A Voice from below: Benjamin Boyce in South Australia, 1839-1846

Abstract

The limits of history-from-below are very largely defined by the availability of literary sources. Working class documents, especially letters, of the early nineteenth century are rare. It may be that migration history will yield important documentation for working class life and mores. For a migrant in a new colony, even if only semi-literate, was almost bound to put pen to paper and to write home to his people. It was, virtually, a compulsory exercise,1 and represents one of the few moments when the working man would record his own thoughts, possi bly his view of the world, in a direct manner. Sadly it is the case that few of such letters have been collected together. In general, of course, the survival of historical materials favours the literate and wealthy, while most working class history is lost forever. Moreover most published collections of pioneers' memoirs and emigrants' letters con tain little material relating to the ordinary migrant?successful, middle class, men of substance, are well recorded in such collections,2 but there is absurdly little representation of the great masses of migrants who flooded out of Europe in the nineteenth century. Benjamin Boyce came from Freiston, Scrane End, near Boston, Lincolnshire on the migrant vessel, the Moffatt, which arrived in Adelaide in December 1839. Boyce appears to have joined the crew of the Moffatt without knowing its destination. He certainly had no notion of settling in South Australia. However, on board the Moffatt, he met the woman who was eventually to be his wife, an emigrant to South Aus tralia. Boyce jumped ship in Adelaide on Boxing Day 1839. His letters describe his fugitive existence in the outlying areas of Adelaide as a runaway sailor. A reward of ?2 was put on his capture and he lived on fish, presumably in a Crusoe-like fashion. When the Moffatt departed, Boyce left his hiding place and found employment on a dairy farm. After three months he began cutting hay on government land in Adelaide and selling it on his own account. But when competition increased he moved out of Adelaide to work in part nership with William Holland. Holland had served fourteen years as a convict in Van Diemen's Land after being transported to Australia from Boyce's village in Lincolnshire. He and Boyce worked at tree cutting and the erection of rough houses and fences in the Adelaide Hills. In nine months Boyce was able to save ?40. He then became involved in work at a grog shop. At one point he bought a pony cart and harness