The Great Emigration of 1841: Recruitment for New South Wales in British Emigration Fields

Abstract

In 1841 the colony of New South Wales offered an unprecedented number of heavily subsidised passages to British emigrants. It sought specific categories particularly single young women domestic servants and agricultural labourers. The colony preferred English and Scottish rural immigrants....While the influence of the selection criteria as well as local factors was pronounced this paper argues that the recruitment also expressed the changing propensities to emigrate within the regions of the British Isles. In particular it demonstrated the willingness of young Irish women to emigrate where facilities were provided to overcome their poverty. The immigration of 1841 was a turning point for Australia: it was the largest recruitment before the gold rushes of the 1850s and already signaled some of the main characteristics of Australian immigration history. (EXCERPT)