Children on ‘free’ emigrant ships: From England to the Cape of Good Hope, 1819–20

Abstract

Child migration within the British Empire is generally taken to refer to destitute youngsters abandoned or abused by their parents and shipped overseas as exploited labour. Yet the majority of children who left Britain for the colonies went with their parents as ‘free’ emigrants. During the first half of the nineteenth century family groups of this kind were the officially preferred form of emigration. This was particularly true of the assisted emigration scheme to South Africa in 1819–20. In the family strategy of emigrants, the present plight of children and their prospects overseas loomed large. Children took little part in these deliberations, but for many the voyage was an interlude of relative freedom before patriarchal order and the discipline of work were restored in the colony. A smaller number of very determined teenagers travelled without family ties, claiming a precocious independence.This article has been peer-reviewed