holes, and I had the good luck to meet with
some of the precious metal. Atkins found none in his, and he
wanted to come and work in my hole, but I objected, there not
being room enough for two to work. (Here the writer speaks of a
dispute which he had with Atkins, and their consequent
separation.)
Having converted my gold into cash, I bought fresh
tools; and since I have been working by myself I have done
tolerably well. After paying expenses in five months, I have
cleared about £100. It is not an unusual occurrence to get £300
or £400 worth out of one hole. My worst week’s work turns out
at about £4. I am in first rate health; the climate is good, and
all the misgivings which I had on first entering Forest Creek,
have vanished. Atkins, after leaving me, joined two other men,
with whom he worked a fortnight, and then went down to
Melbourne, where he remained five weeks, and then came back
to Bendigo with a mate. (The writer again complains of Atkins’
conduct towards him.)
Now, Susan, I’ll tell you my plans for the future: I have
sent you £60, and this, with what you can make of your goods,
will more than suffice to bring you and your children out here,
which I wish you to do as speedily as possible. This is the place;
and if you and I only use half the perseverance here that we
have done in England, to keep our heads above water, a most
happy result will be the consequence. The road to a snug little
independence is open; and seven years industry, with moderate
economy, will place us, for the remainder of our days, beyond
the iron grasp of poverty.
You must understand that there are not public houses
allowed in or near the diggings―within five miles; but
refreshment tents for the sale of lemonade, etc, for which is
charged 6d. per half pint glass. There is a great deal of it drunk
here; and the profits on the sale of it are very great; and I
propose putting you into business in the above line, and I have
no doubt our joint efforts will be productive of great benefit to
us. After giving instructions to his wife, the writer proceeds:Come to a clime where a joyous welcome awaits you,
where hunger is never felt by the industrious, where there are
no poor-houses, no poor-rates, and, what is still better, no poor
people, and where money is so plentiful that copper coin is
rarely, if ever used in trade. Hundreds are leaving the colony by
every vessel coming to England, having made their thousands;
and I hope we shall be able to return in a few years with
something snug for our old days. With my heart’s best wishes
87
for your safety and that of my dear children on your voyage
here,
I remain
Your affectionate husband,
James Wooldridge
Brighton Gazette Thursday October 6. 1853
Letter from a Brighton Emigrant
I beg to forward, per Mr Alfred Martin, a few incidents
respecting Brighton friends and the colony, according to promise
made to several people at Brighton before leaving.
John Tucker has gone to Sydney, to play at the concerts.
Alfred Chute has gone to Sydney, to play at the concerts.
Henry Edwards (King’s Road) has gone to Sydney, to play at
the concerts.
Stephen Cotterill has gone to Sydney to assist at the concerts.
William Pritchard has just arrived with the Brighton Gold
Company.
Joshua Vines has just arrived with the Brighton Gold Company,
and is in the Treasury.
Evans, (Western Road), at McEwan and Co.’s, Ironmongers.
Nias (East Street) has gone home to England.
John Vincent (Surrey Street) is assistant to a grocer.
James Bickford arrived here per ship Africa. He called on me and
told me the following:“I have left England unknown to any one; not even does
my wife or her friends know of my coming. We put in at Lisbon.
I am ruined through the fire in the King’s Road. My boy and I
were painting the inside of the shop window, and left for the
night. Shortly after this I was awoke and informed of the fire. I
have earned a little money on board by repairing jewellery etc.”
These were his words to me. He has started with two
shipmates to the Bendigo Diggings. I send his own words,
thinking they may throw some light on his sudden departure.
Richard Millsome, butcher, has been doing nothing here,
and is, I believe, living in a tent, or gone to the Diggings. Henry
Scarborow is working at his trade here. Henry Pepper and Den
Killick are doing well at sash making. Thus much do I know of
some of the Brighton party. As a source of congratulation, I
have not heard of a single death among any of your townsmen
here. As you have previously heard, the report respecting the
black fever and deaths on board the Statesman is entirely false.
Now for colonial news.
Ships arrive in numbers; and I am sorry to add that
thousands land here, sometimes in the drenching rain, without
money, and no place to lay their heads. Think of that, ye
Brightoners, who may be discontented with your condition. Truly
Shakespeare’s lines are applicable―
“Better by far to bear the ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.”
88
and never will you know the miseries of being houseless and in
a foreign country till you are actually experiencing the same.
Bank or other clerks should keep at home, perched on their
respective stools; or they may be “off their perch” when they
arrive. A man, named Snow, starts from this port today, in a
search after Franklyn. Drinking kills its thousands here; but
misery and privation its tens of thousands.
Milk and potatoes are great luxuries here. Now for a list of
present prices. Bread, 1s.6d.the 4lb loaf; butter, 3s.6d.a pound;
fresh ditto, 4s.6d,; cheese,2s.6d.; milk, 2s.a quart (think of
that, old maids, when you take in your ha’porth); potatoes, 3d.a
pound; eggs, 7d.each; rabbits, 15s.each; ducks, 16s.; mutton,
5d.a pound; beef, 4d. English ale, 2s.a quart; currants, 2s.a
pound; sugar, 3½d.; apples 1s. and 1s.6d.a pound; coffee,
1s.6d.; tea, 2s.; two roomed houses let for £3 to £5 per week.
Now in conclusion, people of Brighton, look before you
leap. Many have done right in coming, myself among the
number; others curse the day they left. Remember—
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”
Your obedient servant,
Charles R. Thatcher.
Brighton Gazette Thursday October 13, 1853
Letter from a Brighton Emigrant.
We have been favoured with the sight of a letter received by Mr
James Mockford (late of the King’s Road, Brighton, but now
residing at Shoreham) from Mr W.Wight, landlord of the Regent
Tavern, who formed one of a large party that left this town for
Australia by the “Statesman”, in June last year, from which we
take the following extracts:Mount Alexander, Forest Creek,
16th June, 1853.
Dear Sir —The last time I wrote to you I mentioned that we had
been very unfortunate. And to keep the others on their legs I
was obliged to join the police, which I am very glad I did, for
the pay came in very handy for them. I had 8s. a day and that
kept them from starving. You know it was my wife’s last wish
that we should assist one another in time of need, which I am
pleased to think it was in my power to do, for soon afterwards
two of them, William Beck and William Pearman, were taken
very ill with dysentery, and unable to do any work for two
months, but I am happy to say they are now quite well. I was
sworn in as a policeman for six months; but my time was up
about two months since, and I then joined my companions. I
am sorry to say that we have not heard any thing of Lawrence,
Strong, and Lewis. We advertised three times for them, but
have never received any answers.
I regret to say that things are very dull at the Diggings,
and unless some new discoveries are soon made, I don’t know
what will become of all the people. There is scarcely one out of
twenty that is doing anything at all. There is a party alongside of
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me that has sunk nine holes, and never got a speck of gold. The
worst of it is the expense of living here. As for friends, there are
none here; it is every one for themselves. I sank two holes last
week, but never saw gold. The water came into the last one, so
I could not try it much. Yesterday Mr Beck and I cleared a piece
of ground, and commenced a hole at a spot which has proved
very rich, and if we can only get down it without coming into an
old tunnel, I think we may run a good chance of obtaining a
large quantity of gold out of it; but the place has been so
undermined, that I am afraid we shall not get a good bottom. It
will be about 20ft. to 25ft.in depth, and we shall have to tunnel
under a store, so you see, my dear friend, it is not child’s play,
gold digging; but “never venture never won.” I mean to stick to
it, and surely some day or other, I shall have some luck. I have
still a country house in my eye. Winter has finally set in; and at
this moment it is raining great guns; to-morrow morning our
hole will be full of water. As for news, I can give you all in a few
words. We go to work about eight, and leave at four or five,
when we have our supper, and then retire to rest. We never
know what time it is, and we see nothing but trees and
mountains.
As at home, we may at times get a glimpse of the paper
with very scanty news; and but for a few Christians, we should
scarcely know we were alive. My dear friend, there is one thing I
am looking forward to amongst all my little troubles, and that is
a speedy and safe return to Old England, to meet all those who
are near and dear to me; that will indeed be a happy meeting to
see them all in good health. Although so many miles separate
us, there is not a night passes without my heart being in
Brighton: in fact I have nothing else to think about, and were I
not to think about Brighton, I must be void of all feeling; for
there I have met with friends that will ever be dear to me. I
have got a beautiful specimen of quartz and gold for you, and
am only waiting the chance of sending it by some one who may
be returning before me; but I am afraid, as winter has set in,
that there will not be many take the road to Melbourne; for it is
so infested with bush-rangers that you are never safe. I don’t
intend going to Melbourne until I am coming home. I wish all
letters to be directed to the Post office, Melbourne, till called for.
Give my kind regards to Mary, Mr and Mrs P―, and Mr H―, and
all kind friends. I had forgotten to say that on the 27th of this
month we mean to drink all your healths in a bumper; it was the
day we left Old England.
Your affectionate friend,
William Wight.
Brighton Gazette Thursday November 3, 1853.
A great number of letters from Brighton emigrants have
lately been received here by their friends. Mr Daniels (formerly
a carver and guilder, working for Mr Coppard, North Street)
writes that he is at the diggings, and doing tolerably well; that
he intends to remain there some time, having a three months’
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store in hand and with good prospects before him. He has sent a
nugget of gold and money home to his wife; and writes in
cheerful terms.
Mr Henry Chate, tailor, has received a letter from his son.
It appears that he has been with Winterbottom’s musical corps
to Sydney; and has done pretty well. They have latterly
returned to Melbourne. Mr Tucker, son of Mr Tucker, Western
road, is the leader. He is called in Melbourne the English
Paganini.
Mr Thom, who also went from Brighton, is engaged at the
theatre in Geelong. He leads the orchestra, and Mrs Thom is
engaged as an actress. Mrs Thom took her benefit at the theatre
on July 16th, when nearly £100 was taken at the doors. Mr Thom
took his benefit the next night, and £107 was taken. The
performance was Guy Mannering and a concert. Many of our
readers will doubtless remember Mr Creed Royal, an excellent
flute player. He is engaged in the same orchestra as Mr Thom.
Mr Edward Williams (son of Mr Williams of Norfolk Square,
and who was for many years schoolmaster of the National
School in Church Street) emigrated early in the year, leaving his
wife and four children at home, but taking with him a son about
17 years of age. They proceeded to the diggings, where Mr
Williams died, aged 42. He had been an agent and a man of
business in England, and the hard work at the diggings was
probably more than his constitution could support. His son is
engaged in a store, at a salary of £2 a week with board and
lodgings.
The Diggings.
The following are a few brief extracts from a letter received by
Mr W. Pentecost, Jun, North Street, from his companion, John
Michell. The letter is dated Prahan, 1ST July, 1853:Your old shipmate and digging mate, Dick Livett, is still at
Forest Creek, and I have heard is doing well.
Humphrey went to Bendigo on the 1st of June to join his brother
and Verrall, who have been doing well.
Patterson is at work at the Government Quay getting £3 per
week.
Johnson is gone to Geelong.
Rogers went to Ballarat, fell in with a prize of about 30oz, was
hocussed with some brandy, seized with a fit of “delirium
tremens”, and ultimately found himself in the Ballarat lock-up.
The Inspector took compassion on him and made him camp
jailor at £3.12s.a week.
Tankard lives at Geelong and goes to and from the diggings with
a dray, and according to his own account is doing first-rate.
With respect to myself, I have bought a piece of land and
I got Hill to build me a house upon it, and I am doing pretty well
at my trade.
There have been a great many deaths here in
consequence of the dampness of the place. Dysentery, fever,
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jaundice and colds have been very prevalent. I cannot think the
reason of writers stating that this is such a healthy country. I
think you did well in returning to England. Young Woolaston,
with his two sisters, are dead ― the cousins of the Witneys.
Business of all kinds is not so brisk as it was six months
ago. Wages keep up, and so does the price of provisions; except
bread, which is now 1s.4d.the 4lb loaf.
P.S. Since writing the above, I have had a letter from
Humphrey. He is quite well, and very comfortable, with his
brother and Mr and Mrs V. They find gold in every hole they
sink, but in such small quantities as to be no better than wages
in Melbourne. Cathcart is at work brickmaking. Akehurst makes
his appearance now and then from the Bush, sometimes as a
bullock-driver and sometimes as a stockman.
The Brighton Emigration Society continued its work.
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Chapter 11. The End in Sight.
If 1853 was a bumper year for news of the diggers, 1854 was
the beginning of the end, so far as publication was concerned.
Fewer and fewer letters found their way into the pages of the
Brighton Gazette. Only five were published in the whole of that
year, one in January, giving news of the death of John
Lawrence, who was styled on leaving Brighton as either a butler
or a lodging-house keeper. There is a touching account of his
friends at the diggings putting a black band round the caps “out
of respect to him.” Another death was reported later in the
year, that of Thomas Fisher, “a wine merchant, once of St.
James’s Street, Brighton.” Both letters and news items refer to
the state of lawlessness in the colony, particularly the frequency
of robberies and horse-stealing. There is also one mention (by
John Myrtle) of the unrest over the license taxes, which were a
source of much irritation and resentment among the diggers.
Just two letters from Australia were published in the
Gazette in 1855, one from Charles Thatcher’s father telling of
the grisly end of the unfortunate jeweller Bickford, and the
other, from Charles Evans, with news of the musical and
thespian entertainers who demonstrated the skills they had
practised years before in Brighton. The name of Charles
Thatcher was well-known in the town, where his father owned a
“foreign warehouse” at 4 King’s Road. In Australia however he
became a celebrity on the goldfields, not from the discovery of
riches but as an entertainer. Thatcher toured the diggings,
sometimes in the company of fellow Brightonians (especially
Tucker and Chate) and often encountering and passing on news
to his father of others he met. His particular talent lay in
composing and performing ballads about life in Australia,
especially on the goldfields. These were immensely popular, and
Thatcher with them, as he became known as “the inimitable
Thatcher” or even “the inimitable” (perhaps in distant reference
to Charles Dickens, the truly great “Inimitable”). Much of his
time he spent at Ballarat and Bendigo where the diggers loved
his tilts at the license hunters, the policemen and the “NewChum Swell”— the “fine young gentleman” who had no luck at
the diggings and ended up working on the roads “at eight bob
every day.” In 1857 he published Thatcher’s Colonial Songster
in which one ballad illustrates his egalitarian sympathies:
On the diggings we’re all a level, you know……
The poor man out here ain’t oppressed by the rich,
But dressed in blue shirt, you can’t tell which is which…
There’s no masters here to oppress a poor devil
But out in Australia we’re all on a level.
(Quoted by David Goodman in Gold Seeking, page xv.)
The story of the Brighton emigrants to Australia, as told
in their letters, is almost done. By 1854 interest had shifted
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from news of gold seekers to news of the war in the Crimea
which had started the previous year. In place of the columns of
Emigration News which had been published in the Brighton
Gazette there were now accounts of battles and casualties, and
the occasional letter to a family in Brighton from a young soldier
at the front. (There was at least one Brighton man who wrote
home from Balaclava.)
There was still gold to be found in Victoria but at much
lower levels than the diggers could reach. The future lay in
large-scale mining operations that required capital investment
and men were employed by the bosses and no longer operated
as free spirits on the diggings. Occasionally lucky discoveries
might be made, but the final words of Charles Evans’s letter
were all too true—“I am afraid the time for making fortunes is
past.” For the Brighton gold seekers, coming late to the
diggings, it was almost past before they arrived.
Brighton Gazette January 5th, 1854.
The Diggings:- A tradesman of this town has received a letter
from his brother, long resident in Melbourne, in which he makes
mention of a party that had discovered a rock of gold, which
promised to yield many thousands of pounds sterling to the
diggers. They proposed only working the rock for a fortnight,
and then returning to Melbourne. A party of eight had just
returned from the diggings, with no less than £1800 worth of
gold, which was brought down in two days, the heads of the
horses being decorated with ribbons.
Letters from Brighton Emigrants in Australia. January 12, 1854.
From Thomas Mussell, many years a chemist and druggist in
North street.
Barker’s Creek, Mount Alexander
September 3rd, 1853.
I must tell you we got a newspaper, which some of the
Melbourne men sent us, containing the death of Mr John
Lawrence. I, and, I think, most of the Brighton men at the
diggings, put a black band round our caps, out of respect to
him; but we muster but few, I should say not more than 12 or
14. I am situated in a very pleasant part of the diggings, it is
called ‘Barker’s Creek’, and I think I have done pretty well
considering how much all of us were mistaken with what we
should require for gold digging; however, I have now got
everything that is required for gold working, with a very
comfortable tent. You would laugh to see us of a night in it, and
I know would like to sit around a good–looking wood fire, and
take a pipe with us. (We are quite happy as you are at
Suggers’s, though our pipes are all short ones.)
We get up with the sun, have an out and out good
breakfast, then to work till sunset, and then another out and out
good dinner; after that a pipe and glass, then to bed; for you
must know we can get anything almost we require, but we have
to pay for it, viz: bread 3s, per gallon;, sugar 10d. per pound,
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coffee 3s, salt 1s, split peas 1s 6d, potatoes 1s, onions 3s, etc
etc; port wine 15s per bottle, brandy from 15s to 20s, rum 15s,
gin 15s, etc. etc.; but those prices do not matter; if a man has
the means and pluck to stick to it, his luck is sure to come. Then
men get a good price for labour, there is nothing less than 10s
per day; I have sent you a list. As for poor people there are
none, excepting when they first arrive, and then I must say it is
very very bad, for many land with very little cash, and cannot
meet the high prices; still if they have pluck to look after work
they can find it; no matter what the man has been in England,
there will be something for him to do at Melbourne. You know
there are some who will not help themselves. I fancy I am
writing you a very queer sort of letter, running from one thing to
the other. I would wish to write you the same as if I was sitting
in your snug little room talking, or you in my comfortable tent in
Victoria. I must tell you that both my boy and myself have been
in the bush from the time we first landed.
I have been once to Melbourne, that was in my last ― I
made the journey to see if there were any letters at the Postoffice for me, and was much disappointed, there being none; it
took me four days to get down, and seven to return. During the
time I was in Melbourne I saw Mrs Streeter (she is not looking
well), Mr Streeter had not then arrived; also Nye. The two
Lamberts, Pepper, Chate, and Tucker (poor good-natured
Tucker had been very ill, but was then much better; by all
accounts would have died had not his friend Chate stuck to him
like a trump; but I suppose you have heard all this). I also had
the pleasure of seeing two little houses built by Mr Mighell, son
of our old friend Mighell who used to live at the top of North
Street, with money he got at the gold fields. My very old friend
Tom Towner I found the other day. I think he has been doing
well; it is very strange, in England he used to be very gay, he is
now one of the most steady and hardest working men on the
fields – if he continues so, he will return to England a rich man.
R. Levett is his mate; poor Dick has been very unlucky; his first
mate was ill for four months.
Mr White, from the Regent, is turned butcher; as yet, I do
not think he has done any good; neither have his friends
Messrs. Beck and Pearmain. Mr Spencer, from Cannon Place,
has got a store just by me; he is making money very fast; I
think he will soon return. Jack Hyams (happy Jack, as he was
called on board the “Statesman”) I do not think is doing much;
he is at Melbourne; ― although he had more pluck than some of
them. He was one of the party who marched to the diggings at
the same time that I did; he kept us alive all the time; I should
be glad to hear of his doing well. The two Wigneys went to the
Ovens fields, about 200 miles from Melbourne; they gave up
good work ― I am told 25s.per day― and did nothing; still I do
not blame them. Mr Nye and the two Lamberts were in good
work at Melbourne; I saw them in May last; they had saved
some money and bought some ground. Young Sam Akehurst is
living with a butcher close to me. Mr Tate lives in the tent next
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to me, with a first-rate party of diggers, and most respectable
men. He will do well this summer, though as yet he has been
unlucky; but it has not been from not working hard. I think him
one of the hardest working young men on the fields.
Now for a word to old friends in old England. Call and see
my old friend Sangiovanni; remember me kindly to him; tell him
I am doing pretty well, and in good health, and I often think of
him, and hope to see him again. My son has just come to say
that he has been informed the post will go tonight in the place
of to-morrow, so I must cut it; but be sure and remember me to
Good, Cheesman, Briggs, in fact all friends. Do write us a line,
and direct Mr― at Mr Juniper’s, Melbourne; and date your letter
outside.
Brighton Gazette
January 20,1954
Letter received by Mr Tester, from young man Myrtle, whose
father was well known in the town many years as a butcher,
Still in the land of the living― now in a tent about 8 miles
from Bendigo― diggings generally failing, though some success
― planning to go to Castlemain, 30 miles off, to purchase land
― Miss Loxley has left her situation.―
Fancy me dressed in a wide-awake hat (which has nearly
forgotten its shape through exposure to the weather), a serge
shirt, a pair of cord trousers well covered with clay, a pair of
boots with nails one and a half inch thick. I rise before the sun,
if it is my cooking week, and get breakfast, which consists of
beef steak or mutton chops, damper and tea; then go to work
till about 12; dinner the same as breakfast; then work till dark,
and have supper, the same as dinner; and then to bed, which
consists of a sack nailed to two pieces of wood, and a blanket
wrapped round me, a gun or a brace of pistols lying by my side,
loaded, and at full cock; for I am sorry to say robberies have
been very frequent here lately….. (the robbers have an excellent
chance now, as the Government is fully occupied about the
licence tax) application has been made to Van Dieman’s land for
soldiers.―
Brighton Gazette
March 30, 1854
Letter received by Mr Tate, wine merchant, Bartholomews, from
son, John Tate.
Barker’s Creek, 6 Nov., 1853.
Dear Father,― Since I last wrote to you I have had very
good health, but very fluctuating luck. I have been on the
diggings ever since I came out. There are plenty of new diggings
springing up; but none so lucrative as those first discovered.
Sometimes I have been working for weeks, aye, months,
without earning sixpence; then I have in one week cleared
myself, and had £20 over. I could, if I liked, earn one ounce a
week surface washing, but this would only be wages. Me and my
mate prefer chancing it; and therefore keep on sinking holes.
We have often sunk ten or twelve in succession without getting
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a speck; and these from 6 to 30 feet deep. I once thought we
were in a fair way of getting on. My mate and me shared 26
ounces of gold between us, and, as water was scarce, the
washing stuff had to be carried to the Creek; so we purchased a
horse and cart for £70, and began to work.
We went on very well for a week, earning about £4 per
day, when the McIvor diggings were opened and reported to be
very rich. We packed up our traps and off; found the said
diggings a failed one, no one doing any good, and provisions
very dear, even for this dear place, so we turned tail to come
back. On the second night our horse was either stolen or
strayed away. We lost a week in hunting in the bush for it; and
were then obliged to sell the cart and harness for £15, and
trudge on to dig again. Horse stealing is carried on to an
enormous extent, as the columns of the newspaper will tell you.
Charles Pennikett, instead of going to Alexander as I told
you, went on to the “Ovens”. He had some good luck, and
bought a horse or I think two; but lost them again. This is the
way gold diggings don’t pay. If a man sticks to any one locality,
I have no hesitation in saying he can earn 1oz or 1½oz per
week; and can live for 25s. I am now living at a Boarding House
kept by Mrs Crockwell, and four daughters. She is the widow of
a wine merchant in Torquay. We have parties and dancing and
all the et ceteras of good society. On Tuesday next, the eldest
daughter is to be married to an ex- Lieutenant in the Army. The
old lady is as good as a mother to us. Mussell, of North Street,
is a great friend of theirs and mine. I was working with him and
his son for three months; and did nothing. At last I sunk a hole
and got 10oz.; and began another, when, in consequence of a
slight tiff that I had with Mr Mussell’s son George, I left them to
come to Mrs Crockwell’s. They went into the claim I had left,
finished it; and found 3½ lbs. weight of gold.
That was a slice of misfortune for me; however, I mean
to be nothing but a digger. Things are looking brighter; and I
have not the slightest doubt that in less than three years from
the time I started, I shall be home, with some hundreds; and
how could I have done that at home? (If George really means to
come out, I should like him to stop till I come home, save as
much as he can, as it is in the start that it is wanted.) I should
return in a few months to Australia, as I know a fortune is to be
made on the diggings in storekeeping.
From your affectionate Son,
John Tate.
Brighton Gazette
March 30, 1854
The bearer of this letter to Mr Tate informs us that he was
at Barker’s Creek Diggings, which is about 80 miles from
Melbourne, and lies between the Forest Creek and Bendigo
diggings: but, having a run of ill-luck, he deemed it prudent to
return home. He states that Mr Mussell is following the
profession he practiced in Brighton, and that he will draw a
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tooth for 10s., or administer a pill for a shilling; and that, with
his son George, who was at work in the diggings when our
informant left, in November, he is going on comfortably. Mr
Wight, late of the Regent tavern, is in partnership with a person
named Neale, and is following the butchering trade. The
butcher’s shop consists of four poles with a piece of canvass
thrown over the top. Mr Richard Livett, he says, is the life and
soul of the party in his district, from his happy disposition and
witticisms. Mr Spencer, he says, is the only one of that Brighton
party who has amassed anything like a good round sum of
money. It was pretty generally believed at the diggings that he
was already worth £1000; and that with his three occupations,
storekeeper, smith and butcher, he was making a fortune. The
two sons of Mr Humphrey, Bond Street, are at Collingwood, a
short distance from Melbourne, working at their trade, and, as
far as our informant could learn, doing well. Mr Streeter is
employed in some way at Collingwood, where Mrs Streeter
keeps a lodging-house; and Mr Mitchell, late of Cranbourne
Street, is with some companions at Forest Creek. (Mr Streeter is
reported as having arrived back home before the end of June.)
Brighton Gazette June 29, 1854.
Mr Jonathan Streeter.― “Honest Jonathan” has returned to
England from Australia; and is about to establish himself in
business in London. On Sunday he paid a visit to his friends in
Brighton, by whom he was most cordially received. He is much
thinner than when he left England; and the weather to which he
has lately been exposed has wrought a considerable change in
his personal appearance, his skin being much sun-burnt and
“tanned”.
Brighton Gazette August 13, 1854.
The Diggings.
The following extracts from a letter received by Mr R. Livett,
junior, a compositor in the Brighton Gazette office, from his
father in Australia, will be interesting to some of our readers:Prahan, near Melbourne, 10th April, 1854.
My dear Richard,― Now I can write. Two days since I came
down from the diggings, bringing with me a trifle. I was three
days on the road (78 miles); but arrived safely, and, thank God,
am now well. I went to the Treasury and got my lob of gold
sold…. I go back to the bush in a few days; I require a little
rest; and, if in any way successful, you shall again hear from
me. Oh, what happiness to come back to old England about this
time! But no, I shan’t do that, for I am resolved upon more
gold, and then return, or die in the pursuit. I wear fast, Dick. I
am very thin; so that what I do must be done quickly. The
vicissitude of weather, privations, hardships, underground work,
and occasional illness (the latter not to be avoided), the Lord
knows I have had my share of it.
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The tremendous heat to be borne, accompanied with
occasional blindness, knocks life out of us at a rapid pace. I shall
soon be an old man; but nothing deters me. On, on, on. I shall
some day drop upon my lob; and then home and happiness. A
description of the country, manner of life, price of necessaries,
etc, etc, etc, you are now so familiar with from the
communications of other Brighton emigrants, that it is
unnecessary for me to go into so hacknied an affair. This seems
a country for people to get money in faster, much faster, than
at home; but no place to settle down in.
For my part, I feel but little better than a transportee. The
only difference is, the law prevents them from returning home.
A horrid country to live in; anything beyond the necessaries of
life money cannot purchase. In fact, there is no such thing as
comfort; it’s all tear, strain, and struggle to get money; and
what with the flies and mosquitoes in the heat of summer, and
wet and cold in the winter, it is scarcely bearable. Nothing but
the hope of getting more gold induces me to stop here.
Everybody, almost of every country, Germans, Danes,
Hungarians, French, Spanish, and, in fact, all that I have ever
conversed with, mean to return home.
I find there are a few who have done better than me; but
where one has, a thousand have done worse. I’ll never advise
any body belonging to me to come out, for it can but be
considered little better than self murder.
Just to give you an idea of the necessary expenses, I must
inform you that I have paid as much as £45 per ton for drayhire; £1.5s.per week, for a crib to put my head in; £2 ditto for
ordinary fare, beside constantly dropping money for licenses,
implements, escort of gold, etc. So you see it is not altogether
so inviting as often represented. I shall return to Barker’s Creek,
about four miles from Castlemain, in a short time, where I
intend to spend the winter. Winter over, I shall go seventy miles
further up the country, and see what I can turn up among the
hills. Our winters are excessively cold, especially just before
daybreak. I have had as many as eight thicknesses of blanket
over me, and have then been cold, in fact, numbed, so as hardly
able to stand; and yet the ice is never thick enough to bear
one’s weight. I have not yet seen Tankard; but I hear he is
doing pretty well at a village, about twelve miles from this
place. Dr Mussell is doing well at his profession at Terran Gower
(the new diggings). Having nothing more of importance to
communicate at present,
I remain
Your affectionate father,
Richard Livett.
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Brighton Gazette
October 12, 1854.
Brightonians in Melbourne. (from anonymous letter)
I have just met Raphael Cohen, brother to Mr Cohen,
Guardian Office, Brighton, and Thomas Gibbs brother to Mr
Gibbs, chemist, formerly of St. James’s street, Brighton. Mr
Thomas Fisher, a wine merchant, once of St. James’s Street,
Brighton is just dead.
Brighton Gazette.
May 31, 1855
A Brighton Jeweller in Australia Mr Thatcher, of the King’s Road….
has communicated to us the following information:My son Manning, who has very recently returned from
Australia, says:- “Just before I left Melbourne, the streets were
placarded with a police proclamation of £150 reward for the
apprehension of James Bickford, for stealing 200 ozs of gold out
of a tent. During my stay in Melbourne I kept a sharp look out
for Bickford; but never saw him. I left Melbourne for Calcutta.”
Mr Thatcher states further, “Mrs Bickford’s nephew has written
home to say, in trying to apprehend him, Bickford shot a
policeman with his revolver, and was executed the very day Mrs
Bickford and her children arrived in Australia”. A report of this
kind has been circulated in Brighton for the last eight or ten
days; and we have had no other means of speaking as to its
accuracy further than what we have had communicated by Mr T.
Bickford was a young man; and had a jeweller’s shop in the
most fashionable part of the King’s Road a few years ago. A fire
took place which gutted the premises and destroyed the stock;
and shortly afterwards Mr B. left for Australia.
Brighton Gazette May 31, 1855.
From Melbourne – Last Thursday, fourteen passengers from
Melbourne were landed at Shoreham, from the ship Orwell, by
the fishing – lugger Eight Sixtus, Carden master.
Brighton Gazette July19th, 1855.
A Brighton Emigrant Mr Charles Evans – Sydney. March 19,
1855.
I found, on my arrival here, that a gentleman named Byers was
in possession of the leading parts, so I was compelled to take an
inferior situation. I made an arrangement with the manager of
the first theatre in Sydney to play the heavy business (Iago,
Macduff etc)―for six months, at six guineas per week, which I
thought not bad considering the depressed state of the colony.
There are three theatres open in Sydney: ours is the principal
one….. There is a Brighton man, named Chate (who came out
with Tucker and Bambridge) in our orchestra. He tells me that
Mr and Mrs Thom are about returning to England. They have
saved some money out here; but I am afraid the time for
making fortunes is past.
100
Chapter 12. Conclusion.
This story of our Brighton emigrants stops in 1855 as their
letters home are no longer regularly printed in the Gazette.
Those already published often give some indication of what was
happening, or had happened to particular individuals. We know
that William Pentecote, who wrote in September 1852 “I cannot
bear to be away from home,” was already back in Brighton
when his friend John Mitchell wrote to him ten months later: “I
think you did well in returning to England.” Others, like the
Thoms, William Palgrove, Charles Thatcher and Jonathan
Streeter, spent a few, mainly successful, years and then went
back too.
From the Brighton Gazette of January 25, 1855 comes
this news item. Panorama of Australia.— This exhibition is to be
re-opened this evening; and perhaps the best proof of the
accuracy of the illustrations, is the praise bestowed on it by our
old townsman, Mr Jonathan Streeter, who has just returned
from the new El Dorado. Mr Streeter stated last week at the
close of the exhibition, that it is a faithful representation of the
country; and will give all who witness it an excellent idea of that
far-off land. (One panorama of Australia and America showed
“nearly 6500 feet of transparent scenery”.)
It is clear from this news item that “our Jonathan” (as he
was affectionately known) was welcomed as an authority on
that faraway land which many ex—Brightonians were now
beginning to look on as their new and future home. Some who
may have dreamed of returning did not live, as the letters
reveal, to make that dream come true. But one man who did
come back to England in 1854 was Charles Joseph La Trobe, the
former superintendent, then first Lieutenant Governor of the
independent colony of Victoria. Though not himself from
Brighton he settled about 15 miles away at Littlington and there
he died in 1875, aged 74. His grave in the village churchyard is
clearly marked by a plain white cross and this is where, in 1951,
during the centenary celebrations of the State of Victoria,
wreaths were laid by the Victorian Agent-General in the
presence of the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of London, the
sheriffs and sword-bearer carrying the Sword of State, and
many Australians then in England.
Thanks though to John Chandler and his memoirs (Forty
Years in the Wilderness, published in 1893), we have a first
hand account of the future that awaited at least some of the
Harpley emigrants. Memories cannot always be relied upon but
there is plenty of evidence that the families from Ebenezer kept
together in friendship and by inter-marriage, strengthened by
their shared faith. The Woods and Tylers bought land next to
each other at Preston (the area previously known as
“Irishtown”) and later sold part of it to Stephen Vincent and
Robert Dadswell. When gold was discovered the men took off
for the diggings together with John Juniper, William Fairhall and
the Chandlers, father and son. Tom Harvey went to the diggings
101
with the two Newnhams, and, with the money he made from
selling his gold, sent to the Brighton workhouse for his sister
Ruth and brother Daniel. Ruth (then only eleven) later married
John Chandler, and Frederick Newman married the Woods’
eldest daughter Mary. Sadly, Daniel Harvey went missing from
the diggings near Bendigo. After several moves of home, the
Chandlers and many of their friends settled in Preston. They had
their own church there, and this became their centre of worship
and baptism, with Edward Wood as elder. Wood’s partner in the
ironmongery business in Brighton, John Juniper, set up premises
in central Melbourne and made his home there.
The young single men from the Statesman who stayed in
Australia may have had some difficulty in finding wives since
there was from the earliest days in the colony a shortage of
women. After 1852 more families emigrated together, many of
them, according to the Illustrated London News (August 27,
1852), “a new class of people” from the “middle strata of
society.” Professional and business men could see good
opportunities in the thriving colony. Single women were
encouraged to emigrate by the Society for the Promotion of
Female Emigration, founded in 1851, but needlewomen and
governesses, however welcomed by “Elizabeth,” were not likely
to provide happy partners for rough diggers. Strenuous efforts
were made by Caroline Chisholm to select suitable young girls to
send out with her Family Colonization Loan Society, though
many of these proved to be a disappointment to employers
hoping for good domestic servants. Some of them no doubt
became wives in the new country, but we do not hear from the
published letters of any marriages among the young men who
left Brighton in 1852. They were still occupied in gold seeking
and then probably hoped to return home. Not all shared the
happy optimism of James Wooldridge whose plans to stay and
settle would bring his wife and children to join him.
New gold discoveries continued to be made in Victoria
throughout the 1850s, and new rushes took place across the
colony at Bryant’s Range, Maryborough, Mount Cole, Ararat and
Amhurst. The “army of ants” shifted with the news of fresh finds
and was accompanied by armies of bushrangers, as the heavily
protected gold escorts made their way back to Melbourne.
Meanwhile the longer established goldfields of Ballarat and
Bendigo were developing from temporary settlements into
mining towns. Visitors to Ballarat today can find themselves
transported back at Sovereign Hill to a street of shops of the
1850s selling confectionery and drapery (bills made out in
£.s.d.), and where there are working blacksmiths and tinsmiths,
potters and furniture makers, carriage-builders, wheelwrights
and candlemakers. There are hotels, churches schools and a
replica of the Victoria Theatre where Lola Montez (billed as a
“Spanish Dancer” but born in Ireland) performed her notorious
Spider Dance, “trailing clouds of wickedness.” Sovereign Hill is
of course a sanitized reconstruction of what must have been a
rough and raucous place but one dear to the diggers trying to
102
forget the backbreaking, and often heartbreaking, toil of goldseeking, or perhaps celebrating a lucky find that might bring
them nearer to home. The Victoria Theatre is however of
particular interest to us as it was there that Charles Thatcher—
“the Inimitable”— must have performed the ballads that made
him such a favourite among the diggers.
Charles Thatcher had arrived in Melbourne from Brighton
towards the end of 1852. He was then 22 and had been
employed in London to play the flute in the orchestras of Drury
Lane and other theatres. He spent a short unsuccessful time at
the diggings but then turned to his talent for writing and
performing comic songs. He quickly sensed the topics enjoyed
by the diggers and his “local songs” (generally sung to old
tunes) included The New Chum Swell, Goldfield Girls, License
Hunting and The Queer Ways of Australia. His main base was
Bendigo where he often performed in the concert hall that was
part of the Shamrock Hotel. No charge was made for entrance
to the elegant room, decorated in blue and white, with gold
chandeliers. Profits came from the bar at one end while the
performance took place on the stage at the other. In London
Thatcher had been familiar with song and supper rooms in the
music hall, and was happily at home on the stage. In Bendigo
he met a young widow (she was still only 20) and he and Annie
Vitelli began to perform together. He wrote a farce (called The
Colonial Servant Girl) and, with Annie and his collection of
ballads, took off for Castlemaine and Ballarat to entertain the
diggers there. Charles and Annie married at Newtown, near
Geelong, in February 1861. The following year they followed the
gold rushes then taking place in New Zealand, and performed in
all the main towns in both islands. After a few months’ break in
Melbourne they set out on another tour of New Zealand where a
second daughter was born in Wellington. They later returned to
England and Charles set up in business in London as importer,
and seller of curios. He made several trips to China and Japan
and he died in September 1878 of cholera in Shanghai.
Not all the Brighton emigrants led such colourful lives as
Charles Thatcher— perhaps this was just as well, since he found
himself in several punch-ups, and was once taken to court for
libel. There were however several who made a good living from
their musical and theatrical experience of earlier days in
England. Brighton had had its Promenade Concerts (even if
there was “no walking room”) so it is not surprising to find
several young men involved with promenade concerts at
Sydney, before Winterbottom and Ellis opened the Cremone
Gardens (“the Vauxhall of Victoria”) at Melbourne. On Whit
Monday 1856 there was a grand procession round the town
followed by a performance in the Gardens that included the
Bombardment of Sebastopol, complete with fireworks, at nine
o’clock at night. Among those from whom tickets could be
obtained was Mr Tankard, Temperance Hotel, Lonsdale Street.
There are, then, just a few ex-Brightonians whose future
lives we know something of. Of many, alas, we know nothing.
103
Did Rogers stay on as camp-jailor at Ballarat? Did Vincent (and
Wright) follow careers in the police? Did Bryer still teach dancing
under an assumed name, and was Fleeson still known as
Fortune? Those who were settled in the suburb of Brighton in
1861 may just have encountered an English visitor on the beach
who wrote home: “I spent quite a remarkable Christmas, one
that seems unbelievable. We lunched from great whicker (sic)
hampers, and nothing was missing that a fine old English
gentleman would have required except that the food was cold.
We had journeyed to a place called Brighton, near Melbourne.
Here under great tea-trees we lunched, and later rested, while
some of our party paddled in the soft, clear water.”
With the extension of the gold fields new arrivals in
Victoria included Germans, Italians, and Poles as well as
Chinese. The mining towns, especially Bendigo, grew in size and
prosperity, with grand new public buildings and open spaces.
Melbourne had already established institutions familiar to
incomers from Britain well before our emigrants arrived. The
Argus had carried local news since 1846. In 1851 it looked very
like the Brighton Gazette of the time, with news of sheep and
horse sales, livestock shows, the (Flemington) races, sports and
meetings of societies as well as advertisements for jobs vacant
and wanted, schools and medical remedies. Beside the theatre,
where Brighton musicians found jobs in the orchestra, there was
the Mechanics’ Institute (there was also one at Ballarat with
library attached).
In the early 1870s Anthony Trollope, visiting his son,
wrote approvingly of Melbourne’s magnificence — the wide
streets
“built
on
the
Philadelphian,
rectangular,
parallelogrammic plan,” and the large open spaces which
“afford(ed) green walks to the citizens”. He was struck by the
lack of squalor (though he admitted he had not visited the Irish
or the Chinese quarters) and the grand public buildings—
especially the Town Hall and the Post Office. He was impressed
by the public library (“open gratuitously to all the world, six
days a week, from ten in the morning till ten in the evening”)
and saw the beginnings of its University (so far an average of
only five bachelors’ degrees awarded each year). He noted that
there were “no poor laws in the colonies and consequently no
poor-rates,” though the poor and destitute were so well cared
for in the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum that a pauper from an
English union workhouse would think it was like Buckingham
Palace.
This, then, was the city that developed round the
Brightonians who stayed on. John Chandler most often
mentions the suburbs, especially Preston, where many of them
had settled. Life was not easy for them unless, like John
Juniper, they had a good trade. Even so, the economy
fluctuated and increasing competition forced many businesses
to fail. John Chandler and some of his Baptist friends formed a
company which was later dissolved, and when the farm (and “a
104
home of my own”) that he bought then failed, he found work
with his brother-in-law William Harvey at 6s. a day.
All through these difficult years, John Chandler was
faithful to the tenets of the new Ebenezer congregation though
tormented by the knowledge of his own unworthiness to seek
baptism as a fully “saved” member. At long last after a visit
from Stephen Vincent and another member of the church, he
felt in his heart that he could be accepted and was baptised
together with another young man whose name was George
Wigney. Since the arrival of the Statesman and the letters
written to their father by his sister Martha Mudge, there was
never much mention in other letters of contacts between two
very different sets of Brighton emigrants. George had clearly
taken up his old trade and was the printer of the Particular
Baptist Magazine which may have been the reason for his
conversion and baptism.
Gradually John Chandler built up another business as a
grocer in the inner suburb of Hawthorn. By this time he had six
children and as they grew older, his sons joined him in a new
business as ironmonger and general dealer. Before he died in
his eighties, he was able to find satisfaction in the success and
prosperity of a much respected business and joy in the birth in
1918 of his grandson Rolicker who was to carry the family firm
of D and W Chandler on into the twentieth century. Back in the
1890s however, when John Chandler was writing about his
“forty years in the wilderness” he was already thinking of the
changes he had seen since he had arrived in Australia in the
Harpley in 1850. Like many older people he felt that the
changes had not all been to the better. Writing of his early
neighbours in Preston he observed that “most of those who
were settled there came out before any gold was thought of.
They came out to make a home, and took an interest in each
others’ welfare…. There is a sad failing in the young people of
this colony, who are now enjoying all the privileges which the
old colonists won for them by great hardship and endurance.”
Since the Second World War “Australia Felix” has continued to
attract incomers seeking a better life, and the Melbourne
telephone directory today includes , among names from Greece,
Poland, Italy, India and more recent arrivals, many familiar to
us from the lists of emigrants from mid-Victorian Brighton.
105
Sources and Acknowledgements
These letters which tell the story of the Brighton people who
emigrated to Australia in 1849 and 1852 were all, with one
exception, published in the Brighton Gazette between 1850 and
1855. (The exception, dated Saturday 27 July 1850, was written
by John Juniper to the Brighton Herald and was published in
that paper.) I am greatly indebted to Stephanie Green, formerly
with the Local Studies and Brighton Reference Library, and to
Sally Blann, at the Brighton History Centre, who with their staffs
supplied me with newspapers containing the letters. My other
main source for this work was John Chandler’s Forty Years in the
Wilderness, two original copies of which have survived since
1893 at the Gospel Standard Library in Hove, where Mrs Poole
generously allowed me the privilege of working from them. Joan
Peebles of Sussex Family History Society kindly supplied details
of the Wood and Juniper families.
In Melbourne I received help from the staffs of the
Australian Archives and Public Record Offices, the State Library
of Victoria/ La Trobe Library, the Immigration Museum and the
Genealogical Society of Victoria. Following the publication in
1997 and 1999 of a few of the letters in The Genealogist (the
Family History Magazine of the Australian Institute of
Genealogical Studies Inc.) I enjoyed interesting and helpful
contacts with Marie G. Clarke, Robyn Doble, Graham Field,
Margaret A. Rowe-Keys (editor of The Genealogist), Ken Thomas
and Lauren Thomson. In Wellington, New Zealand, Gwynne
Clark gave me useful information about the Fairhall family. I am
grateful to them all.
I am particularly grateful to Dr David Goodman, of the
University of Melbourne, for giving up his time to discussing
some of the letters with me. I found his Gold Seekers (1994)
invaluable for understanding how the gold rushes developed in
California and Victoria. For the general background to the
development of Australia during the whole of the nineteenth
century I often turned to Michael Cannon’s Australia in the
Victorian Age – in particular Volume I Who’s Master? Who’s Man
(1971) and Volume III Life in the Cities (1975). Don
Charlwood’s The Long Farewell (1981) contains much graphic
material on the emigrants’ experience of the voyage to
Australia. For the Brighton emigrants’ experience of Melbourne
as it would become twenty years after their arrival, Anthony
Trollope’s Australia Volume I (1873) gives a visitor’s account of
life in Victoria at that time, while S.W.Silver & Co’s Handbook
for Australia and New Zealand (1874, 2nd edition) provides all
the essential information on conditions of work and wages for
newcomers to the colony. Asa Briggs gives a modern historian’s
view of “Melbourne: a Victorian Community Overseas” in his
Victorian Cities (1963).
Back in England, I am indebted to Dr. Sheila Haines for
the letter to his mother from Thomas Barnes, and her advice
and help have been instrumental in the undertaking and
106
completion of this project. I thank her most sincerely. One
recollection from my last visit to Melbourne recalls the happy
occasion when I took the local train to Brighton to meet Rolicker
Chandler, the grandson of the boy who left Brighton, Sussex, in
1849 to settle in Australia. He very kindly gave me copies of his
own My Baptist Forbears (1994) and The Migrant Ship Harpley,
1847-1862 (1996).
Last, but certainly not least, I wish to pay grateful tribute
to Barbara de Souza, who generously, if rashly, offered to put
the edited letters on to her computer. I hope that, in spite of the
arduous task she had undertaken, she enjoyed sharing in the
lives of our Brighton emigrants as much as I have done.
Joyce Collins
January 2008
107
INDEX OF NAMES
In addition to the names of writers and recipients of letters, this list
also includes those of officials, ships’ officers and surgeons, and other
known emigrants. Dependent children who travelled with parents and
are named on ships’ lists are placed in brackets after the adults.Akehurst, Sam 92,95
Allen, Rev Daniel 27
Alwin/Aylwin, (?George) 36,62,70-2
Alwin, Mrs Sarah
(Alwin, John Lydia, Joseph, Sarah, Sarah Ann, Maria, Ann)
Ashley, Lord 4
Atkins, 85-7
Bambridge/Bainbridge, (?Henry) 57,66,75,79,81,100
Bardwell, 72
Barlow, Mrs 85
Barnes, Thomas 2
Beck, William H 55,69,89,95
Becker, George 40
Bickford, James 36,74,88,93,100
Bickford, wife and children 100
Bryer, (alias Jones) 104
Bubb, Frederick (Calcutta)
Buckland, Captain Thomas 12-13
Buckwell, Captain 30
Byers, 100
Cathcart, 92
Chandler, Mrs Ann 101
Chandler, Stephen 6,17,21,26-7,10
Chandler, John Intro, 5,6,13-16,18, 21-3,26-8,46,101-2,104-5
(Chandler, Mary Ann)
Chandler, Rolicker 13, 105
Charl(e)wood, Stephen (?Don) 6,17
Charl(e)wood, Susan 17
Chate/Chute, Alfred 57,75,88,91,93,95,100
Chisholm, Caroline 4,102
Cockerell/Cottrell/Cotterill, Stephen 57,79,88
Cockran, 58
Cohen, Raphael 100
Cooke, John 7-10,79
Coppard, 90
Cox, 35
Crockwell, Mrs 97
Dadswell/Dodswell, Mrs Naomi 6,16,18
Dadswell, Robert 8,27,30,101
Daniels, John 89
Daniels, Mrs Naomi
Davi(e)s, Francis/Frank 78
Dexter, 58
Dickens, Charles 2,44,93
Dyer, 60 (Hebrides)
Edwards, C N 82,84
Edwards, Henry/Harry 75,82-4,88
“Elizabeth” and “George”, 29,31
Ellis, D 38,42,83-4,103 (?William)
Evans, Charles 81,84,88,94,100
108
Fairhall, William 27,101
Fisher, Thomas 93, 100
Fleeson, John (and son) 79
Foreman, 6,21,25
Foreman, Mrs
Fortune, 104
Franklyn/Franklin, Henry 3,35,60,74,89
Gibbs, Thomas 100
Godden, Albert 80-1
Godfrey, Captain G B,
Goodman, David 93
Hardy, Mrs Jane 49
(Hardy Charles, Jane, Robert, Maria and baby)
Harris, 40-1
Harvey, Daniel 102,105
Harvey, Ruth 102
Harvey, Thomas 6,15-16,101
Hays, 13
Hill, William 78,91
Howe family, 10
Hughes, John 52,58
Humphrey(s), Henry 62-3, 70-1,73,76,78,91-2,98
Humphrey(s), Herbert 53,62,70-3,76,78,91-2,98
Hyams, G (Jack) 95
Jeffery, Mrs
Jenkins, Dr 40
Johnson, (?Alfred) 37,91
Juniper, John jnr (including references to father of the same name)
Intro, 5-6, 15-18,23-5, 27,30,36,46,49-50,52,56,64,66,85,101-2,104
(Juniper, Ellen)
Juniper, Mary 51
Juniper, Mrs Sarah 19,51
Juniper, William 13
Killick, Dan/Den 79,88
King, 85
La Trobe,Charles Joseph 28,101
Lackey, 47
Lambert, John 7
Lambert, Mrs 10
Lambert, Thomas 7,11,95
Lambert, W 8, 95
Lawrence, John 60,89,93-5
Leney, 60
Lewis, 89
Livett/Levett, Richard 66,91,95,98,99
Lockyear, 73
Loftey, Widow Margaret 3
Loveridge, 35
Mackarell, 69
Martin, Alfred 88
Mighell, Richard 5-6,25,95
Millsome, Richard 88
Mitchell/Michell, 74,91,98,101
Mockford, James 74,89
Montez, Lola 102
Moon, 75
109
Mossman, 36
Mudge, Daniel George Ellis 46
Mudge, Mrs Martha 45-51, 105
Mussell, George 97-8
Mussell, “Dr” Thomas 66, 81,94,97,99
Myrtle, John 93
Neale, 98
Newnham, Frederick 6,102
Newnham, William 7,102
Nias, 88
Nye, 95
Over, C and J, 75
Overton, Mrs 73
Packham, Samuel 56
Palgrave, William James 29,33-4,101
Palgrave, Mrs
Patte(r)son, James 78,91
Pearmain, John 55
Pearmain, William 55,69,89,95
Penfold, Dr Christopher Rawson 4
Penfold, Mrs Mary 4
Pennekett, Charles 96
Pentecost/Pentecote, W P 57,74,91,101
Pepper, Henry 54,79,88,95
Pepper, William 54, 95-6
Pointer, 80
Postlethwaite, 82
Pritchard, William 88
Purcell, Henry/Harry 79
Purcell, Mrs 79
Purcell, J 80
Raven, James 12
Richards, 85
Roberts, Henry 38-40
Rogers, 69,91,104
Rose,Thomas (Hebrides)
Royal Creed, 91
Scarboro(w), Henry 60,81,88
Sedgwick, Rev Joseph 5,14
Sharp, Mrs 49
Smith, Henry 7,10
Smith, Dr James D 13,16
Snow, 89
Spencer, J 69,95,98
Stanley, Lord 45
Streeter, Jonathan 44,95,98,101
Streeter, Mrs 95,98
(Streeter [adult] son and daughter)
Strong, Henry 89
Strong, John H
Strudwick, 82
Tankard, W. Samuel 5,35,49,69,91,99,103
Tate, John 66,81,95
Thatcher, Charles 74,81,89,93,101,103
Thatcher, Charles Robert 5,35,66,93,100
Thatcher, Manning 100
Thom, Edward and Herbert 74,82,91,100,101
110
Thom, Mrs 91,100-1
Thomas, Charles 38
Thomas, (P.O. Sydney) 40
Thomas, E 42
Thwaites, 84
Tillstone, Francis 60,66-8
Towner, John (?Tom) 95
Towson, John Thomas 45-6
Trollope, Anthony 104
Tucker, John 66,75,81,88,91,93,95,100
Turner, H
Turner, John 5-6,12-15,18,21-2,24,52,55
Turner, Mrs Lucy
(Turner John George, Louisa)
Tyler, James 5,21,24-5,27,101
Tyler, Mrs Elizabeth 101
(Tyler Mary, Richard, Sarah, Lydia)
Verrall, 78,91
Vincent, Jessy 64
Vincent, Mrs Louisa 18,28,31,64
Vincent, Mrs Mary,
Vincent, Stephen 6,18,25,27,31,64,101,104-5
Vincent, William John 25,88
Vines, Joshua 88
Vitelli, Annie 103
Watson, 81
Wight/White, William 35,37,74,81,89,95,98,104
Wigney, G A 46,50,105
Wigney/Witney, George 47,51-2,93,96
Wigney, William 46-7,50,92,95
Williams, Edward and son, 91
Winterbottom, 75,83,91,103
Wood, Edward Intro, 5-6,15,17-18,20-1,24-5,27,36,46,52,70-1,101-2
Wood, George Charles 18
Wood, Mrs Mary (nee Gillam) 17,101-2
(Wood, Mary, Edward, Emily, Fanny)
Woolaston, and 2 sisters 92
Wooldridge, James 74,81,85,88,102
Wooldridge, Mrs Susan 87
111