The Cozens/Byrnes Merchants Networks Project - Book Section - Updated 20 February 2011

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Regarding Chapter 26

One of the topics for Chapter 26 is treatment of aspects of the career of the Australian social reformer Caroline Chisholm, who perhaps deserves even more respect than she is usually given in Australia. And, perhaps a web page on her work can help to widen her reputation internationally? To this end, we have due to the generosity of Paul Halloran (of Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia) been able to present and annotate his 2009 essay on Chisholm. This file will be added-to as time passes and extra information comes to light. The writers/editor share views that Chisholm made an impact on nineteenth century maritime history that has not been properly recognised due to lack of attention to the British merchants and shipping managers she drew into her own reform-minded networks. Footnotes are given here in two sequences. Those numbered 1 - 2- 3 etc are from the oroginal author, Paul Halloran. Those denoted (a), (b), (c), etc are by the editor. Interpolations by the editor are marked with the bluepin graphic shown at left: interpolations include an additional set of foonotes. (And be careful if you decide to print this page. The original document alone was 82 pages - Ed)

Anyone further interested in Caroline Chisholm can contact: Paul Halloran, 23 Diane Street, Tamworth, NSW, 2340. Australia. Phone: +061 (02) 6762 0011. His e-mail address is: pmhalloran@aapt.net.au

CAROLINE CHISHOLM – THE WOMAN WHO CHANGED AUSTRALIA

By Paul Halloran (Tamworth, Australia, May 2009)

(Work-in-progress - Edited and annotated by Dan Byrnes/Merchant Networks Project 2010)

In reviewing the life and work of Caroline Chisholm (1808–1877), who made an exceptional contribution to nineteenth century Australian life, I have illustrated what to me seem to be the most significant aspects of her work. Caroline was gifted with a spirit of justice and reform and my approach is to sharpen an awareness of how her efforts in assisting the poor gave them a better life in the colony of New South Wales. She also advanced the status and standard of womanhood and continually fought for a better-hewn place for the family in colonial life. Her life is truly the story of "the power of one".

Introduction

In this essay I review the life and work of Caroline Chisholm (1808–1877) who made an exceptional contribution to nineteenth century colonial Australian life, and I will illustrate significant aspects of her work. Caroline was gifted with a determined spirit of justice and reform and my approach is to sharpen an awareness of how her efforts in assisting the poor gave them a better life in the Colony of New South Wales. She also advanced the status and standard of womanhood and continually fought for the place of the family in colonial life. Her life is truly the story of "the power of one".

Caroline’s husband Archy was an officer with the East India Company at Madras India. During their time in Madras, she became aware of the young daughters of the soldiers (not the officers) of the East India Company with seemingly no parental control or schooling. They were left to roam the streets and faced a bleak future. Without fear of her peers, she decided to help those children by giving them an education, which would support them in adult life.

Later the Chisholm family were strangers to the colony of New South Wales, but Caroline pioneered migrant welfare, helping the most disadvantaged groups -- women, immigrant families and single men who were unable to find work in the Sydney area. Caroline came face-to-face with destitute women landing in Sydney Cove and being left more or less on the wharf with no work or accommodation and no one to advise them. Caroline was horrified about this state of affairs and she turned to New South Wales' Governor Gipps for assistance. I will deal in depth with her solution of finding work, not just for the immediately disadvantaged, but for all those she saw needing help. Within five years, in total, she settled 11,000 people in work situations in the colony of New South Wales. I hope this approach will fill the gaps of how she achieved such a remarkable outcome.

Returning to Britain she and her husband Archy lobbied the Home Government to establish a colonisation scheme that would help the poor of Britain, ease the difficulties of a long sea voyage, and address the urgent need to open up land for the new immigrants so that they would comfortably thrive and take their place in colonial society.

However, that didn’t happen and soon I will explain their alternative solution, The Family Colonisation Loan Society, and how the Chisholms worked for its success. I will review the network of contacts the Chisholms established throughout Britain and Europe for those who wanted to emigrate with their Society. Caroline was also the author of seven works which gave to those interested, information on how other settlers had benefited by migrating to Australia. Undeterred by the home government’s complete lack of interest or financial support, the Chisholms provided their own solutions to the problems of the poor, which went on and energised Britain.

She returned to Victoria during the gold rush period and saw first hand the grim and lonely lifestyle of the miners parted from their families. The miners experienced atrocious conditions going to and from the goldfields and I will discuss what she did to address these problems. With mixed success, she rejoined the fight with the colonial governments to unlock the land from the squatters’ grip and allow the working man to apply for a land holding. About this time she began suffering severe bouts of ill health which prevented her from further extended public involvement and so she retired from public life. I begin with her early background, marriage and her six years spent in Madras, India.

Early life and marriage

Caroline Jones was born on 30 May, 1808 at Wotton, Northampton, England. She was the youngest child of Sarah and William Jones (a pig farmer); a young lass with auburn hair who grew to womanhood with a very persuasive charm. (Note a) She had a compassionate but forceful nature with an intelligent mind. The Jones’ were a yeoman farming family from that area, and even though her father died when she was six years old, her parents’ example of generosity, hospitality and fair play was invariably a part of their family life which shaped her interests in social issues for a lifetime. Seeing suffering of any sort, anywhere, would move Caroline to compassion. Being brought up in the country, she understood the ups-and-downs too of rural life, too, and this stood by her in her later life in New South Wales.

The Chisholms' first home was at Brighton, but in 1832 Captain Chisholm received a further appointment and returned to India. Caroline followed him shortly after and the family lived in the Madras area for six years. Two sons, Archibald Jnr. and William, were born there to Caroline and Archy. Caroline was deeply shocked when she saw the state of the neglected daughters of soldiers of the East India Company, living a life of poverty on the streets. It was also claimed that girls such as these were for sale on the streets of Madras, so Caroline began collecting them in her home to protect them from a bleak future of sexual abuse and slavery. She wanted to arm the girls with skills that would later help them earn a decent living and she shortly founded The Female School of Industry for the Daughters of European Soldiers.

It proved to be a great success, attracting the attention of the Governor of Madras, Sir Fredrick William Adam (1781-1853), who gave it financial assistance. (Note 1e) Carline's attitude to problems differed markedly from the views of other middle-class women (officers' wives) at the Fort, who also saw what was happening with the children but did nothing to correct it. It wasn’t surprising that she should respond by establishing a school to educate these children, as she was just continuing those charitable deeds for which her family members were well known in Wotton.

In 1838 Archy was granted sick leave and rather than returning to England, he and Caroline decided they would spend their leave in the colony of New South Wales. (Note 1f) The Chisholm family arrived in Sydney in September 1838 on Emerald Isle Capt. Driver (a new ship of 551 tons chartered by the Bengal Australian Association) at a time when Sydney was still "a convict town". A short time later they moved to Windsor where their third son Henry was born.

Social problems in Sydney

Sydney in these days was not some sedate town growing at a measured rate, anything but. It was a town of sharp contrasts - of wealth and poverty -- where many of the convicts and ex-convicts were involved in the constant undercurrent of crime. During the convict era, 150,000 convicts were sent to Eastern Australia, the majority being sent after 1815. (In all, about 162,000 convicts arrived in Australia from Britain 1786-1865-67.) Only 25,000 of those sent to Eastern Australia were women. (Note 2)

Unattended animals roamed the streets and dead ones could be found lying by the roadsides. Sly grog shops abounded and disorderly houses, along with drunkenness and immorality, were commonplace. (Note 3) Even as late as 1859-1860 the colonial government established a Select Committee chaired by Henry Parkes to investigate the conditions of the working class of the metropolis. Its report painted a vivid picture of decrepit housing, dysfunctional families and streets filled with neglected children. Alcohol and gambling, together with the large imbalance of the sexes, helped create and fuel social problems. (Note 4)

To address the large imbalance between the sexes the Home Government gave particular emphasis to female immigration. The census of 1841 gave the overall imbalance for the colony as two men to every woman but in rural areas the ratio was said to be far worse, even as great as 18/1.

Emigration to the colonies

In 1831 the Home Government had introduced a system of government-assisted passage to New South Wales, but there were many complaints regarding the horrors experienced on the ships involved.

Interest was rising in emigration. John Marshall of London had been involved in assisted emigration to Australia since 1822. In 1830 he became a passenger broker, linked especially to shipping manager Joseph Somes. Others becoming interested were the London Emigration Committee, charity committees wanting to offload expenses, and merchants involved included William Crawford and Charles Lushington, bankers Edward Forster, Samuel Hoare, and John Abel Smith (of the noted London bankers Smith Payne and Smith, and a partner of Magniac, Smiths and Co.) and the banker Smith Payne and Smiths; plus shipbroker/shipowner John Pirie, who by 1832 owned 20 ships. Pirie was an associate of Duncan Dunbar II and became Lord Mayor of London. ... “a shipping agent is an instrument that can be constructed out of almost any human material ... Mr Micawber, in the days of his adversity, would have been quite ready to become a shipping agent at a moment's notice. .... Depend upon it, that in London and Liverpool no promising swindle will stand for want of a shipping agent.” (See Mary Hoban, Fifty-One Pieces of Wedding Cake: A Biography of Caroline Chisholm. Kilmore, Victoria, Lowden Publishing Co., 1973., p. 365. Citing The Argus, (Melbourne) 6 July 1855. One of the few named immigration agent of these times was F. L. S. Merewether.

In 1835 to encourage further migration, the Bounty System was introduced which paid the shipping companies per capita for every emigrant landed in the Colony, while the shipping agents were allowed to pick the emigrants. (new note db 2 re which shipping companies were involved.) These people, generally without any rural experience, often came from coastal ports where their ships were anchored, and the agent saw to it that ships were filled in the shortest time possible. Sea travel was frightening for most people, and to give some idea of the perils emigrants faced, during the 1840s, 17,000 immigrants going to the Americas and Australia died at sea.

There was always a scarcity of food and water on a long voyage. Overcrowding of passengers seemed to be the norm and the lack of proper health amenities led to contagious diseases, with a high death rate, especially among the children. In 1837, seventy two children travelling on the Layton, sailing from Bristol, died from measles. Two thousand passengers died in shipwrecks during their voyages to Australia and New Zealand. (Note 5) The colonists often complained that some of the immigrant women were of bad moral character and often sickly, while the men were proving to be unsatisfactory labourers. (Note 6) Caroline sought to address that.

Caroline’s responses emerge

In 1840 Archy was recalled to India and he returned to his regiment alone and saw service in China during the first Opium War (1839-1842). They had decided that the family would remain in New South Wales during Archy’s absence. The hot Indian climate may have been one of the main factors why the family remained behind, as they now had two young children and a baby, Henry. This, together with the fact that Archy would be, for the main part of that time, away from Madras and so Caroline and the children would be on their own. Along with her duties as a sole parent, Caroline made time to begin addressing the problem she had seen in Sydney Town. Rather than consider establishing a school to equip girls to find work, as she had done in Madras, Archy had suggested that she look at what could be done for the young women and girls arriving in the colony, who often had no-one to help or advise them. Yet Caroline, ever practical, was first addressing the root of another problem. In 1841 we find her first taking up a subscription list to purchase a hearse for burial of paupers and the Anglican Bishop, Dr. Broughton, headed her list. The Sydney Morning Herald called it:

... "The outrage upon decency, committed by the friendless dead were being conveyed to the burial ground in a cart generally used for the removal of a nuisance". (Note 7)

Caroline was also interested in what was happening on Norfolk Island and in 1842 she was communicating with the wife of superintendent there, M’Conachie, who was attempting to reform the treatment of prisoners on Norfolk Island. (Note 8) Again, this inner energy of Caroline’s to see injustice and abuse crushed, knew no bounds. This inner drive really was the story of her life.

In 1837, a period of seven years drought began and by 1841, although the wool price held steady and the economy continued to do well with the demand for labour high, it was to have serious consequences for the land and its people. A severe economic depression ensued. Three matters now combined to alter the situation in the colony.

In 1840 the Colonial Government in Sydney had requested the Home Government to increase the number of emigrants for the following year. The second was the health risk of cholera for the emigrants which had broken out on numerous emigrant ships sailing from Britain to Canada and in 1841 many intending migrants now changed their destination to Sydney. The third matter was the economic picture of drought and depression, which was biting increasingly hard.

In 1841 the first two factors brought 20,000 emigrants to New South Wales, whereas the previous year’s intake was only 6,637 (9), a 300% increase. (11) The population of Sydney was 130,000 and unable to absorb such a large and rapid increase in emigrants. (Note 9) The economic picture in the colony worsened, resulting in deterioration in the balance of payments, with three banks failing, along with many businesses, with devastating effects on their clients. The previous decade had seen the squatters and land speculators borrow heavily to increase their stock numbers, but now wool prices were falling and in 1842 there were six hundred insolvencies.

The demand for labour had now sharply declined and the immigrants, especially the women and men with young families to support, suffered more than others. The colonial government took some responsibility, mainly for the women, and supplied tents for them in the Domain along with supplying some rations. Nevertheless, some were still sleeping under the overhanging rocks in the Domain and Rocks areas, rather than risk the dangers of the streets. Each day women would go scavenging in groups for extra food or scraps from the ships when they berthed or in the Domain, or on the streets. Caroline became very aware of the misery and the problems they were experiencing. She advised them regarding work opportunities in Sydney, and then would often take up to nine young women at a time home to Windsor with her. (PHNote 10) (12). Thanks to her network of friends and acquaintances many of these young women, given a chance, found employment as maids, servants, cooks, or domestic help. So she boasted on each occasion that she had placed one of them.

But the root of the problem went deeper and Caroline soon realized that what she was doing had little effect on the large numbers of needy women, and so she would have to do something different if she was to assist them. She estimated that there were at least 600 destitute women living in Sydney at that time. (Note 11) Caroline reamined fearful for the young women who were in grave moral danger if they couldn’t find work, as they may easily be encouraged into prostitution. She was touched by their need and believed, in conscience, that she must do something to address the problem. She knew there would be times when she would have to stand up to the prostitutes and madams and reclaim the girls, even though the general public preferred to turn a blind eye to them.

Caroline takes a stand

Caroline was wary of taking a stand. Four factors influenced her caution. Firstly she acknowledged herself as a relative newcomer to the colony; secondly women of that time did not take part in male public life; thirdly, certain Protestants were distrustful of anything or anyone Catholic. Fourthly, some ardent Catholics opposed her, as they were fearful she would not use her position to proselytise. (Note 12) Her ideas of how to help soon attracted opposition and she felt the pressure from all sides. It was at this point that Caroline had a religious experience that better steeled her determination.

During the season of Lent and Easter in 1841 Caroline recalled:

"During the season of Lent of that year I suffered much; but on Easter Sunday I was enabled, at the altar of our Lord, to make an offering of my talents to the God who gave them. I promised to know neither country or creed but to try to serve all justly and impartially. I asked only to be enabled to keep these poor girls from being tempted, by their need to mortal sin and resolved that, to accomplish this, I would in every way sacrifice my feelings – surrender all comfort – nor, in fact, consider my own wishes or feelings but wholly devote myself to the work I had in hand. I felt my offering was accepted and that God’s blessing was on my work; but it was His will to permit many serious difficulties to be thrown in my way, and to conduct me through a rugged path of humiliation. ... I may here remark that with one exception, every person I wrote or spoke to on the subject acknowledged the need for such an institution and promised to subscribe when one was established; though with few exceptions all declared they thought the thing impossible." (Note 13)

From that moment she believed she had Divine blessing for her work and a mission to fulfil. It was from this belief that she drew strength to struggle against all discouragements. One early discouragement came from a person whom she regarded as a friend, who wrote to a newspaper opposing her work. It was, she said:

"A missile of great strength – I felt it keenly, no other person in the colony could have thrown more serious difficulties in my path: these things are permitted to try our faith and exercise our patience. I felt a dreariness of spirit over me and confirmed in my opinion, that to leave Sydney for a few days would be prudent; but it was the will of God to prevent this." (Note 14)

The distress of these needy women in Sydney was seen as a never-ending problem for the general population and the colonial government. The women were unemployed and entirely on their own, there was no one to stand by them, comfort, or defend them in a male-dominated society. They failed to fit into this society. Caroline was very aware of their problems and wrote to Governor Gipps on a number of occasions explaining her ideas for a refuge for those women.

Governor Gipps had arrived in New South Wales in 1838, replacing Governor Bourke. He came to the colony after an honourable career in military engineering and administration. He had also served on a commission investigating the troubles of Lower Canada. One historian described him as "inflexible in principle and character and had an admirable if not sympathetic nature". However, in relation to finance, he resented its disbursement. (Note 15) The Governor didn’t want to meet Caroline as he considered a woman’s opinion superfluous to solving any of his immigration problems. But her persistence paid off and he did eventually grant her an interview, possibly to appease her. After listening to her, Governor Gipps felt Caroline had crossed the boundaries she should not have crossed in a male-dominated society -- and no decision was made.

He later told an aide: ... He was quite unprepared for the appearance of a poised, charming young woman who carried herself with gracious dignity. He was ... amazed when my aide introduced a handsome, stately woman who proceeded to reason the question with him as if she thought her reason and experience too was worth as much as mine. (Note 16) (Note g)

The situation in Sydney became grave as the economy fell further into depression. As the women’s positions worsened, so Caroline’s resolve became stronger. Caroline insisted on a second meeting with the governor and again he tried to fob her off as he didn’t believe her plan would work. However, in the end Gipps offered her space in the old, disused army barracks building in Bent Street as a refuge plus the use of a small storeroom for her own accommodation and office, as it was necessary for her to be present and to supervise the women. Governor Gipps really wasn’t doing Caroline any great favours, for if her scheme failed it could easily be seen as a case of "Í told you so".

Caroline set about addressing that issue. The barracks were unoccupied and it was a draughty, filthy and rat-infested old slab building, yet she took it. Perhaps the Governor was influenced to offer it as it had earlier been used as a centre for sponsored immigrants who came to the Colony on the old assisted-transport system. The immigrants had camped there on a temporary basis while making plans for their future. The Governor made Caroline sign a paper stating that his government would not be put to any additional expense for the venture she was undertaking. Here we see signs of Gipps’ stinginess. The message was clear to her -- not to expect any government money to rescue her if her scheme failed.

Caroline cleaned the Barracks and made them liveable for the homeless women. As her scheme developed, Governor Gipps realized that what she was doing did relieve the situation in Sydney. He offered her more space because of the overcrowding of the barracks and she was able to bed down ninety-four women. She posed one question for the women -- had they any place to go if she turned them out? Not one of them had a place of shelter. (Note 17)

The Governor also included wages for a matron who supervised the women’s activities which were to be paid by the Colonial Government. Eventually he turned out to be a good friend to Caroline and would be very helpful in times to come. Moreover, Caroline realized that she couldn’t do it on her own, and shrewdly approached a number of notable women in Sydney, including Mrs. Gipps, and established a committee of fourteen ladies who would support her project and also give it some standing in the community. The women were ambitious to do great things in the community and to be on a committee with Mrs Gipps, the Governor’s wife, would have been a certain attraction for many of them. It also opened up a two-way channel of communication to the Governor from Caroline and her Committee. Caroline said:

"I would thank Lady Gipps for her kind and generous support; she strewed a few flowers in my path - I knew them by their fragrance, and I thanked God she had a woman’s heart." (Note 18)

Balancing the roles of social worker and mother

Caroline was aware of the obligations in her own home and now was trying to juggle two important tasks. On the one hand she was trying to give some practical help to the newly-arrived immigrants, and on the other, she was seeking to fulfil her own family responsibilities. Initially she thought the family could live near her, but after a short trial period she found this was impractical, so the children were sent back to Windsor and cared for by a close friend, a Miss Galvin, where she knew they would be well-fed and kindly treated. (Note 19) There was always some resentment about the way Caroline judged the necessity to have the children placed in care with someone outside the family, but it was customary at that time for families to employ a nanny for the children. Even on the voyage to Australia, the Chisholms had brought a nanny with them from India. This arrangement with Miss Galvin proved satisfactory and did not undermine the children’s deep love and admiration for their mother. If they had been neglected, her critics would certainly have drawn attention to it and accused her of failing in her duties.

Caroline’s approach was simple -- personal contact with the women. She met every ship as it anchored in the harbour and went on board, meeting the women and advising them what to expect in the way of accommodation and employment in Sydney, mentioning also of the existence of her refuge. She protested to the governor against the folly of allowing women to be selected for work while on-board ship, and claimed rather that they should receive protection and shelter until employment was found for them by the Immigration Board. (Note 20) At night she walked the streets collecting women who had nowhere to go, taking them to her refuge. These women were suffering many difficulties as the colony slipped into recession and in due course, into deep depression. Often there was no work in Sydney, or insufficient food at the refuge, so she would appeal, through the press, for help from the public. Caroline expanded her project and established a bureau to find employment for the women (Note 21), and set up a school also at her refuge for their children.

The school was part of the barracks and a teacher was employed and paid by the Catholic and Anglican clergy who regularly visited the Home. (Note 21) These clergymen could see the needs being addressed, and funding appeared, either through a collection, or from the church funds, or maybe from their own pocket. Caroline found work for a number of women in Sydney, but in a time of recession, the colony's largest town was not the best place to find work opportunities. This led her to look for work in the inland areas and she sought background information from the police, magistrates, clergy and landowners. (Note 23) This information showed her that labour was badly needed in these districts. Caroline was fairly astute and it did not take her long to realise that drays were bringing produce into the markets from the inland areas and returning empty, and so her transport problem seemed to be solved.

The problem becomes more urgent

In December 1841 Caroline was ready to make her first trip inland, taking sixteen girls with her. She never indicated the road or destination for that first journey. Some biographers suggest she may have taken the boat to Morpeth and distributed her girls in that area, but this presupposed she already had contacts in the Maitland area and had situations waiting for them. Others believe she hired two drays and travelled as far as Campbell Town via Parramatta and Liverpool. In this scenario Caroline went from farm to farm, leaving each girl in a working situation dependent on their experience. It is said that this first trip was the only one on which she took young immigrant women on their own and found work for them. Subsequent excursions included women, men, and whole families. This was highly significant as her solution had now broadened to a family-centred approach.

Caroline’s trips varied. Sometimes she followed the route to Parramatta , Liverpool and Campbell Town, then if need be, dependent on the number of people to be placed, on to Goulburn, Yass, Gundagai, travelling a distance of approximately 400 kilometres. She also went by ferry to Morpeth. When travelling as a group, some of the people would take turns, sometimes riding on the drays, sometimes walking alongside, on a walk-and-ride-plan, and so easing the burden of travel. Caroline recorded the longest journey which occupied five weeks; three weeks of which were passed on the road. (Note 24) In wet weather the wagons would be covered with tarpaulins and crowded with women and children.

Caroline, being brought up on a farm, was a good horsewoman and early in her journeys she acquired a white horse, calling him “Captain", which allowed her better control of her caravan of travellers. She was in full command riding ahead of her travelling group, visiting farms, assessing the possibilities of work, and when supplies were low, collecting gifts of food for the people and organizing sleeping arrangements.

Over time she became very familiar with the roads she took and planned her journeys well: the nightly stops, the organization required for meals and where she would find employment on the farms, stations towns or villages for her people. Her group travelled over terrible roads, sometimes just tracks in the bush, and in wet weather they had to contend with mud, bogs and river crossings that made very hard going. They all suffered from the heat, dust, flies and mosquitoes of summer -- the extreme cold winds and frosts of winter. Her travellers relied on her for everything and she never said no to anyone seeking work and wanting to join her party. There were times the farmers offered her food for her travelers or some form of accommodation for the night. The men in each group undertook to set up camp, yoking or unyoking the animals, lighting the campfire and helping with the cooking etc. Every day was a full one as she was responsible for every aspect of the journey, and her people trusted her completely to look after them and find them work. There is a story told about Caroline, when one time the caravan was running short of water and the men were complaining, Caroline told them to get the shovels out and dig in a spot she nominated. They had only dug 30cms or so when they struck a spring. This story travelled with her caravans, adding something to stories of her mystical qualities.

Her movements along the road would have been an item for the "bush telegraph", and when a Chisholm carvan arrived in a village the people would come out to meet them. Firstly, she would gather folk together for a public meeting, explaining her views regarding placement and employment of the immigrants. She wanted work for her people on farms or stations, in the towns and villages, wherever she was able to find it. Her plan involved setting up a depot, where a local committee would have has a chairman someone held in high regard, usually a clergyman, to take charge of it. The depot would be a centre for employers to find prospective workers and, hopefully, a place for women to stay while awaiting employment. Margaret Swann referring to Samuel Sidney writing in his Emigrants Journal, noted ...

She managed the route, the commissariat, the hospital, and the billeting all herself with such aids as each army happened to furnish. (Note 25)

Carline was indeed, a born leader. As a nineteenth century colonial adventuress, she is as near to par excellence as Australian history would ever be likely to see.

The size of Caroline’s caravans varied. Her largest group of people departing Sydney was 148, but that group's number swelled to over 240 people as they moved along the road, finding others seeking work. In that era it was highly exceptional that a woman would manage such large groups, even more so with the confidence and ability she displayed. She earned the reputation of being able to find work and accommodation for each person in her group. On subsequent trips she would call to see how her people had been settling in, and also check if there were any further vacancies available.

At times, too, Caroline was a highly successful match maker. She would leave a single girl in employment with a good family in a district where a bachelor lived, and many times, to her delight, a marriage would follow. The family would know a suitor’s reputation and guide the lass in her decision. The happy couple in appreciation of the part she played often sent her a piece of their wedding cake. So the story developed that she received “51 pieces of wedding cake”. Caroline had observed the destructive influence of isolation and the human need for family life and, therefore, her role as matchmaker played an important part not only for the individual who now had a spouse, but also in the broader social spectrum. Her contributions to society now grew wider and deeper.

Life for women in the bush was often harsh. The home may have been a timber and bark hut with a dirt floor. There were times of intense isolation for the wife when her husband could be away for days, and she lived in fear of bushrangers or the uncertainty of the attitude of possible hostile Aborigines. Always the daily grind of milking, washing, cooking etc as well as keeping her eye on cattle, garden and children was her lot. It was never easy but what child could not be thankful a parent or guardian did it?

Caroline was both imaginative and resourceful in leading parties of people through the bush and this says much for her courage and understanding. Many of her charges were very scared of what lay ahead or what could happen to them on the road. She too, as a newcomer to this land, must have had to conquer her own doubts and fears in those first journeys, as well as deal with the problems of the people presently with her. On her many journeys, even when travelling on her own homeward-bound, she never experienced any trouble with bushrangers or hostile Aboriginals She attracted support for her project and the inns on the road would give her overnight accommodation. Cobb and Co. had decided they would take her to Sydney free, with her horse tied to the back of the coach.

(Margaret Kiddle's book on Caroline notes (pp. 38-39) that by late 1842, Chisholm had established depots, sited after trips she'd she'd made at Gundagai north to Yass (depot), Goulbourn (depot), Wollongong (depot), Campbelltown (depot), Parramatta (depot), Sydney (depot), Maitland (depot) and Port Stevens and then by sea to Port Macquarie and Brisbane Town. Inland, her depots ran from Maitland to Scone (depot), Tamworth and Armidale. It is still uncertain if her most useful northern base was Tamworth or Armidale. [Knowledge of folk memory in either town today would tend to suggest, Tamworth.])

In her 1842 book Female Immigration, Caroline recorded the towns and districts where she planned her depots, which were Parramatta, Liverpool, Campbelltown, Goulburn, Yass, Maitland, Scone, and New England. (Note 26) It seems however, that Caroline did not go to Scone, just a village, but there a depot attached to Dangar’s store was established and people who had been offered jobs were sent there by coach from Maitland. This may also be true for Armidale as the first store there was built by John Trim in the late 1840s. (Note 27)

Caroline received many requests from people in the inland areas looking for employees and, sometimes, before the party left Sydney, she allotted people to these positions.

She also arranged for people to travel by boat south to Wollongong, north to Maitland and Port Macquarie, and further north to today's Brisbane, Moreton Bay. Each of these places also housed a depot. (Caroline recorded one depot in New England which has still not yet been verified.) New England was a region and a village there was yet to be gazetted. In the 1840’s, Armidale was part of the New England district and the first store in Armidale was built on the Dumaresq Creek in 1849. (28) It may have been that she sent people to New England via Port Macquarie, on request from an employer to fill a particular position, we cannot bew certain. The road from Port Macquarie was maintained by a convict road gang.

Supervision of the project

Caroline supervised the work placements to prevent the employer offering low wages for the work required. For every job she found, Caroline drew up a contract in triplicate to ensure that each of her charges received fair wages and accommodation.

One copy of the contract was given to the employer, a second to the employee, and the third she held to ensure that those who passed through her hands were treated fairly. As her experience grew, she was increasingly aware of what was considered a fair wage for the various jobs. The average rates of pay were:

For a single man 20 pounds a year with weekly rations of flour, meat tea and sugar. .For a single woman 16 pounds a year with similar rations.

For a married man with wife and child-. 25 pounds a year with rations. (Note 28)

In the complexity of the whole project, Caroline’s fine organisational skills ensured justice in the workplace. These were fair and far-sighted work agreements for her times, but she found that those with large families, with small children, were more difficult to place.

Caroline’s theory for immigrants to settle and flourish was based on the family unit and the need to own property. She gave the problem of the placement of large families with young children much thought and came up with a plan that could give prosperity to many of them. If the families could be distributed inland in small parties and settled on the land on long clearance leases, for ten to fifteen years rent free, the scheme could have value. Clearance leases were offered to workers who would move onto land owned by an employer and clear it for grazing within a limit period. The workman would also use the land for his living, free of charge. At the end of the lease the land had been cleared and ready for further settlement and returned to the owner. In 1843, Captain Robert Towns, entrepreneur and businessman, became interested in her ideas of closer settlement and offered her group four thousand acres at Shell Harbour. Each family would be given a six or seven-year clearance lease to clear the land and establish dairy farming. Originally, Caroline was hopeful that fifty families would take up this project and she saw the need for government financial support as her families had nothing to live on. Their needs included food and shelter, plus seed and implements for the land until production began. The government however would not back her plan financially and only twenty three families went down to Shell Harbour. To get this project up-and-running. Captain Towns provided rations for the group for five months, along with a school teacher for the children. Although less that half the size of the original project, the Shell Harbour undertaking was finally successful. (Note 29)

Caroline herself went down to Shell Harbour the week before and helped clear half an acre of bushland as a starting point for the new settlement. By the time the Shell Harbour project was settled, she seems to have begun consciously to advocate settlement by means of smaller farms. Being the daughter of a yeoman farmer, she hoped that the system of small land holdings in England could prove successful in Australia. She made no bones about the idea of closer settlement, which implied the break-up of large estates. (This was more than a decade and half before the 1861 Robertson Land Act was passed by the Colonial Government.) She reported to the Government Select Committee on Distressed Labourers:

... that although there were some failures the plan had succeeded remarkably well at Shell Harbour, considering the difficulties thrown in my way. (By the government, that is.) (Note 30)

By 1857 many of those migrants who had gone to Shell Harbour had secured or leased homes and properties. The settlers there had mainly turned to dairy farming as the land was opened up. Again Caroline proved that people would work for an outcome if given a chance, and dairy farming was the type of primary industry suited for the coastal region on small allotments. Her instinct was right on this occasion, since the small dairy farm allotments worked well.

In 1826, Governor Darling had introduced territorial limitation, the Nineteen Counties, to prevent people from purchasing and settling too far into the interior. Most of the land within the nineteen counties had already been taken up by original grants from the Crown, or had been bought when the prices ranged from five to twelve shillings per acre. What was now left of Crown Land was inferior land for purchase at a prohibitive one pound per acre, but there were still great expanses of land almost untouched outside the nineteen counties.

This land was not Crown land but was available via an annual occupational licence for pastoral purposes only, for ten pounds a year. As the licence didn’t define any boundaries, some licences covered two or three hundred squares miles and generally the lessee would arrange boundaries of his area with the adjoining lessee.

Generally, no improvements were made to the land as the lease was only for a twelve-month period and the lessee was never sure if he would be holding the licence in the coming year. (Note 31) (See Recollections of an Aust. Squatter page 6 W.A. Brodribb 1835 – 1883).

Caroline wanted this land outside the nineteen counties surveyed and made available for sale to the new immigrants. In the period from 1841 to 1846 she had found work in Sydney and areas inland for eleven thousand immigrants, and a large proportion of them would eventually want their own block to settle on. She considered it against the interests of the colony for a squatter to hold many more acres of land than he could possibly manage, a situation which also excluded the small would-be-farmer from making a living. She became the champion of the middle and working classes. And here we begin to see the beginnings of her own political ideas.

In 1844 Governor Gipps announced plans to overcome two difficult problems which divided the community. He was required by The British government to adhere to the imperial principle that land should sell at no less than one pound per acre, and secondly he had to control land tax squatting. He proposed two sets of regulations. The first allowed a leasehold for ten pounds per year per station which was then normally twenty square miles; (32.2 sq kms). The second provided for gradual purchase of the station by instalments of 320 acres for three hundred and twenty pounds, each instalment guaranteeing secure tenure for eight years.

These plans were very poorly received by the squatter class, who now would pay one pound per acre for land previously leased, so arose the political colony colonists who were loud in opposition to these plans.

Professor Crowley has considered that theoretically, Gipps’ plans for land reform were sensible and even brilliant. (34) No doubt Caroline was aware at that time of what was happening in the NSW Legislative Council as there were public meetings and petitions, etc, opposing Gipps' proposals, which would help govern the vast territory of New South Wales. But sadly for Caroline, as it may have been just the right incentive needed to encourage the immigrants to work and acquire land.

To fully understand the difficulties faced by the Governor we need to back-track two years. In 1842 the Home Government enlarged the Legislative Council in the colony to thirty six members, with twelve nominated and twenty four elected. Of these twenty four elected members, eighteen were elected from country areas and six from the towns, including two from Sydney and one from Melbourne. This country-biased gerrymander left the power solidly in the hands of the conservative squattocracy, but the furore brought bedfellows from every quarter of the colony, many crying for self-rule, and the fight was lost. Feelings were high enough to prompt talk of revolution and the Governor alerted the imperial troops. Governor Gipps sought peace and backed away from his proposals. (Note 32)

The plan becomes a project

In 1845 the economy in the NSW colony was improving. The price of wool rose and work was more readily available in inland areas. At this point of time, Kiddle noted that the first part of Caroline’s work was really ended. Caroline’s efforts had been surprisingly effective. On her own initiative, within five yearsw, she had settled some 11,000 people in employment in the colony. The Emigrant’s Friend had achieved her goal. She remarked about her experience:

"Without any fear of contradiction, I may be permitted to say, that few persons if any in the colony, are more intimately acquainted with the actual conditions of the working classes, than I am; silence therefore would be culpability; the servant in Sydney the shepherd in the bush, and the small settler are known to me; I have visited their homes witnessed their trials and wants, see their struggles and exertions and I have now the inexpressible delight to lay before the public proof of their importance as a body; and of their merits as individuals. If as a class they have their faults, their virtues are greater than their failings. To improve the moral condition of these people is my object; to break the bachelor stations my design, happy homes my reward. To give the shepherd a good wife, is to make a gloomy miserable hut a cheerful and contented home; to introduce married families into the interior, is to make squatters stations abodes fit for Christian men." (Note 33)

As an idealist, Caroline was politically astute and saw the many advantages of keeping the press and the general population in Sydney regularly informed. Here she outlined her actions and promoted her projects. At the onset of her work in 1841 she went public, giving her ideas of a refuge for homeless women. Through the press she advertised for food and furniture needed for the Home, and later she published on her departures inland, her returns and her progress. She was well-known and extremely popular with both city and country people. They knew the value of her work while realizing it was all honorary. It all meant she had become a legend throughout the colony.

In 1845 Archy, now fifty years old, retired from military service after almost thirty years in the Indian Army and rejoined his family in Sydney. When Archy returned to India in 1839 he left a wife and a young family behind, and for a husband and father to be away that length of time his responsibilities would have weighed heavily upon him. The obligation to return to Sydney and attend the needs of his family was especially compelling. Caroline was now beginning to wind down her travels as the effects of the depression decreased, and the need to settle people in work in the inland was waning. To have Archy back in the family would take some adjustment and the family needed time to be together.

Behind Caroline’s practicality was a broader vision, and I turn now to discuss her concept. Caroline was an imaginative thinker and she could see great benefits arising if the poor of Britain arrived to make their home in the colonies, but they needed land to make that start. She had a wealth of practical knowledge of how to help settle people in a new land. So she wrote to the Atlas on 6 September 1845.

"If England would but strengthen her strongholds, distribute her subjects, people her colonies, on just equitable principles, by establishing a fair system of leasing her lands, that would give the working settler and farmer an equal chance with others. If these just rights and blessings are conceded to her Majesty’s subjects in the colonies, England would no longer groan under the sin and burden of supporting one tenth of her population in pauperism and idleness, and yet, what is the source of her poverty ought to be the cause of her wealth and add to her strength, prosperity, and renown." (Note 34)

Her focus was twofold: the problem of finding useful work for the growing population and secondly, the questions of land availability.

It is clear what Caroline wanted from the British Government for newly-arrived immigrants: greater access to the land in order to establish themselves. She was aware of the disasters of the unemployed in the Sydney area during the recession/depression era and saw the land as a solution to this problem. As she commented about her experiment at Shell Harbour, that with all the difficulty, lack of financial aid and opposition she experienced from the Colonial Government, if the people had land they could work, from which they could make a living. Caroline believed that land ownership would increase migration and help solve the problems related to unemployment in Britain and the poor of famine-stricken Ireland.

In 1845 Caroline was invited to give her point of view to a Government Select Committee on Immigration. She put forward her idea of a land-ticket system where each migrant would be issued with a ticket for each five shillings deposited with the government, and when the emigrant had lodged sufficient money he could purchase land. Opposition to her idea came from the landowners and members of the Legislative Council who feared that these new immigrants would soon establish themselves as landowners and possibly could be nominated to sit in the Legislative Council. Her scheme of course was not approved by the Council and was not taken up by the government. Yes, it needs to be said that Caroline favoured small holdings, for her father was a prosperous yeoman in England on a small holding, and she may have taken him as her model. On good fertile land, small holdings may have produced enough for a family to live on, but we now know that in Australia we can suffer from drought and flooding rains which make it necessary for the farmers to have larger holdings from which to make a living.

A national plan for colonisation had become more than a theory for Caroline and she began thinking and planning how the emigrant intake to the colonies could be increased. There were many hurdles to be overcome, but she must have heard the dissenting voices of the past, “it can’t be done”, when she first began her work. But she had settled eleven thousand people in the colony in five years. Not only did she consider the Home Government’s possible lack of interest in her agenda, but she saw that properly-informed publicity about Australia was needed to arouse possible emigrants to see how they could better themselves in the colony, along with issues such as decent ocean-going transportation and a suitable land resettlement scheme. Kiddle suggests that by 1843, Caroline had made up her mind to return to England and put her plan for greater emigration to the colony before the Home Government. Again, we are pointed to notice her far-sightedness and her long-range planning ability to strive to accomplish all this. Particular areas of her latest proposals still needed to be formulated, but the more pressing task was convincing the Home Government and so, a return to Britain was in order.

After fourteen years' absence there would have been added a family appeal. Caroline’s mother was still alive and members of Archy’s family were still in Scotland, and now she and Archy had three sons to introduce to their families. To collect information to use for publicity purposes about conditions and prospects in the colony, Archy and Caroline made a round trip inland at their own expense, collecting some 600 voluntary statements and letters from the people she had helped over the years. These statements told stories of how people, through hard work and good management, had improved their lot by coming to the colony. She planned to use the information from those statements in Britain to advertise the benefits of migration, especially for the poor. Caroline commented:

"Some time before I left the colony for England, I travelled through several districts of the interior. I went from house to house, from farm to farm, in order to see the people, and to judge of their circumstances, and I must say that they had such confidence in my disinterested intentions, that I never had one refusal." (Note 35)

To substance her proposal she needed to prove that Australia was a country in which there was ample room for millions. Into 1842, very little was known of the country on the western side of the main road passing from New South Wales to Victoria on the Lower Murray River, on the Edward, Billabong, Murrrumbidgee, Lachlan, and Darling rivers. The general impression was that all this lower country to the westward was too dry, flat, and too arid for any purpose. Experience has since proven all this country to be the most valuable portion of New South Wales for the breeding and fattening of sheep, cattle and horses - it became New South Wales breadbasket country. The squatters, however, asserted that the land outside the 19 counties was only fit for sheep pasture and would not support yeomanry in comfort and independence. (Note 36) With today’s knowledge, we find that mixed farming is common on ample farming areas in these riverine areas.

Caroline encountered two other recurring problems as she travelled that last time around the country and Caroline agreed to help them. Firstly, the ex-convicts who were living on their own, wanted their wives and children to join them in the colony. Free passage for wives was discontinued in 1842, as the convict era in NSW had ended in 1840, but many wives hadn’t taken advantage of the pre-1842 offer. (Note 37) Relatively few convict families had taken up that offer. Secondly, a family could not emigrate if they had more than two children under seven, or three under ten, unless they paid a bounty of seven pounds per child. On some occasions the parents were only informed of the bounty fee when they arrived on board the vessel and many couples were too poor and unable to pay the fee. If the emigrating parents couldn’t afford to pay the bounty, they had to either give their children up to a relative or friend or the local workhouse to care for them, or cancel their own passage. Such sadness they never forgot. (Note 38)

The Home government’s excuse for restricting the incoming number of children was the high mortality rate and epidemics among children on-board ship. However, the real reason was to prevent the number of children travelling with their parents to the colony as the government did not favour large families migrating, as young children were seen as a burden on the community and were also considered as unproductive labour for a number of years ahead. Once the parents had made a decision to emigrate, they may have thought that they would send for the children when they settled. But good intentions are not always realistic and so the parents pleaded with Caroline to help find their children and send them back to them. Before the Chisholms left the colony in 1846 she made Governor Gipps aware of these two pressing needs. Caroline did at last have a good friend in the governor and he showed his support, following her request, by sending them to the Colonial Office in London.

The family left Sydney in 1846, and during the long voyage to England Caroline gave birth to their fourth son, Sydney, his name presumably an affectionate family tie to the colony that had meant so much to her. Caroline and Archy now had a family of seven children, four boys and three girls, Caroline, Sara, Monica, and all born, during their time in England. Sadly Sara was not a strong baby, and died when she was only six months old.

On arrival in London, the Chisholms established their home close to the Colonial Office. Caroline decided not to approach the Government immediately regarding her plan for colonisation; her first challenge was to send the families of the ex-convicts to the colony. This took time, but her continued, almost-daily persistence at the Colonial Secretary’s Office paid off as she won their approval to contact the families. Caroline wrote:

"Many a weary and cold walk, through sleet and snow, for it was in winter I commenced my operations, I had to undertake from Prince’s Street, Mile-end, the eastern part of London, to the Home Office. Although I met with every consideration and attention from the Home Secretary of State Sir George Grey, forms and inquiries had to be gone through, and I had also to hunt out the wives and families by postal communication." (Note 39)

Some success was seen. In March and June 1847 two ships, Asia and Waverley carried a number of families to rejoin their husbands/fathers in the colony.

The children who had been left behind at the time of their parents’ embarkation to Australia was another matter. Again, the Colonial Office considered the request and gave Caroline the go-ahead to find them. The children first had to be found and that search spread right across Britain and Ireland. By 1847 seventy five children out of 145 requests had been located and in February 1848 they left on the Edward Parry. Most of the children were from Ireland, with just a few from England and Scotland. Some were now adults who didn’t want to start again in a distant land, or their guardians would not allow them to leave. In many cases the children were quite young when the family emigrated, and for the children the remaining family ties would presumably have not been strong enough to motivate them to emigrate. Kiddle notes that Caroline, though disappointed, was practical and realistic with the result, there was never going to be a perfect outcome. Caroline wrote:

"I was instrumental, and I thank God for it, in sending those children out; but I had to fight a much harder battle with the Hon. Commissioners of Emigration, than I had to do with the Home Office, before I succeeded. But I went to those gentlemen well prepared with vouchers from the colony, that could not be disputed, so the children were sent out." (Note 40)

Caroline’s project for emigration was much broader and she needed to present her case to the public at large. Within a short time of arrival in England Caroline had written two booklets. The first booklet, Comfort for the Poor! Meat Three Times a Day! told the settler’s stories of their achievements in the colony. These were the stories which she and Archy had collected before leaving the colony, telling how the immigrants had prospered. One man who was able to take up land had spoken about the number of stock he had and the crops he harvested. He had this to say about his adopted land:

"My opinion of NSW is just this, it is a good country, there is more work than at home and more of it, all I have made has been through my own industry, and any person that will work like me may prosper like me." (Note 41) (See The Australasian Catholic Record Oct. 1977 – Some Caroline Chisholm Correspondence 1845–1849, p. 323, Patrick O’Farrell)

In her second book, Emigration and Transportation Relatively Considered, Caroline discussed poverty in England and the shortage of labour in the colonies, and how arrangements, by helping the poor of Britain to emigrate, could help populate the vast empty spaces of Australia. She also dismissed transportation as a means of immigration, it was a failed programme. (Note 42) (48) (CC K p85) Convict transportation to New South Wales, which ended in 1840, had originally been introduced to reduce the population of petty criminals housed in the over-crowded jails of Britain and, all told, the Imperial Government had sent out one hundred and fifty thousand prisoners to Eastern Australia, to a harsh life with little dignity and to a doomed state of bachelorhood.

Both booklets, when published, encouraged much debate, which helped change the image of the general public view of Australia. It also gave the people who were interested in migration, valuable information of the conditions in the colonies. The human interest stories conjured up pictures of a country where people made a living through courage and hard work, and Caroline’s idea was to give the reader a boost of enthusiasm to seek a better life in a country of sunshine. Her grandson, E. Dwyer Gray, in an article to Sydney Morning Herald said:

"She took to England six hundred household budgets etc voluntarily supplied to by the workers of New South Wales and they did more for Australia than any other records ever written." (Note 43) (49) (SMH26/1/1924 P12 E D.Gray))

These statements helped build her reputation, which had anyway preceded her from Australia. In 1847, regarding her as an authority on emigration, the House of Lords invited her to give evidence at two Select Committees. To the first she spoke of her experience with the emancipists in the colony and commented that at times, they were often homesick, but these people never wanted to return, for their present life in the colony of New South Wales was a far better one. To the second she told of her work in the colony and stressed the importance of migration to Australia. She was the only female witness allowed before both Committees, indicating that the Home government had now recognised her as a person of knowledge and practical experience in the field of immigration and settlement. The information she gave was reported by the press and again, further distribution of the settlers’ stories collected in the colony encouraged many people to think of emigrating.

The effects of enclosure and industrialisation in Britain

To understand the background for the causes of poverty for the common people in England in the eignteenth and nineteenth century, here is some detail of life in those times. From a very early period Britain had some form of field system in place where the peasant provided free labour for the nobleman who owned everything. In return the nobleman allowed the peasant to farm his own small piece of land. By the beginning of the fourteenth century a small amount of enclosure of common lands was taking place and gradually over a period of time the community lost the right to use common land. During the period of dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, their lands reverted to the Crown and was sold off to private owners. The transition of land use in Britain was not uniform, but when the land was enclosed, it became part of the wealthy estates and thus deprived the rural poor of marginal sources of food and some income from common lands. In those areas where enclosures were taking place, the landlords faced a great deal of resistance, but the people were forced to abandon agrarian life leaving them solely dependant on wages to live on. Enclosures were usually organised unilaterally by the landowner and the poor could do nothing but accept it. (Note 44) During the eighteenth century, the government in Britain passed the Enclosures Act which finally abolished the rights of villagers to use the common land for crop rotation and for grazing their stock.

Prior to 1834 the relief of poverty continued to be the charitable work of the Christian church, parish level, seen in terms of the Poor Laws, but this system was badly organised and was criticised due to the claimed idleness among the poor and a waste of money. In 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed, introducing immediate economies resulting in a rapid fall in the costs of relief, because conditions were deliberately made harsh. The clauses of the Act were merciless, one stating that conditions in workhouses were to be made very harsh to discourage people from wanting to receive help. It hurt the unprotected, the aged, the sick or infirm and the unemployed, and it specifically sought to discourage applicants. The new Act treated the symptoms not the cause. (Note 45)

These factors added to the poverty and distress among the working classes in Northern England who were now forced into the cities to seek work. There they became labourers in the Industrial Revolution and the city slums became the home of the poor. The consequent social problems ensured dysfunctional family life. Caroline responded, in her usual practical way, addressing not only the problem as she knew it in New South Wales, but also the problem in England, arising from the Industrial Revolution, the Enclosure Acts and the widespread poverty.

Nor was the situation in Ireland any better, particularly for the poor working classes either in the city or the countryside. The harsh impact of the Potato Famine (1845–1850), caused by a fungal disease, commonly called potato blight, initially wiped out the potato crop, a staple item of the Irish diet. In 1845, 24% of all Irish tenant farms were 1-4 acres while 40% were 4-12 acres, with the total of tenant farms covering 64% of the land. The remainder of land was owned by the Crown or by wealthy estate owners. Some farms were so small that only potatoes, no other crop, would suffice to feed a family. The people lived in a perpetual state of insecurity. Between 1801 and 1845 the British Government conducted 114 commissions and 61 special committees inquiring into the state of Ireland. All predicted disaster and the country verging on starvation, with three quarters of her labourers unemployed and living standards unbelievably low. (Note 46)

Each year during July and August there also occurred a mini-famine locally called "summer hunger", as what was left of the previous year's crop of potatoes was now becoming inedible and the current crop wasn’t yet ready for harvest. All these syndfromes increased poverty and misery for eight million people, and the situation was far worse than anything experienced in Britain. By 1852 the Irish population had fallen by over a quarter, with the loss of over a million lives from hunger and disease, and another million men, women and children fleeing the country to start new lives in America and Canada. (Note 47) Paradoxically, while the famine took its toll, Ireland remained a net exporter of food (held in storage) through most of the five-year famine. (Note 48)

Family Colonization Loan Society

All these factors, bringing immense poverty and grief to the poor of Britain and Ireland were well known, but politically they proved an intractable problem for the Home Government. Caroline sought to respond in a practical way, by encouraging migration to the colony of New South Wales. She was by now a well-known public figure and the general public saw her as one who had compassion for the poor and for the underdog. She had proved her worth, in Colonial Office circles by organising transport for the wives and families of the ex-convicts and the orphaned children to Australia, as well as by her appearances before the two committees in the House of Lords, and her knowledge of the situation in the colonies.

Now perhaps, Caroline felt it was an opportune time for her to get a sympathetic hearing from the Home Government for a completely new national emigration and colonisation plan, which included opening up new land in NSW. She had a close friend in the Secretary of State, Earl Grey, to whom she gave her proposal of a national colonisation plan, hoping that with his influence it would create a completely new approach to colonisation.

Her plan covered transport, employment and land reform. The squatter lobby in London, who had financial interests in NSW land, became alarmed and brought pressure to bear on the government, and her hopes for sweeping land reforms were again dashed. After two years of waiting for the government to respond, the Chisholms realised there would be no further assistance from the government quarter. However, Caroline was determined to establish a national migration system, so they took that brave step, setting up their own family emigration scheme, without any assistance from the government.

It would be a voluntary one, independent of government but co-operating with it. Their whole system would be founded on the concept of family reunion liberally interpreted, and self-respecting payments/repayments. (Note 49)

Caroline called her immigration scheme The Family Colonization Loan Society (hereafter the FCLS). Her Society did not provide intending emigrants free passage to the Colony, but, if considered suitable, they were encouraged to join the Society. Her plan included the emigrants contributing a certain percentage of the cost of the voyage, and the Society then would give a loan for the remaining amount which had to be repaid within a set time after the applicant found work in the colony. As the Scheme became known in the large centres outside London, regional committees were to be formed by interested parties, who would forward the names of prospective emigrants to the Emigration Committee. In Australia, agents would be appointed, in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, who knew the local conditions and would help in finding work and accommodation. They, in turn, would have supporting local committees to help them. In that way, she respected the independence of the migrant and the loan money returned to the Society was available to help further migrants, thus keeping the Society solvent. (Caroline believed that people do not value what is too-freely given.)

Enter Lord Ashley ... She put her case in 1849 in a letter to Lord Ashley seeking financial help:

"It is indeed melancholy to reflect, that thousands of British subjects should wander about like spectres than beings of flesh and blood and that hundreds should die from starvation while our colonies could provide so abundantly for them. Anxious as a poor man may be to emigrate to the Australian Colonies with his family, it is unfortunately impossible for him to accomplish his desire without some assistance. (Note 50)

Lord Ashley, or seventh Earl Shaftesbury, was a Member of Parliament and a famous philanthropist, a man who loved justice and hated cruelty, and who devoted his life to doing something about it. He was known as a champion of the poorer classes and was responsible for overcoming the general acceptance of women, and children under 13 years of age labouring long hours in mines and factories, as well as young boys being employed as chimney sweeps. Sweeps might be taken from the poor house and put to work when as young as four-years-old. (Note 51) Caroline showed her foresight and management skills, when she asked Lord Ashley to head her Central Committee.

There was also a second small committee called the Emigration Committee, with Caroline and Archy as its leaders, and they handled the day-to-day running of the Society; the emigration inquires and applications. She indicated that the immediate object of her Society was to help the poorer classes of people to emigrate as family units. Her basic unit for immigration was always the family and Caroline realized that family and group travel solved many of the problems of loneliness, lack of companionship, and mutual help on board ship, and so then, on arrival, while folk were settling into their new land. She believed her group-travel arrangements would help the social organisation of the colony as nothing else would. In contrast, the government system placed arriving emigrants in a poorer, more isolated position for the task of establishing themselves. Support for Caroline’s scheme was never uniform. Shipowners looking for her patronage agreed to her plans for modification of their ships’ designs to improve accommodation, while for others, the costs of modification made them oppose her at every turn. Her grandson, Edmund Dwyer Gray noted in the Sydney Morning Herald:

"She taught the shipowners that the carriage of emigrants is something more than ferrying over of human cargo. It was reserved for her to enforce on board ship the ordinary rules of decency and propriety." (Note 52)

The unemployed and the poor began arriving to the Chisholm’s door in large numbers seeking information about the colonies, and their home became an information centre for the colony. When a family came with their first enquires about migration, Caroline and Archy invited them to their home group meetings and informed them how they would overcome the trials of a long sea voyage by group travel, what sort of a place Australia was, the availability of work there and the details and costs involved. Caroline and Archy knew the limitations and barriers of the present transportation systems used, and they showed the poor what assistance they could give to help them to start a new life. They offered them hope. Within three months of the plan going public, the Society had a membership of 370 people and it expanded quickly.

Archy and Caroline worked from dawn to late into the night most evenings, interviewing, advising, holding group meetings, organizing passages, as well as answering every letter they received. They selected people who would be a good type of emigrant and adapt well to the rough conditions of the colonies. These people were encouraged at the information meetings to form themselves into groups of no less than three families and none greater than 20, with the idea of migrating in groups, and all going to the same colony. Each family was required to pay a fee of one pound two shillings. and an entry fee of one shilling each (including children) to meet the office expenses. There was a further fee of ten shillings for each adult and five shillings per child under fourteen to be paid in the colony with the last payment of the loan. Intending emigrants were required to pay two-thirds of their passage money prior to embarkation, which could be paid in instalments, free of charge. The other portion of the passage money would be loaned by the Society, to be returned by the borrower after they had settled into employment. On many occasions, families in Australia sent money to their relatives to help with the passage costs and donations from benefactors also helped defray costs. If a group of five families raised eighty pounds, the Society would add another eighty pounds. On some occasions when a chosen family was simply too poor to pay the fares, the Chisholms themselves would subsidise their expenses.

The Emigration Costs for a family of two adults and four children (under 14)

Table 1

In England Initial Costs

Society Entry Fee (Office Expenses) 6 shillings

Plus Payment of two thirds of total family fares prior to sailing

Table 2

In Australia Final Costs

Parental Charge-(2 Adults) 1 pound

Fee for 4 children 1 pound

Total 2 pounds

Plus repayment of remaining loan (within 2 years of arrival in the colony)

(Family Colonisation Loan Society Application originated by Mrs Chisholm). (Note 53)

The Central Committee would approve those intending emigrants who were good workers, and the Agent in the colonies would find work for them. The Agent held the Notes of Hand (their monetary promises) and would collect as much of their wages as could be afforded, to offset the loan to the Society. The repayment was returned to the Committee for sponsoring further families until that particular group had been helped to migrate and their debt repaid. A reserve fund was also established to cover any loss by her emigration scheme. Helpfully, talked around by Stuart Donaldson (see a note on him below), in 1852 the NSW Legislative Council passed a resolution recommending the allocation of ten thousand pounds to the Society. This money relieved any uncertainty of the scheme collapsing.

Caroline noted that ...

"within a year of my arrival in England no less than 3381 applications for passages to this very colony, and a list of which I laid before the Home Government, besides a roll of 500 young women of good character." (Note 54)

Throughout her life Caroline was charity itself, but she was no advocate for charity in emigration. She believed that the life and soul of her immigration system was to be to a help those who help themselves, and wherever possible she believed in encouraging independence. (Note 55)

Popularising the Chisholm project

There were two extra factors that helped the Chisholms promote their family colonisation society. Firstly, Caroline was able to use her supporting letters and statements from small farmers and workers which she had brought from the colony. She had published a number of these statements in the booklet titled Comfort for the Poor! Meat three times a day! -- Voluntary information from the People of New South Wales’ collected in the Colony in 1845. She used such remarks via the press, in her lectures around the country as they provided first-hand pictures of life in Australia, as compared to life in England. Some of these letters went to relatives of her people and that was all it took for many of them to also consider emigration as an escape from poverty. (In 1847 Sir Thomas Mitchell, the NSW Surveyor General explored the Maranoa country and discovered the sources of the Barcoo River, and London received glowing reports of the rich country he had seen and this new news supported Caroline’s picture of Australia.) (Note 56)

The second factor was her 1850 meeting with the-then very popular writer Charles Dickens. Dickens' name was a household word in England and everything he wrote was assured of a wide audience. He was greatly impressed with the work Caroline had done and supported her belief that emigration was necessary to overcome the problem of surplus population in Britain and he decided to give her project all the support he could. (Note 57)

Dickens' own background was one of poverty and hardship, and at one stage, his father had spent a period in jail. Dickens published a number of Caroline's emigrant letters in his Household Words and gave details of the proposed Family Colonisation Loan Society. He also wrote enthusiastically about her work in the colony. Generally, he gave the Society the best assistance he could by publicising the Scheme in his books. (Actually, two sons of Dickens’ migrated to New South Wales, one to Sydney and the other to Moree, where he is buried.)

Charles Dickens met Caroline only on one occasion in 1850 and gave his whole-hearted support for Caroline’s emigration plans, But their relationship did have its ups and downs.

In his novel, Bleak House, the character Mrs. Jellyby was seen as a parody of Caroline Chisholm, criticising her for her alleged neglect of her family in her enthusiasm for her projects. Here, it should be remembered that at this time, Caroline’s mother, (Mrs Jones), was both the housekeeper and the children’s nanny, which would have freed Caroline from many of her home duties. (Caroline's father had employed a governess for his children.) The three eldest children, Archy Jnr, 15-years-old, William 13, and Henry II, were kept busy helping their parents and would not have required strict control. Meanwhile, her biographers have given no clues regarding Caroline’s own reaction to any such criticism.

In 1850 Caroline published a pamphlet, The ABC of Colonisation, in which she explained her ideas and principles on migrating and argued that the government system could not be compared with her Family Colonisation Scheme. It could not match its aims and constitution or any of the benefits, such as no overcrowding and provision of better accommodation, protection and privacy for the female passengers, adequate food and water, medical care for all, especially children, unlimited number of children could travel with their parents and lack of interference by shipping agents in the emigrant selection process.

Biographer Margaret Kiddle has maintained that this pamphlet was not just an attempt at persuasion, it was a decided denunciation of the Government system. Caroline weighed up whether the government could provide a better system, but concluded that it was highly unlikely. Further, she considered it unacceptable that the Government Bounty System excluded free transport for the heads of families over forty years of age, single men over thirty five, and the limited number of children permitted to travel with their parents. (Note 58) Caroline favoured family migration while the government policy preferred the childless couple. The pamphlet concluded with an impassioned plea to all their fellow countrymen to unite in a common cause and help the poor of Britain.

In 1850 things moved quickly, The Family Colonisation Loan Society chartered their first vessel, Slains Castle, a barque of five hundred tons, owned by Wigrams, which was refitted to the Society’s standards. The ship carried 250 families, says one report; another report is more conservative. Yet again, we see Caroline’s flair for organisational detail. The lower deck was replaced with rows of enclosed cabins. These were furnished to each family size with a small window for ventilation, bunks and a wash stand. Children over fourteen were provided with compartments for sleeping, separate to their parents. One enclosed cabin was allotted to seven single girls and another cabin for seven young men. (Family Colonisation Loan Society Agreement originated by Mrs Chisholm). Bunks could become seats by day and there were decent and sufficient "privys" for the travellers.

Provision for washing and food preparation which included sufficient rations for the people were also taken care of, and an infirmary was placed for the care of the sick. Down the centre of the deck were tables for meals and other uses. At meal-times there were two sittings to avoid overcrowding. The use of alcohol and firearms was banned. Great care taken with general hygiene to prevent the spread of disease. All areas of the ship were cleaned to rid the ship of dirt and the rancid smell that seemed to be a general part of ship-board life. (Note 59)

In preparation for the journey, the emigrants at the group meetings at the Chisholm’s home agreed to a list of ship-board regulations covering the morality, health, comfort and safety of the passenger that added to the feelings of confidence and security for the emigrant. At those group meetings prior to the sailing of Slains Castle, the men of the Family Colonisation Loan Society pledged:

"As we place ourselves, as Christian fathers and heads of families ,to exercise parental control and guardianship over all orphans and friendless females of good repute for virtue and morality proceeding with the family groups, to protect them as our children and allow them to share the same cabins with our daughters." (Note 60) (This pledge was earnestly recommended for all future groups.)

We have seen the groundwork, and now, the final preparation Caroline and Archy made for Slains Castle passengers, and it would be the same for all her emigrant people. Her ideals were high, and she raised the standards of all those who came to her for help. It was striking how in Victorian society, men rallied to her cause so enthusiastically.

Caroline was shrewd. She capitalised on public interest enough to see the advantages of having the ship opened to the public before Slains Castle sailed, so that people who were considering emigrating could inspect the ship's conditions for themselves. Eight hundred people who came on board as she lay at anchor were suitably impressed. The day of departure was a big occasion, one that was both memorable and emotional for everyone including the Society members. (Note 61) Caroline and Archy had achieved their first critical step towards their long-term goal. Their hard work and vision for a colonisation plan with decent travelling conditions for the emigrants had been realised, and this would be the first of many ships taking her emigrants to Australia.

The afternoon of Saturday, 28 September 1850 saw the Slains Castle, completely refitted, now put to sea under the Family Colonization Loan Society flag. It weighed anchor and set sail for Gravesend where it would spend the first night. There was a full compliment of one hundred and fifty emigrants destined for Adelaide and Port Phillip. A surgeon was always employed to attend to the medical problems of travellers on board, but on Caroline’s ships he also organised a pre-planned scale of rations for the passengers during the voyage. Families and older women were given the responsibility of looking after the young single women. Boys were placed in a family with boys. Mrs Chisholm remained on board till Gravesend, using this time to settle-in her emigrants, checking details, answering queries and comforting any tearful passengers. Gravesend was the last port on the British mainland for the migrants to sentimentally look back on their homeland, before they set sail with expectant hopes for Australia. General interest was high, and within three months, their second ship, Blundell, sailed in December that year. The third ship was Athenian. The Chisholms were able to accomplish what had eluded the best minds of the Home Government.

New Zealand was also interested in promoting emigrants from Britain. Another migration association, the Canterbury Association, was recruiting emigrants for the “First Four Ships” project, seeking to settle emigrants on the Canterbury Plains in the South Island of New Zealand. On 5 August 1850, five weeks before their sailing date, their Emigration Agent, Mr Edward FitzGerald, told his Management Committee that the project could collapse as the Association still required another three hundred emigrants for a full compliment of passengers. FitzGerald approached Mrs Chisholm on 20 August for help, and she, in turn, sought advice from within her Emigration Committee. The week before, however, on 12 August, 1850, Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield, also a member of the Canterbury Management Committee, wrote to Lord Lyttelton, Chairman of the Canterbury Association, informing the lord that from various reports received:

... "the requisite number of labourers will be obtained without any relaxation of the law as to high character, and with no relaxation as to the payment of a share by the emigrants themselves. Indeed it might be said that our fright about the emigrants is at an end." (Note 62)

There was a difference here within the Committee, and, further, we have FitzGerald seeking advice. No further detail of that time is available, but it leaves open the possibility that Caroline was encouraged to transfer some of her passengers to the Canterbury Association (or that they would now choose New Zealand as their destination). The possibility is reinforced, as Caroline’s second ship, to sail in October, did not actually leave till December. It is quite possible that the Chisholms did save the Canterbury Association from collapse.

A problem arose in the colonies as agents were needed to manage the colonial side of the Society’s business, as it was near-impossible to get anyone to do this as honorary work. Archy and Caroline decided he would return to Australia and set up the colonial end of the organisation with a plan for Caroline and family to follow shortly afterwards. His first stop was Adelaide, arriving in August 1851, and within two months he had set up the South Australian arm of the Society. Caroline in a letter to the people of Australia introduced Archy as he now would be their contact in all matters relating to the Society in Australia.

... "As the Society is about to send off its second ship it became requisite that some person connected with the Society should proceed to the colonies and as the Society has no funds at its disposal for paying an agent, or even his expenses, my husband, Captain Chisholm has arranged to leave England on the 15th of this month so that nothing can be left undone that is in our power to do. With our means, however, it would not be possible that this separation could continue for any length of time; but until I hear from the colony I shall take no steps to proceed to that country, my desire being to do all I can on this side of the water." (Note 63)

After Archy’s retirement from the East India Company, he had given his steadfast loyalty and support to Caroline in all her undertakings. He was a man who once remarked: “that philanthropy is a mark of the Christian man”. (Note 64) It has been said without his help and devotion, Caroline would not have achieved so much.

Arriving in Adelaide, Archy found that payment on some loans from the emigrants was sometimes defaulted. He made inquiries to see if he could recover the loans through the courts. The opinion of the Advocate-General was that if the forms were not completed correctly it was unlikely that proceedings would be taken. (Note 65) After the appointment of an agent, Archy left for Port Phillip at the end of October to become its first Colonial Agent in Victoria. A Committee was soon organised in Melbourne but it also had the problem of non payment of loans by some emigrants. A numbers of members of the Committee suggested that the names of defaulters be made public on a list which could be placed on church doors and in newspapers. The Committee also agreed there was an urgent need for a shelter close to the wharves for the reception of immigrants. A smaller shelter than originally planned was built of timber, housing sixty women and children. Men and boys, however, were given tents for shelter. (Note 66)

The Committee also arranged that two committeemen visit each new ship berthing in Melbourne, whether they were FCLS or government ships, and obtain reports from the passengers of the conditions on board. Again, we see Caroline’s concern in this matter to check her own chartered ships and the government ships for safe-voyage capability. The information collected in Melbourne and passed on to Caroline was very useful in the ensuing general campaign for reform. If there were indications of poor management, massive overcrowding or harsh treatment, she would bring pressure to bear on the British Government to improve the conditions on board their passenger vessels. This information gave added support for the enactment of the Passenger Act of 1852 which overcame crowding, poor accommodation, poor health practices, etc. Mrs Chisholm would have been pleased with her part in this reform. The FCLS ships were of a high standard, and tellingly, people were opting to travel to the colonies aboard her ships. The only time there were complaints about the conditions of FCLS ships was after Caroline and her family had returned to Australia and no longer played a role in the Society. (Note 67) (There are still no official figure on the number of ships that sailed under the Family Colonisation Loan Society flag to the Australian colonies, or on the total number of passengers carried.) In 1853 Archy tendered his resignation as Colonial Agent for Victoria, but no one was found to fill his position and so his resignation was held over indefinitely.

In the following year fix 1854? Caroline, fluent in French, travelled to France, Germany and Italy and encouraged the poor of these countries to consider Australia as a land of opportunity. She received a good response to her campaign. While in Italy, Caroline stopped over in Rome to see her second eldest son, William who was in his second year of studies for the priesthood at Propaganda College. She was a member of a group which had an audience with Blessed Pius IX at the Vatican. As she made her obeisance on being presented to the Pope, he singled her out and helping her up, said, “Caroline Chisholm, eccelentissima, persseveranza bravo” (Caroline Chisholm, here is a woman of greatest perseverance, well done) and he clapped his hands to show his support for her work. (Note 68)

The Vatican certainly had knowledge of her coming visit, and the Pope was well-informed of her work with migration and the settlement of people in Australia. There is no information available as to who arranged her Rome visit, although it was well-planned, as Blessed Pope Pius IX presented her with a carved bust of herself, and a gold medal and other gifts. For Caroline, this was the greatest affirmation of her work, as her reputation had preceded her. Caroline was not operating a church agency, therefore, what she accomplished may not have attracted much attention or acknowledgement by the local church. Yet within forty years, Pope Leo XIII’s general comment would indicate that Caroline’s instinct was deeply catholic. His encyclical Rerum Novarum dealt with the “Right and Duties of Capital and Labour” which in part stated:

"Those Catholics are worthy of all praise and they are not a few who, understanding what the times require, have striven, by various undertakings and endeavours , to better the condition of the working class by rightful means. They have taken up the cause of the working man and have spared no efforts to better the condition of both families and individuals: to infuse a spirit of equity into mutual relations of employers and employed." (Note 69)

Financial problems had continued, and in August 1852 Caroline wrote to The Times” giving an account of the exploits of her Society, and added that one of the problems she had faced in New South Wales was the remittance of money by immigrants back to England. Caroline had represented it at the time to the Governor, Sir George Gipps, in New South Wales, who took it up with the Colonial Secretary, and eventually the banks agreed to receive small remittances, if Caroline personally accompanied the depositor. That arrangement was unsatisfactory, and she was determined, on returning to England, to make other arrangements for small amount transfers. After the Family Colonisation Loan Society had been established, Messrs Coutts and Co consented to appoint agents to receive those remittances. (Note 70) Caroline also supported cheaper postage to and from Australia. The penny post only applied to Britain; overseas postal costs were quite high and ships’ captains were free to charge at-will for carrying mail. These charges fell with the introduction of The Cunard and the P&O Lines who gained a contract with the Government to carry mail. In 1854 the rate of 6 pence per half ounce was fixed as the postage rate to Australia.

Things were rapidly changing by now. Caroline had completed her work in England and changes now had to be made to the Central Committee, to replace her and Lord Shaftesbury, who had retired in 1853. The Chisholm family had hoped to return to Australia on the Caroline Chisholm on her second voyage. W. S. (William Schaw) Lindsay, one of the foremost shipowners of London, indeed, of Britain, was so impressed by Caroline’s reforms, that he special-built Caroline Chisholm for use by the Family Colonisation Society on the Australian run, and Caroline and family were to sail in it on its second voyage to Australia. (Some of the passengers on this Lindsay-built ship were sponsored by the Jewish ladies' Benevolent Society.) However, following the outbreak of the Crimean War it was requisitioned for transporting troops to the Crimea and the family booked their passage on Ballarat, presumably a ship named for gold-rush times. (Government's transport needs due to the Crimean War meant a private outfit such as Chisholm's found ships available for charter to distant Australia rather scarce)

Before the family left England, a public testimonial was given to Caroline, and between eight-hundred and nine-hundred pounds was subscribed at that meeting. There is no indication of how the money was spent. It was well known that the Chisholms would not accept any reward for their work. This was the last time Caroline saw her mother and it must have been a heart-wrenching parting as she left her mother for the last time after recently having had her close by her side. In her speech, just prior to sailing, Caroline spoke of her understanding of the break in family ties with whose remaining. She broke down with emotion and was unable to continue. Travelling with Caroline on the Ballarat were a number of families and young girls. (Note 71)

The discovery of gold in Australia

On the other side of the world there were significant changes, both political and economic, taking place. On 1 July 1851 Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania became colonies in their own right, with their own state legislatures. Further, gold had been discovered at Ophir in the Bathurst District NSW, in January 1851. Within four months there were one thousand prospectors working the field. (Note 72) Hopes soared, and some miners said:

... "the Almighty blinded the eyes of men until the poor of England had congregated in Australian lands to enjoy the good He prepared for them." (Note 73)

The Victorian Government tried to prevent its population from joining the rush to the New South Wales fields by offering a reward of two hundred pounds for any gold found within two hundred miles of Melbourne. (Note 74) In July of that year gold was discovered in Victoria, first at Clunes, (30 kilometres north-east of Melbourne), then at Buninyong, (close to Ballarat), Castlemaine, Ballarat and Bendigo.

Gold fever gripped the colonies old and new. The colonial authorities in New South Wales and Victoria responded. Commissioners were appointed to regulate the diggings, and the police were appointed to collect a licence fee per claim. Each miner paid 30 shillings a month, and this licence had to be renewed each month, regardless if gold had been won. Thirty shillings was a lot to pay if times were hard, and universally, everyone on the fields resented this, and the miners threaten to riot.

The New South Wales Government reduced the tax by two thirds but Victoria held out for the full fee, and the outcome was the Eureka Stockade rebellion led by Peter Lalor (1854) with its loss of 22 lives.

Hopes of finding easy gold drew a new wave of migrants. The easy gold was first found on the surface, followed by alluvial gold found in the rivers and creeks and the miners used pans, puddling boxes and cradles to flush it out from the dirt and water. Englishmen, Americans, French, Italian, German polish and Hungarian exiles and Chinese swelled the numbers of those in search of gold. (Note 75) All this led to a vast increase in the Australian population. In 1851, the population in the colonies was 437,655 and a decade later it was 1,151,947. (Note 76) In 1852, 370,000 immigrants arrived in Australia. (Note 77) The nation boomed. Macdougall described the situation well:

Tens of thousands of Englishmen were off to the diggings as fast as the sailing ships and steam vessels could carry them to the gold fields of Australia, wrote Charles Dickens after going down to the Port of London in 1851. "What a sight there was upon the jetty. I would have fancied the whole export trade of this country had gone stark staring mad with gold fever." (Note 78)

Gold fever was like a bushfire raging in all directions, and the men were walking off work and “humping their bluey” to the nearest field. When news of these discoveries reached England, it unsettled Caroline. Not in her wildest dreams did she ever consider having to handle such unknown problems. She suspected many of her inquires might now be from fortune-seekers and this challenged her ideals on emigrant settlement, which focused on the betterment of Australian society, rather than the betterment of the gold prospector. She felt it could very well undermine her whole colonisation project, so her response was to stress, more than ever, the important role of the family unit. The changing circumstances threatened Caroline’s project. The lure of easy-won riches threatened the stability of the family unit, with the men heading off to the gold fields and leaving wives and families without a regular income. The earlier problem of men living apart from their families reappeared in a new guise.

Such was actually the case with “Canvas Town”, outside Melbourne, which illustrates the problem well. The women and children were left while the men sought their fortunes on the gold fields. (Note 79) Caroline’s concerns were shared by others, and she was very encouraged when a number of London city businessmen, with vested interests in the Australian trade, chose to support her emigration scheme with a donation of ten thousand pounds. That support gave Caroline increased confidence at a very difficult time, and contributed to a change of focus in her project. Added to that amount was also the contribution from the New South Wales Government in 1852 which had earlier reduced any financial worries for the Society.

A shift of focus - The Victorian gold fields

Caroline and her children arrived in Melbourne in July 1854. With her departure from London, Caroline’s connection with the Family Colonisation Loan Society ceased but the Committee continued to operate until 1857. Some say both she and Archy now wanted to retire from public life and devote their time to their family, but social circumstances had changed with the gold rush. She believed, after the gold rush period, that miners would look for land to make a living. The needs of a different type of immigrant was now on her conscience.

Three months later, Caroline was visiting the Victorian gold fields with interest and concern for the miners. There were a few women on the fields, but usually the men left their families in Melbourne. She believed one of the fundamental problems the diggers faced was the distance they had to travel to the gold fields and then later with moving on from one field to the next. Howitt, a contemporary observer, wrote in 1855 that:

"Caroline had boldly gone up country, and astonished herself beyond expression at the utter want of roads and of those fearful bogs and gullies in which we had so many adventures. She broke a shaft, and came back having lost all hope of the Government making roads, and telling people they must make them themselves. And again, she was horrified by the sight of the long ranges of public houses at the diggings." (Note 80)

There was always the possibility of being held up by bushrangers, and there was little shelter or protection from the weather along the way. The only accommodation to be had was in disreputable public houses which were usually crammed to the rafters with miners so that any overflow would take their chance and camp out on the road side. (Note 81)

Such reasons warranted the miner not taking his family to the gold fields, or summoning them to join him. Ever-practical Caroline saw this problem in a different light as she believed that the presence of wives and children would steady the miners from excesses. She often referred to the wives and children as “God’s police” who would bring law-and-order to any situation. (Note 82 -- CC, Introduction to the 1990 Edition, p. xxix, Patricia Grimshaw.) She saw that accommodation along these tracks was urgently needed, so that wives and families need not be left behind in Melbourne alone while their menfolk went off to the gold fields.

In relation to the accommodation on the roads to the goldfield Caroline had this to say:

"Ï propose therefore to attempt to remedy this evil by establishing respectable accommodation along the way where for one shilling per night beds could be procured by travellers and for two pence each a meal. They should have conveniences for cooking, the use of crockery and a sheltered place for taking their meals separate from their bedrooms.” (Note 83)

She recommended that 16 shelters be built roughly situated a day’s journey apart, and she fought hard for their construction, but the government gave approval for only 10 shelters. The Castlemaine route was the first and only project where these shelters were established. In 1855 managers were appointed and the fare per night was one shilling for an adult and sixpence per child. The accommodation was available both for family and single travellers. The shelters were well patronised and generally considered a success. Caroline took on the responsibility of overseeing their construction and supervised their management, once completed. The shelter sheds were nicknamed "Chisholm’s Shakedowns." (Note 84)

No more sheds were built, possibly due to the absence of Mrs Chisholm. Her health was failing and there was the physical cost of continuing the strenuous trips to inspect them. Transport, too, was becoming more accessible with Cobb & Co. extending its coach service to the Victorian goldfields. As well, there was the impending introduction of a railway system planned for the various centres in the colony. The first line from Melbourne to Sandridge (Port Melbourne) opened in September 1854. With the eventual decline of the gold fields, the Chisholm Shakedown shelters became available for other uses, such as meetings or church services for local inhabitants.

To summarise, there were two main themes guiding Caroline Chisholm. The first was the welfare of those she saw in need, and the second, which related to that concern, was the availability of land for the immigrant. She saw land as essential for the family to become part of the community. In one of her last letters to the press, Caroline hadn’t forgotten the poor of England, expressing the need to attract them to new opportunity in Australia. Her immediate concerns were the Lancashire factory workers who were starving, as the mills by now had insufficient cotton to continue operating;

"The great want of this country [Australia] is population. We want a body of people to develop the resources of the country. What mind can contemplate such a country as this - immense tracts of uncultivated land – without painfully reverting to the suffering, starving people at home, to wish they were here." (Note 85)

At a public meeting in Melbourne, Caroline turned her attention once more to inability of miners to obtain land. She believed a solution was both possible and imperative:

"The great grievance on the diggings is, that they cannot acquire land. It is this great grievance that is required to be immediately remedied. It is a serious thing for a man who has put 200 or 300 pounds to sink it all in a piece of ground that will not give him a piece of bread, nor even a potato. The land must be unlocked! I never could – I never would have recommended any man to come to this country if I did not think it possible and that it would soon be done." (Note 86)

In a letter to the Argus, (11/11/1854) Caroline was more succinct ... "Our aim must be to make it [as] easy for a working man to reach Australia as America and we must hold out a certainty of being able to obtain land. Nothing else will tempt the honest working man of the right sort to emigrate." (Note 87)

A hemisphere away in America, land was cheap and readily available. Caroline believed a similar solution was needed in the colonies. She was convinced that the land question in this country would have to be resolved if the population was to grow, and the economy to prosper. In a letter to The Argus (2/01/1855), Caroline addressed the need to unlock the land, if the migrants weren’t to become emigrants.

"The labour market is now in a depressed state, and if some steps are not speedily taken to open the lands to the small capitalists they will in numbers leave us with their money and their energies for places where they can make a more favourable and immediate investment. It is this class that are now leaving us. Let us be wise in time." (Note 88)

A few years later circumstances proved Caroline right, as gold was discovered in New Zealand in 1861 and 12,000 men left the Australian colonies for the gold fields there.

Caroline firmly believed the land ticket system she had proposed back in 1844 would greatly encourage the migrant to save and purchase land in the New South Wales Government sales. However, her land ticket system, although discussed, was never accepted by the Government of the day.

Health and fortune fail

In 1856 the Chisholms were living in Melbourne, and had purchased a business in Kyneton for two of their sons, Archy Jr and Henry. Caroline had worked hard and long and was now suffering from kidney disease which would cripple her in later life. A change of pace was needed. Caroline’s historical contribution was all but complete. They moved to Kyneton and came to the district as a well-known and highly-respected family. During the winter of 1857 Caroline’s health deteriorated quickly -- kidney disease, not understood well, medically, at the time. Her medical advisors in Melbourne urged her to return to Sydney immediately, to a more favourable climate. She said:

"I was so far gone at one period that a clergyman asked the doctor, in my presence how many hours he expected I could survive." (Note 89)

It was a week-long journey by coach back to Sydney, rough, cramped and exhausting enough for a person in good health, but for one who was gravely ill, it was almost a death sentence, and on arrival in Sydney she spent several weeks in bed recovering.

The Chisholms found Sydney had changed from the city they had left eleven years earlier. It, too, had grown up with the coming of gold and the increase in population. Caroline’s problem of declining health, exacerbated by financial difficulties, added to the pressures for a family settling back into the Sydney community. Financial difficulties worsened, and on one occasion she asked Father Therry for 15 or 20 Pounds; another time she pawned her prized papal medal for cash needed to help the family. I don’t know if the medal came to light in later years, but Mary Hoban in her biography, Fifty One Pieces of Wedding Cake, included a copy of a letter from Archibald Chisholm senior, authorising his son Henry in Australia to receive the gold medal should it ever be located. (Note 90)

When Caroline’s health improved, she returned to the rostrum giving a number of lectures during the period 1859–62, as she'd moved to Sydney in 1859. The Sydney Morning Herald advertised her first lecture at the Prince of Wales Theatre and her topic that night was the “Land Question and Manhood Suffrage”. Between 300 and 400 people attended but it was not one of Caroline’s best lectures, for she wandered from her topic, albeit with flashes of her characteristic wit.

A larger crowd attended her second lecture on “Free Selection Before Survey” and The Sydney Morning Herald gave it a good review. At the next two lectures during 1861 her topics were Early Closing Of Shops and Our Home Life. She spoke on family life and the poor standard of housing available for so many, and its effects on the family. Her aim was to encourage public support for policy initiatives and not simply put them in the too-hard basket. Women were prominent at this meeting, and she encouraged her audience to think about the important issues of the period, to read the newspapers and be involved in political discussion on those matters. Her hope was an early solution to these problems.

In 1856, the British Government gave all Australian colonies full self-government. During the premiership of John Robertson, his government in 1861 passed the Crown Lands Alienation Act and the Crown Lands Occupation Act, which were meant to break the land monopoly of squatters. The Government of Victoria also had similar Bills before Parliament addressing land questions. Caroline’s project had been achieved in-principle, but the details of the final victory in New South Wales and Victoria belong to another story.

To improve their financial position Caroline and Archy decided that she would open a Private School for Young Ladies which would cover both boarders and day-pupils. Their own two girls, Caroline aged fourteen and Monica aged eleven would be enrolled there. She advertised the opening of the school in the Empire and her aims were to combine a sound education with a sense of social responsibilities. The minutes of the Newtown Council noted that on 10 June, 1862 Caroline Chisholm notified Council that she had opened a school for girls at Rathbone House, a large comfortable building on Stanmore Road, Newtown. Later the school was transferred to a larger house, Greenbank, at Tempe, Cook’s River, for additional pupil accommodation. The numbers of students attending the school in Newtown or Tempe or the teachers who taught there are unknown. Caroline would have received some financial assistance from the state government but by 1864 the school was no longer mentioned by the press or Sand’s Sydney Directory. The reason for its closure is no longer available, but it may have been her own health condition, plus the fact she was now 58-years-old and the added stress and tension of running a school may have been too much for her.

Return to England and declining years

The Chisholms, no longer in the public eye, lived quietly in Sydney for the next two years and Caroline took no further part in public affairs. In 1866 the family made a decision to return to England for a visit possibly for two reasons, seeking medical help for Caroline’s condition and while there, to complete the education of their younger children. (Note 91) They hoped to return to their land of adoption within a few years. (Note 92) In England Caroline was under medical supervision but her condition gradually deteriorated and she was bedridden for the last six years of her life. For such an energetic and highly-spirited woman her sentence of inaction would have been almost intolerable. Adding to her woes in 1875, the family received the sad news of the death of Archy Jr. in Sydney.

Caroline died on 25 March, 1877 (the Feast of the Annunciation), aged 69. Her death in the end was caused by bronchitis. As her condition deteriorated she received the Sacrament of the Sick (Extreme Unction) from a priest preparing her for her journey home. Her remains were taken to Northampton and she was buried from St Felix pro Cathedral and interned in the Billings Road Cemetery. Tributes to Caroline were published in the Northampton Mercury, Illustrated London News, and Graphic.

The English Catholic Newspaper, The Tablet(7/4/1877), printed her obituary:

"The remains of this philanthropic lady, wife of Major Chisholm, of Fulham and well-known as “The Emigrant’s Friend” was interned in the cemetery, Northampton on Saturday last. In accordance with her wish, she was buried in the cemetery just outside Northampton. The remains were removed from town on Friday, and were on their arrival at Northampton received in the Catholic Cathedral (St Felix) there by the Bishop of Northampton (Bishop Amherst). The funeral took place shortly after noon, the chief mourners being Miss Chisholm (Monica) and Mr Gray (son in law). Major Chisholm, the husband of the deceased lies prostrate with serious illness at Fulham. Many of the townsfolk showed their respects for the memory of the deceased lady by assembling around the grave into which were thrown numerous bouquets." (Note 93)

Archy died less than five months after Caroline at Rugby and was buried beside his wife at the Billings Road Cemetery. Their joint memoriam card read:

Archibald Chisholm of Strathglass, Inverness-shire, Major, 30th Regiment Madras Native Infantry who departed this life 17 August 1877 and Caroline Chisholm, ‘The Emigrants Friend’, his wife who departed this life 25 March 1877 - Both fortified with all the Rites of Holy Church. (Note 94)

Conclusion

In terms of her characteristic modes of response, the many kinds of social challenges Caroline faced in her early married life in both India and the Australian colonies, and later in Britain, had really seen no precedent in British, British-Indian or Australian history to date. She was 24-years old when she arrived in Madras from England, a young wife in a strange land living in a community where the older women held sway in the life of the Fort. She found young girls on the streets, the daughters of the soldiers of the East India Company, left to their own devices, which brought them trouble. Her first impulse was to bring some of them home but that didn’t solve any overall problems. Her peer group was no help, so, unafraid, she made a stand, and set up a school for the girls which turned into an outstanding success.

Arriving in NSW, Caroline again was shocked by the reality of finding women living on the streets of Sydney, which challenged her to find a solution to their woes. Her early endeavours became her lifetime vocation, when she made an offering of her talents, comforts and wishes to the God who gave them to her. Her focus was on the side of social justice, always with a determination to make things happen, and that challenged the colonial governments of the day. In her early work in NSW, Caroline never condoned the lack of support by the colonial government for migrants arriving in the colony, and, as her work progressed, she experienced indifference and a careless attitude by colonial government to the problems she saw in the colony. Generally, the government allowed her to do her work with migrant settlement and welfare, but without consultation and welfare aid, and providing little support. The Shell Harbour settlement was a good example in question. This hardened attitude to change opened her eyes, and she became very militant, speaking out in that period on land reform, the dignity of women in society, and later, universal suffrage, vote-by-ballot.

On arrival in Britain, Caroline fulfilled her promise to reunite the wives to their ex-convict husbands and the children who had been left behind, to their waiting parents in New South Wales. She was a woman who understood the agony of the poor, and she offered them a way out of their poverty, through migration to the Australian Colonies. Her booklets were published, giving first-hand details of life and opportunities to be found in the colony and she addressed large and small meetings right across Britain and parts of Europe, and was highly regarded by the public. This general publicity highlighted the character and ability of the woman to achieve her goals. Caroline was a great reformer of her time, and it was said, she took notice of all criticisms of her work, and if needed, made the necessary adjustments, which is a sign of a true philanthropist. Returning to Australia during the gold rush period, she sought to alleviate the difficulties of travel for the miners and families on their way to the Victorian gold fields, with the “Chisholm Shakedowns”. She re-entered the fight to break the squatter control of land, and her voice was heard by the many for change. In the end, through illness, she retired from the fight, and left the newly-created franchise to complete this work.

One of her lasting achievements, we thank Caroline for today, was the raising of an unselfish crusade for the women and young female immigrants she found living on the streets of Sydney. Her desire for "happy homes" and her belief that family life should always be the foundation stone of a nation, gave the women of her day a better self-respect and position in society. She also a deep faith and trust in the Providence of God that provided her with an openness to all who needed her care.

Mr Justice Therry of thirty years residence in New South Wales and Victoria during the colonial period who knew her well, paid her this unreserved compliment.

"Caroline Chisholm, the only practical reformer and worker in the colonization of the age." (Note 95)

She struggled for justice and she understood her work as the fulfilment of a God-given vocation. (Note 96) (See, God, the Devil; and a Millennium of Christian Culture. (Clara Geoghegan Uni of Melbourne 2005)

About herself Caroline said:

"My political creed, or rather my principle had been through life, to work to the best of my ability for all. I have never for a moment considered country, or creed, or colour; my sole object has been to do all the good I could. I leave the public to be my judge." (Note 97)

Paul Halloran

/////////////// Ends the article //////////

Below are Paul Halloran's footnotes to the above article ...

Note1: M. Kiddle, Caroline Chisholm. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1990., p. 7.

Note2: The Convict Era, http://www.anu.edu.au/andc/res/aus_words/vocab_aussie/convict ... retrieved 10/3/2008

Note3: C. Tolchard, 'Dear Mrs Chisholm', Walkabut, Vol. 33, October 1967., p. 36.

Note4: Report from The Select Committee on the Condition of the Working Classes of the Metropolis 1859-60. at http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/public/gallery/rocks/displays/displays-item -11.html retrieved 15/4/2008

Note5: A. K. Macdougall, Australia: An Illustrated History From Dreamtime to the New Millennium. Rowville, Victoria, The Five Mile Press P/L, 2004., p. 155

Note6: Margaret Kiddle, 'Caroline Chisholm in New South Wales, 1838-46', Historical Studies Australia and New Zealand, Vol. 2, May 1943, p. 187

Note7: E. D. Gray, First Seven years Service, Sydney Morning Herald, 26/01/24, p. 12.

Note8: Gray, ibid, p. 12

Note9: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 12

Note10: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 13.

Note 11: Kiddle, op cit., p. 20.

Note12: Kiddle, op.cit,, P. 14.

Note13: E. Mackenzie, Caroline Chisholm: A Memoir. Cheapside, London, Clarke Beeton & Co., 1853., p. 5.

Note14: M. Roth, Profit and Loss, at http://www.martinrothonline.com/MRCC25.htm, p. 2, retrieved 23/06/03.

Note15: F. Crowley, A New History of Australia. Melbourne, Heinemann, 1974., pp. 91-92.

Note16: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 15.

Note17: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 19.

Note18: C. Chisholm, Female Immigration Considered, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 2004., p. 4.

Note19: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 19.

Note20: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 37.

Note21: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 21.

Note22: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 27.

Note22 is missing.

Note23 Kiddle, op. cit., p. 21.

Note24: Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 10.

Note 25: M. Swann, Caroline Chisholm, Read before The Australian Historical Society on 25/11/1919, Journal and Proceedings, Vol. 6, Part 3, 1920, p. 138.

Note26: C. Chisholm, Female Immigration Considered, Sydney University Press, Sydney, nd.

Note27: John Ferry, Colonial Armidale. St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, nd., p. 39.

Note28: Kiddle. op. cit., pp. 27-28.

Note29: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 46.

Note30: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 46.

Note31: W. A. Brodribb, 'Recollections of an Australian Squatter, 1835-1883', John Ferguson in association with the Royal Australian Historical Society, Sydney, 1978, pp. 12-13.

Note32: Crowley, op. cit., p. 92.

Note 33: C. Chisholm., The Atlas, Prospectus of a Work entitled Voluntary Information from the People of NSW Respecting the Social Condition of the Middle and Working Classes in that Colony, Sydney , 1845, p. 485.

Note34: C. Chisholm, The Atlas, Prospectus of a Work entitled Voluntary Information from the People of NSW Respecting the Social Condition of the Middle and Working Classes in that Colony. Sydney, 1845., p. 485.

Note35: C. Chisholm, Emigration Lecturers, To the Editor of the Empire, p. 11.

Note36: Brodribb, op. cit., p. 24.

Note37: Kiddle, op. cit., pp. 78-79.

Note38: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 59.

Note39: Chisholm, op cit., p. 13.

note40: Chisholm, Emigration Lecturers, To the Editor of the Empire, p. 13.

Note41: P. O’Farrell, 'Some Caroline Chisholm Correspondence 1845-49', The Australasian Catholic Record, Vol No. 4. October 1977, p. 323. (Information voluntary supplied by James Cunningham from Tipperary and collected by Caroline Chisholm)

Note42: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 85.

Note43: Gray, fix, Caroline Chisholm. First Seven Years Service, Sydney Morning Herald, 26/01/1924., p. 12.

Note44: Enclosure, at http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure, retrieved 22/08/07.

Note45: The 1834 Poor Law, at http//www.spartacus. schoolnet.co.uk/Lpoor1834.htm, retrieved 12/10/2007.

Note46: Great Hunger, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_potato_famine.

Note47: Website, The History Place - Irish Potato Famine, at http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/introduction.htm, retrieved 16/6/2007.

Note48: Irish Potato Famine at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_potato_famine, retrieved 1/3/2008.

Note49: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 100.

Note50: C. Chisholm, Family Colonisation Loan Society, A System of Emigration to the Colonies, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Lord Ashley M.P., 1849., p. 34.

Note51: On Lord Ashley (Shaftesbury) at http://www.infed.org/walking/wa-shaft.htm, retrieved 5/01/2009.

Note52: E. D. Gray, Caroline Chisholm: Service in Two Hemispheres, Sydney Morning Herald, 9/02/1924., p. 21.

Note53: C. Chisholm, Family Colonisation Loan Society Application

Note54: C. Chisholm, Emigration Lecturers, To the Editor of the Empire, p. 12 (no further details).

Note55: C. Chisholm, 'Chisholm and Charles Dickens, Historical Studies Australia and New Zealand, Vol. l3, No. 10, July 1945., p. 47.

Note56: Kiddle, op. cit., Caroline Chisholm, p. 106.

Note57: W. Sutherland, Great Australians, Caroline Chisholm, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1967., p. 26.

Note58: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 107.

Note 59: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 117.

Note 60: C. Chisholm, The Family Colonisation Loan Society Pledge.

Note61: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 118

Note62: R. Chapman, 'Problems Associated with the Recruitment of Steerage Passengers for the First Four Emigrants Ships to Canterbury in 1850', Canterbury Museum, Vol. 10, No. 4. Canterbury, 1990., p.45. (R. Chapman, Canterbury Museum, pp.41–46.) Editor suggests here ... not that Chisholm approved of the Wakefield System of colonial settlement. Her ABD entry notes that her first public attack on the Wakefield System was in her 1847 writings.

Note63: Hoban, op. cit., p. 259.

Note64: M. Hoban, 'Caroline Chisholm and the Church', The Australasian Catholic Record, 8/1977, Vol. LIV, No. 4, p. 310.

Note65: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 135.

Note66: Kiddle. op. cit., p. 141.

Note67: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 162.

Re Note 67: The second FCLS ship was arranged, the Blundell for South Australia. Soon came news of the Australian gold rush. Then came use of the ship Athenian. In Adelaide, Archibald found Marshall MacDermott, manager of Bank of Australasia, communicating with Coutts in London for the FCLS. New links between London and the Australian colonies were forming. (Hoban, p. 271.) One reason the merchants in London tended to back Chisholm is that they had disliked a poorly-performing government emigration scheme (all that Governor Gipps had been able to discuss earlier in NSW during the Depression) and its dependence on the Land Fund. Some meetings were held in later 1851 (about the time Archibald Chisholm was getting back to Adelaide) between merchants and FCLS. They seem to be listed, (in Hoban p. 272) as: Charles Buxton, Wyndham Harding, Robert Brooks (merchant in Australia trade), P. W. Flower, Frederick R. Gore and Edmund Gore (wool merchants?), S. Jackson, W. Jackson and J. A. Jackson, W. Fanning (merchant), James Levick (a connection perhaps of Hankeys), W. Walker (wool merchants), Thomas Learmonth (of Tasmania), Robert Lowe of Australia who was later an MP for Kidderminster, George Hay Donaldson (wool merchant?), T. Aspinwall/Aspinall, D. H. Henriquez, T. S. Atkins, S [Stephen?]. Kennard, J. R. Morrison, R. Armitage, Thomas Lowndes, W. Millikin, E. J. Wheeler, H. G. Smith, James Alexander, Louis Nathan (probably another Jewish name, possibly a leader of the Hobart Synagogue?), or Joseph Webb. (1) These merchants, plus apparently lesser merchant names, McClellan, Messrs Stanley Carr, S. Devonport, McNab, Chirnside. Then came various clergymen, and William Westgarth (an Australian who returned to England). John Pascoe Fawkener (of Melbourne) and J. T. Smith (the Mayor of Melbourne, see below) gave their financial backing to FCLS early in 1852. Of these names, little is known even today of the Jacksons, Kennard, Armitage, Millikin and Joseph Webb. Later, donations were held by bankers Williams, Deacon and Labouchere. FCLS now prepared to send out the Mariner. Then the ship Chalmers from London Dock. Very helpfully, in came William Schaw Lindsay as a shipowner-backer. His motivation for involvement seems partly to have been for personal reasons, as he'd been orphaned at age 15, and then run away from his Free Church uncle to go to sea, where against the odds, he'd thrived and by Chisholm's time become a national-known name in British shipowning..

About 9-10 August 1853 the FCLS had more dealing with colonial merchants and eminent bankers, including Raikes Currie. And Sir Isaac Goldsmid (A Jew giving more backing for Jewish emigrants. The Goldmsid's were influential with London synagogue). (4) London merchant Mr Hankey (Hankeys as bankers also had interests in New Zealand), Mr Mitchell (maybe untraceable). Mr. J. G. Hubbard (Governor Bank of England). MP and banker, Mr [John] Masterman. Then for the FCLS sailed the ship Ballarat.- Ed)
Note: W. S. Lindsay by March 1854 had told Chisholm his firm had 10,000 tons of mostly steam shipping used as transports for France. He understood that the transport of ships, men and stores to the Crimea was a huge chaos. - Lindsay (in Hoban, Wedding Cake, p. 325) seems to have fitted out ships for the Crimea according to the specifications of Chisholm.

Note68: Hoban, op. cit., pp. 319-320.

Note69: His Holiness Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf _xiii_enc_15051891 p.17, retrieved 30/9/2007.

Note70: J. Bogle, Caroline Chisholm The Immigrant’s Friend. Trowbridge, Wiltshire, Redwood Books, nd., pp. 139-140. The first mail steamer to sail for Australia was the ship Chusan.

Note71: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 146. After her arrival to Port Phillip, Caroline found her activities better-funded since the Victorian government voted her 5000 pounds and another 2500 pounds arose from private subscriptions.

Note72: The Australian Gold Rush, Australia Cultural Portal at http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/goldfields p.1, retrieved 9/06/2007.

Note73: Akinson, op. cit., p. 230.

Note74: The Australian Gold Rush – Australia’s Cultural Portal, p. 1, at http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/, retrieved 9/6/2007.

It is intriguing to notice that the gold rushes disconcerted a great many observers. Employers whose workers raced away to dig for gold. Government authorities. Probably, police forces, who would have new tasks and new population numbers before them. The gold rush phenomenon disconcerted Chisholm herself since it put uproar into markets, into the employment prospects of new arrivals, and population movements generally. It seems that economic windfalls can easily enough dislocate the badly-intentioned in society, the non-misbehaving, as well as the high-minded idealist! -Ed

Note75: Australian Gold Rush - Australia’s Cultural Portal at http/www.culturalandrecreation.gov.au/articles/goldrush/ p. 2, retrieved 9/6/2007.

Note76: The Victorian Gold Rush at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Gold%20_Rush, retrieved 5/09/2007.

Note77: The Australian Gold Rush-Australia’s Cultural Portal, at http:www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/goldrush/, p. 1, retrieved 6/09/2007.

Note78: Macdougall, op. cit., p. 171.

Note79: Atkinson, op. cit., p. 232.

Note80: W. Howitt. Land Labour and Gold. Kilmore, Lowden Publishing Company, 1972., p. 340 (First published 1855 by Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans)

Note81: E. D. Gray, 'Caroline Chisholm, Her Life and Death', in Sydney Morning Herald, 16/02/1924., p. 13.

Note82: P. Grimshaw, Caroline Chisholm, Introduction to the 1990 Edition, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria, nd, p. XXIX.

Note 83: S. Jennison, 'Caroline Chisholm (1808-1877)', Keilor Historical Society, found at http://home.vicnet.net.au/-khis/chisholm_essay.htm, retrieved 12/10/2007.

Note84: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 168.

Note85: M. Swann, 'Caroline Chisholm', Read before the Royal Historical Society, 25/11/1919, Vol. 6, Part 3, 1920., p. 149.

Note86: Howitt, op. cit. p. 341.

Note87: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 173.

Note88: Hoban, op. cit., p. 356.

Note89: C. Chisholm, Emigration Lecturers, To the Editor of the Empire, 10.06, 1862, p. 14.

Note90: Hoban, op. cit., p. 416.

Note91: E. D. Gray, Caroline Chisholm, Her Life and Death, in Sydney Morning Herald, 16/02/1924, p. 13.

Note92: Kiddle, op. cit., p. 181.

Note93: Bogle, op. cit., pp. 149-150.

Note94: Hoban, op. cit,. p. 418.

Note95: R. Therry, Reminiscences of Thirty Years’ Residence in New South Wales and Victoria. Sydney, Sydney University Press, Royal Historical Society, Australian Historical Reprints, 1863., p. 420.

Note96: C. Geoghegan, God, the Devil, and a Millennium of Christian Culture. University of Melbourne, nd.

Note97: C. Chisholm, Emigration Lecturers, To the Editor of The Empire, p. 110,

Note98: Gray, E.D., Sydney Morning Herald, 16/02/1924 , P. 13.

Note99: D. Maher, The declaration of Sainthood, the Catholic Church’s Acknowledgment of Extraordinary Holiness, at www.arlington regia.com/legionsaints/canonize html, retrieved 1/05/2008.

Below are new footnotes from the Editor

Note a: See entry by Judith Iltis on Caroline Chisholm, Australian Dictionary of Biography, online. Iltis views Caroline as: "russet-haired, tall and sweet-voiced, her serene face lit by grey eyes". After encountering various opposition, Caroline tended to become "an uncompromising radical", interested in universal suffrage, vote-by-ballot and payment of politicians. She possessed idealism, courage, executive ability, personal charm, and had the full support of Archibald, an unwavering husband.

Note b: Note for Archibald Chisholm. He fought with First Burma War. He was with EICo army by recommendation of Charles Grant, of EICo directors. In the EICo he was first stationed at Madras. He took his family to Australia on Emerald Isle, Capt Driver, a new ship of 551 tons chartered by Australian Association of Bengal. On Charles Grant (1746-1823). He was 4th Member Board of Trade, Calcutta, in 1787. Chairman of Court of Directors EICo 1805-1823 a remarkably long time in that role. He is noted in Burke's Landed Gentry for Grant of Cotes. See for example, Ainslie Thomas Embree, Charles Grant and British Rule in India. London, 1962. Charles Grant as an EICo figure was anti-US interests and fought Baring on such issues. Some EICo directors, though not Baring, remained worried by the extent of American trading with India as it grew once the USA was an independent trader now generally freed of earlier-applied and much-resented British restraints. GEC, Peerage, Glenelg, p. 677. See Howse's book on Clapham sect, pp. 19ff, pp. 166ff. Charles' son Robert was once Governor of Bombay and was somewhat religious, being a member of the Clapham Sect, as was Charles.

Note c: The question arises here, for the 1840s and 1850s, if Chisholm confronted shipowners and their associates, was she dealing with the inheritors of the business of convict transportation? As English investors observed NSW's difficulties of the 1840s, were there any convict contractors amongst them? Yes, a few convict contractor names persisted, involved in affairs, particularly Duncan Dunbar, though their names and connections are buried in lists detailing merchant networks, and any variety of memberships of commercial associations. But did those changing interconnections mean anything in the context of a strenuous scenario such as 1840s Depression in NSW? In the Australian case there were wheels within wheels. For example, the names listed as investors in The New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land Commercial Association by 1836 were supposedly "a semi-secret group". They were: Richard Aspinall, MP John S. Brownrigg of Cockerell and Co., Robert Brooks, John William Buckle, S. Donaldson of Donaldson, Wilkinson and Co., Duncan Dunbar II of Duncan Dunbar and Son, John Gore (Senior), Jacob Montefiore, William Walker (who had a son-in-law, Donald Lanarch, a director of Bank of New South Wales) of Walker Bros. and Co.; Arthur Willis of A. Willis Sons and Co.; and Joseph Moore, formerly a clerk for the Buckles' firm and later a partner of Devitt and Moore. (1) Some of these names appear also in lists of men of “the Australia trade” who were interested in Caroline Chisholm's Family Colonization Loan Society. -Ed

Note e: On General Sir Frederick William Adam (1781/1784-1853). He had three wives. Major-General at Battle of Waterloo. Governor of Madras (Fort St George) 25 October 1832 to 4 March 1837. His portrait by William Salter, circa 1848. He had been a popular Lord High Commissioner on Coerfu where he had built public buildings quite appreciated by the local people. His own wikipedia page. Newest Oxford DNB entry for Sir Frederick William Adam (1784-1853). His third wife was Anne Lindsay Maberley (died 1904), a sister of Mary Maberley who married Eric Smith Carrington (1828-1906) of the British banker family Smith, Payne Smiths. -Ed

Note f:

With Anglo-Australian maritime information here, it still remains rather difficult to distinguish between convict shipping and its managers, wool-carrying ships, passenger-carriers and general trading ships in "the Australian trade". The principals of the various categories of shipping were often members of the same organisations in London. We find from Sydney Gazette, on 4 December, 1830, a List of members of the National Colonization Society (NCS), its chair being R. W. Horton, MP, meeting at 21 Regent Street London on 18 June, 1830.
(By 16 January, 1834, promoters of South Australia had begun a South Australian Church Society. (Note: Pike, Dissent, pp. 66-67.)

The June 1830 NCS committee would consist of: Horton plus Robert Gouger, secretary, W. S. O'Brien MP, Thomas Potter Macqueen MP, William Smith MP (of the bankers Smiths Payne Smiths?), C. Buller MP, J. C. Hobhouse MP, Colonel Talbot MP, T. Kavanagh MP, Rev. E. T. Sampson, Colonel Torrens, Rev. J. Styles DD, Rev. F. A. Cox LLD, John Labouchere Esq., R. H. Innes Esq., Robert Owen (socialist), John William Buckle (convict contractor, trader of Buckle, Buckle, Bagster and Buchanan), J. Stirling (of Swan River?), J. Talbot Esq., H. Elphinstone Esq., William Hutt Esq., Clayton Brown Esq., C. Tennant Esq., Robert Scott Esq. Donations went to the banks Smiths Payne and Smiths, Drummonds, Hammersley and Co., Cockburn and Co. By the 1830s, Western Australian trade was dominated by Mangles Price and Co, with their senior partner being Charles Edward Mangles who was on the board of Union Bank of Australia. (Broeze, Robert Brooks, pp. 76-80.) The first governor of WA, James Stirling, was a Mangles son-in-law. In 1833, eastern traders Jardine Matheson sent their first tea cargo to Sydney, on Lady Hayesto. By 1833, some substantial London-Australian traders were John Gore and Co. (wool traders), Aspinall Browne and Co. at Liverpool, Buckles and Co., Walker and Co., wool trader Robert Brooks, G. F. Young (shipbuilder and shipowner), and Donaldson Wilkinson and Co. The ships of convict contractor Duncan Dunbar brought much of Dunbar's beer to Australian colonies in the 1830s. In 1840 alone, the London freight handlers Devitt and Moore, who handled much of the 1830s shipping for Australia, loaded 40 ships for Australia. By 1834 the London Emigration Committee included: Sir Edward Parry, former manager of the Australian Agricultural Co. in NSW. The South Australia Wakefieldians saw the necessity of co-operating with capitalists such as J. W. Buckle, John Abel Smith (of the bankers Smith Payne Smiths), George Palmer and George F. Angas. Re the New Zealand Company, City interests involved with New Zealand included: J. W. Buckle, John Pirie, J. Abel Smith, George Palmer, Stewart Marjoribanks, Arthur Willis, George Frederick Young and Joseph Somes, plus Lord Durham. Some had been involved in the earlier and abortive 1820s New Zealand Co. The reader of course will notice the persistence of the mention of some merchant names from the 1830s to the times when Chisholm was active as "the emigrant's friend", into the 1850s. In retrospect, it seems clear that finally, Chisholm herself knew which merchant groups in London were most interested in Australia. The still-unanswered question is: to what extent did she have to accomodate her solutions to problems to their views? (See Broeze, Robert Brooks, p. 127.) -Ed

Note g: ... “a shipping agent is an instrument that can be constructed out of almost any human material ... Mr Micawber, in the days of his adversity, would have been quite ready to become a shipping agent at a moment's notice. .... Depend upon it, that in London and Liverpool no promising swindle will stand for want of a shipping agent.” (db new note 8b Mary Hoban, Fifty-One Pieces of Wedding Cake: A Biography of Caroline Chisholm. Kilmore, Victoria, Lowden Publishing Co., 1973., p. 365. Citing The Argus, (Melbourne) 6 July 1855. One immigration agent of these times was F. L. S. Merewether. Shrewdly, aware of the value of publicity, when she first approached Gipps, Chisholm also approached the owners of the Sydney Morning Herald, according to Chisholm's entry in ADB online by Judith Iltis.

On the Shell Harbour experiment -- It becomes clear here, that Chisholm's ideas on a closer pattern of rural land settlement, undertaken by landusers applying a smaller-scale ambition than squatters usually applied, would have proposed quite a different history of land settlement in NSW, as experienced, than Australian historians (by the later twentieth century) had broadly agreed had actually been experienced. Perhaps it should be noted here that yet another visionary resident of New South Wales, TS Mort, with some success once promoted a closer-settlement pattern for rural areas, mainly for dairy farmers, south of Sydney. As well, the pro-Catholic propagandist in Australia, post-1945, the Italian-backgrounded B. A. Santamaria, for many years promoted small-scale, family-style rural activities, quite unsuccessfully, partly as living in Melbourne, and being a migrant, he had no idea whatsoever of the ways of rural life in eastern Australia! It might also be noted that squatters worked in terms of the wool industry, which was blasted by the 1840s Depression, and that the wool industry was so pervasive in C19th colonial life, that as far as New South Wales' folklore developed, life experience in the wool industry took the folkloric field. Something might also need to be said about the practicality of Chisholm's ideas as far as a reliable/sustainable water supply would have been a matter of interest for a closer settlement pattern. Politically, and more so after a destructive depression, Chisholm's departure from the squatter's views can be seen as a squabble about diversified versus monocultural agriculture (wool). -Ed)

Remarkably, the reach of Caroline Chisholm's influence and idealism had extended from an indentification with the legitimate aspirations of ordinary people, to the government of NSW not long before that over-large territory was split into three states. To Australian politicians in what are now four-to-five states. To merchants operating in Australia in many varied fields of activity, from the genuinely-industrial to the merely-speculative, including some with links to the Indian-China opium trade, and/or the tea trade. To London-based bankers of a highly Imperialist outlook, including men connected with the management of the Bank of England. Bankers specializing in specific industries, such as railways. Shipowners with varying opinions as the age of sail gave way to steamships. Customer-chasing emigration agents. "Experts" of all kinds on schemes for colonization. Except for queens, history records few women who would have, or could have, dealt so capably, so successfully, with so many highly capable (and wealthy) men -- and all for no personal reward at all.
Was the essence of her work -- did it remain -- exactly the task she had first found with the neglected children of none-too-affluent, ordinary British soldiers she had found in Madras - the promotion of human dignity and the protection of dignity with a simple decency. A sense of decency as self-evident as any truth noted by Jefferson for what became the American Declaration of Independence, the US constitution, that was never limited by sectarianism at any personal or administrative level? A decency that could, if allowed, be elaborated through entire societies in multi-faceted ways. It does seem as if the unexpected collisions she caused, in the context of Gog-and-Magog-like accidents of a severe depression followed by a goldrush, between government, capital, and unswervingly-held conceptions of basic human dignity, helped to influence the development of the Australian outlook on life in many broad ways. If so, Caroline Chisholm was one of the most influential women who ever walked on Australian soil! -Ed.

Note 1: See entry by Judith Iltis on Caroline Chisholm, Australian Dictionary of Biography, online. Iltis views Caroline as: "russet-haired, tall and sweet-voiced, her serene face lit by grey eyes". After encountering various opposition, Caroline tended to become "an uncompromising radical", interested in universal suffrage, vote-by-ballot and payment of politicians. She possessed idealism, courage, executive ability, personal charm, and had the full support of Archibald, an unwavering husband. One might add, considerable intelligence.

New Note 1b: Notes on Charles Grant (1746-1823). In http - pillagoda-golden.htm he builds houses for himself and Edward Elliott that the Thorntons called Broomfield and Glenelg. Not in Hodson lists. See re his wife's name Jane, re any link to name Jane Maria Grant qv in circle of Virginia Woolf. He is 4th Member Board of Trade, Calcutta, in 1787. Chairman of Court of Directors EICo 1805-1823 a remarkably long time in that role. He is in Burke's Landed Gentry for Grant of Cotes. Cf, Rocher and Scorgie, p. 207, Note 24, on Hamiltons, citing Ainslie Thomas Embree, Charles Grant and British Rule in India. London, 1962. See Holden Furber, p. 258, on first US-India trade. This man is an anti-US man and fights Baring. GEC, Peerage, Glenelg, p. 677. Howse's book on Clapham sect, pp. 19ff, pp. 166ff. Burke's Landed Gentry for Grant of Cotes. HIs wife Fraser any possible link to Lane, Son and Fraser? stirnet file6 on Grant. Charles' son Robert was once Governor of Bombay and was somewhat religious, being a member of the Clapham Sect, as was Charles.

new Note 1c or d: The question arises here, for the 1840s and 1850s, if Chisholm confronted shipowners and their associates, was she dealing with the inheritors of the business of convict transportation? As English investors observed NSW's difficulties of the 1840s, were there any convict contractors amongst them? Yes, a few convict contractor names persisted, involved in affairs, particularly Duncan Dunbar, though their names and connections are buried in lists detailing merchant networks, and any variety of memberships of commercial associations. But did those changing interconnections mean anything in the context of a strenuous scenario such as 1840s Depression in NSW? In the Australian case there were wheels within wheels. For example, the names listed as investors in The New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land Commercial Association by 1836 were supposedly "a semi-secret group". They were: Richard Aspinall, MP John S. Brownrigg of Cockerell and Co., Robert Brooks, John William Buckle, S. Donaldson of Donaldson, Wilkinson and Co., Duncan Dunbar II of Duncan Dunbar and Son, John Gore (Senior), Jacob Montefiore, William Walker (who had a son-in-law, Donald Lanarch, a director of Bank of New South Wales) of Walker Bros. and Co.; Arthur Willis of A. Willis Sons and Co.; and Joseph Moore, formerly a clerk for the Buckles' firm and later a partner of Devitt and Moore. (1) Some of these names appear also in lists of men of “the Australia trade” who were interested in Caroline Chisholm's Family Colonization Loan Society. -Ed

Note 1f: When the Chisholms left Madras, Caroline's School was taken over by the government. Notes for Archibald: They arrived in Aust on ship Emerald Isle. Not in Hodson lists. He fought with First Burma War. He is with EICo army by initial recommendation of Charles Grant, a long-term EICo director. (Bogle's biog, p. 15) Archibald was a Roman Catholic. ADB entry for his wife Caroline. See Broeze on Brooks. He took his family to Australia on Emerald Isle Capt Driver, a new ship of 551 tons chartered by the Australian Association of Bengal. It is not impossible that that association gave Caroline ideas for future use. The co-founders of the Bengal Australian Association in 1837 (and charterers of Gaillardon) were Ross Mangles (based in London), William Prinsep, Edward Stirling, and Indians Dwarkanath and Prosonacoomar Tagore. An online item in Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (1833-1847) for 10 February 1838, informs that the The Bengal Australian Association was formed by December 1837, about five months before the Association's first ship was sent to Australia, the Gaillardon 391 tons, Calcutta, Adelaide, Sydney, Calcutta. Managers of this Association were Secretary J. H. Gardiner. Colonel J. Stewart, Mr. W. Cracroft Civil Service, Nathaniel Alexander, R. W. G. Frith, and Charles Robert Prinsep (1790-1864). The Association's purpose was to convey passengers and trade (as freight) to London and to Australian colonies, but not to trade on its own account. It might also engage in the horse breeding trades and bring Indian labourers (hill coolies) to Australia. The next ship intended was Baboo. Prinsep intended breeding horses for the Indian army. See http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/639645. Augustus Prinsep otherwise by 1828 had developed favourable views on prospects in Tasmania.

Writing on Caroline Chisholm - Some remarks

Caroline Chisholm - the woman who changed Australia By Paul Halloran (Tamworth, Australia, May 2009) (Edited and annotated by Dan Byrnes/Merchant Networks Project 2010) Some endnotes Paul Halloran - a Statement of Intent: I wrote this article on the life and work of Caroline Chisholm (1808-1878) with a view to publication as I believe that many Australians have some limited knowledge of her life and achievements, but there are few who are fully aware of her outstanding work of Christianity, settling and helping the women and families who helped build our Australia. I see her as a valuable Australian icon of Australia and will encourage any effort to promote her story so that our general knowledge of her work and times will deepen our realisations of her great qualities and example for us all. As a Catholic, one of my ultimate aims is to promote ambitions that one day the Catholic Church will consider her worthy of investigation with a view to her elevation to the status of beatification/sainthood. Acknowledgements I am grateful to many people for their information and help they gave as I was writing this story and I now have the privilege of thanking them, especially those who may soon be rejoicing with me that I have at last completed this project. To my wife, Margaret, who spent many lonely hours while I plodded on with the computer and to our children for their computer skills they shared. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Father Bernard Flood for his time, encouragement and direction which gradually shaped this article. To Ruth Thomas for her generous advice and proof reading of the document. To Grahame Tighe for his expert computer skills far beyond my limited knowledge and to the librarians at the Tamworth Library for their help with searches that provided the information I sought. To all these wonderful people I owe a debt of gratitude. E-mail Paul Halloran at: blah blah Endnotes Archy Jnr. and Sydney returned to Australia in 1869 and they married the two Loder sisters. Anne and Isobel. Archy and Anne had two daughters and he died in 1875. Sydney and Isobel were childless. Carry (Caroline) married Edmund Gray from Dublin and they had one son Edmund Dwyer Gray. After the death of her parents, Monica married Maurice Gruggen and they lived in Canada. There were no children of the marriage. Henry didn’t return to England with the family in 1866 but married Katie Heffernan and they had three children. Edmund Dwyer Gray (Caroline and Archy’s grandson) who was only a small boy when Caroline died and remembered his grandmother as being bedridden. Edmund was a journalist and migrated to Australia, settling in Tasmania. In an article to the Sydney Morning Herald, when speaking of her death Edmund, noted that many great tributes have been paid to her but the quiet words of the Herald were from the heart and had suited her grandson’s mood: “She loved her adopted country, and she served her kind.”. (Note 98) In 2007 His Grace, Mark Coleridge D.D., Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra-Goulburn, began the long process towards sainthood for Caroline Chisholm. Father Daniel Maher in his article, 'The Declaration of Sainthood -- The Catholic Church’s Acknowledgement of Extraordinary Holiness', said: "The Church is entrusted with the responsibility of acknowledging those whose lives have been exemplary models of holiness and heroic virtue. This acknowledgement of holiness serves the mission of the church by edifying and encouraging the faithful, while also pointing to powerful intercessors who can assist us on our journey towards eternal life." (From: http://www.arlingtonregia.com/legionsaints/canonize.html) To further her Cause, Caroline, The Emigrant’s Friend. and Servant of God, pray that she will be included in the Church’s Calendar of Saints. Let us not forget Caroline and Archy who did their utmost for many of our forebears to settle happily in this country. Paul Halloran, Tamworth, May 2009 Our Lady Caroline By John Bishop In God you found wisdoms compassions and visions above all known convention informing your consciousness to abandon all sensible fear providing you with blessings and spiritual convictions to determine you would not nor could you fail to make the difference forwarding hope therefore where hope appeared denied elevating dignity to levels far above the perceived enabling maternal roles in the spirit of womanhood to bear forth the infancy of Australia. (By kind permission of the poet, John Bishop (Tamworth, 25 May 2008) (Since this article was finished by mid-2009, it seems some of the references have become defunct on the Internet, so their hyperlinks have been removed. As an ordinary Word document, this article originally made 82 pages, so consider carefully before you print it -Ed)

Information incoming, new by November 2010

Portrait of Caroline Chisholm, c 1852 by Thomas Fairland (1804-1852) after Angelo Collen Hayter. From NLA, Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK4885, NK546. Hayter painted the picture, The Immigrant's Friend, of Caroline Chisholm, as used on the Australian $5 note.

On the "British Capitalists" backing Caroline Chisholm's work in Britain

A raw list of names ... A variety of treatments of the life of Caroline Chisholm provides some information -- but seldom enough -- on lists of merchant/investor names who assisted her efforts. Australians have generally refrained from delving into any such lists, it is hard to say why. Except, that what the researcher finds is that the upper echelons of merchants and bankers in nineteenth century Britain were densely intermarried. Very often, it happens that to invoke one name is to invoke others, by way of intermarriages, genealogical linkages direct or indirect, or regarding the origins of wives (not forgetting second wives), daughters marrying well, sons inheriting business arrangements, at times a merchant becomes the purchaser of a noted country estate. Quite apart from various long-term, business-orientated, non-genealogical linkages between individual merchants. The list, then (not given in any particular order here) ...
Shipowner, W. S. Lindsay. The bank Coutts and Co. which helped along Chisholm's her remittances. President of the Central London Committee of the Family Colonisation Loan Society, seventh Earl Shaftesbury.

Regarding protests about poor conditions on named migrant ships, the notorious ships were: Eleanor, Marchioness of Bute, Mathesis, Queen Victoria, Duke of Roxburgh and Agnes. On Carthaginian arose a nasty case of sexual bullying, two such bullies were jailed. There had been a case of a group of young seamstresses who'd been badly treated, some had turned to prostitution; a group of them were sent out in one of Green's ships.

Archibald Boyd, brother of "entrepreneur" Ben Boyd, was a member of Chisholm's NSW backing committee by 1845 (Hoban, Wedding Cake, p. 182) before she went to England on ship Dublin (which he visited before she left to discuss matters with her). In London, Chisholm lived first at 29 Prince's Street (Jubilee Place) in the East End (Mile End?), off Commercial Road. She was visited by contacts of Archibald Boyd about October 1846. At the time the official agent for NSW was Hon Francis Scott. Gipps had givern her a letter of introduction to Gladstone, the Colonial Secretary, but instead she saw his successor, Earl Grey. Then she saw the Commissioners of Crown Lands and Emigration, who were T. F. Elliott and one Mr (Alexander?) Wood. Chishollm then seems to have had contacts with Richard Brooks (a Sydney merchant) and S. W. Silver here. By about June 1847, she'd had contact with a witness for her depositions, Carter of Carter and Bonus (who employed the immigration agent Besnard at Cork) (Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 212-220.) Hoban (p. 220) names a contact, Samuel Sidney, an ex-Wakefieldian, whose brother John had six years' experience in Australia at the time of the Gipps Squatter debates, and so had left the Wakefield camp. Chisholm found the backing of Vernon Smith, MP Northampton, Under-Secretary Colonial Office in 1840 who knew of earlier bounty ships' poor conditions. By Xmas 1849 Chisholm was at Islington, London, No. 3 Charlton Crescent. By mid-1849, despite Lang's sectarian sniping, she finally felt her emigration society could become a reality. The Family Colonisation Loan Society (FCLS) arose. About which she addressed a committee consisting of -- MP Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley, MP Sidney Herbert (a young Christian), MP Vernon Smith, John Tidd Pratt (a lawyer interested in Friendly Societies and banks for the use of ordinary folk), Francis G. P. Neison (lawyer and actuary, who did an 1848 analysis of the Census of NSW) and MP W. Monsell (MP Limerick, President of General Board of Health, a Post-Master-General (hence consideration of mail ships?), and a Catholic. Sidney Herbet joined Caroline's organisation. When he first arrived in Adelaide, Archie found Marshall MacDermott, manager of the Bank of Australasia, communicating with Coutts in London for the FCLS.

Hoban in Wedding Cake, (pp. 271-272), found that merchants in London tended to back Chisholm as they disliked the poorly-performing government emigration scheme and its dependence on the Land Fund. Some meetings were held in later 1851 between merchants and the FCLS. The interested merchants were Charles Buxton, Wyndham Harding, Robert Brooks, P. W. Flower, Frederick R. Gore and Edmund Gore, S. Jackson, W. Jackson and J. A. Jackson, W. Fanning, James Levick, W. Walker, Thomas Learmonth, Robert Lowe of Australia who was later an MP for Kidderminster. George Hay Donaldson. T. Aspinwall. D. H. Henriquez, T. S. Atkins, S. Kennard, J. R. Morrison, R. Armitage, Thomas Lowndes. W. Millikin, E. J. Wheeler, H. G. Smith, James Alexander, Louis Nathan, Joseph Webb. Lesser merchants names seem to be McClellan, Messrs Stanley Carr, S. Devonport, McNab, Chirnside. Then arise the names of various clergymen, and some Australians, William Westgarth, John Pascoe Fawkener, and J. T. Smith the Mayor of Melbourne, who gave their financial backing to the FCLS early in 1852. Later we find the names, J. R. Morrison, E. Armitage (seemingly still untraceable). Donations were held by London bankers Williams, Deacon and Labouchere. Shipowner William Schaw Lindsay came in as a Chisholm backer. And about time arose a new crop of emigrant ship horror stories (the ships involved are named by Hoban, Wedding Cake, p. 294). Nathaniel Montefiore from London's Jewish community backed Chisholm's activities, which encouraged Jewish emigrants. All ships now had to comply with the 1852 Passenger Act, (which was revised in 1855). In early 1853, Stuart Donaldson arrived to London from NSW and transferred some 10,000 pounds from the NSW Emigration Funds to the FCLS. A new FCLS committee arose, including Count Strezlecki (who had named Mt Kosciusko), George Hay Donaldson, Mr Gore, Atkins, plus Stuart Donaldson. A W. S. Lindsay liner was being built to be named Caroline Chisholm plus a ship Robert Lowe (auxiliary screw steam ships and very possibly experimental for the Australian run). About 9-10 August 1853 the FCLS had more dealings with colonial merchants and eminent bankers, including Raikes Currie, with Sir Isaac Goldsmid giving more backing for Jewish emigrants. More recruits to the Chisholm causes came from London merchant (banker?) Mr Hankey, Mr Mitchell. Mr. J. G. Hubbard a Governor of the Bank of England, MP (and banker) Mr Masterman. W. S. Lindsay by March 1854 had told Chisholm that his firm had 10,000 tons of mostly steam shipping being used as transports for France, he understood that the transport of ships, men and stores to the Crimean War was a huge chaos. - Lindsay (in Hoban, Wedding Cake, p. 325) seems to have fitted out ships for the Crimea according to the specifications of Chisholm.

(Perhaps the best book to use for cross-checking on the above-listed names is: Rodney Stinson, Unfeigned Love: Historical Accounts of Caroline Chisholm and Her Work. Sydney, Yorkcross Pty. Ltd., 2001.) It remains then to outline just what links, economic and otherwise, named merchants had with the Australian colonies. Here they are treated alphabetically whether normally resident in Australia or Britain. -Ed

James Alexander (1800-1877). Assisted Caroline Chisholm. Member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society, see Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273. He had been merchant partner with William Redfern. He was head of firm of Redfern, Alexander and Co. [of whom we know little]. Stenton, British Parliamentarians, Vol. 1, p. 389. Married to Sarah Wills, daughter of a NSW pioneer.

R. Armitage. Seems untraceable. One E. Armitage is also mentioned but likewise seems untraceable.

T. Aspinwall is difficult to trace and seems not worth speculating upon.

T. S. Atkins, seems untraceable.

Banks involved directly. Coutts and Co.

Archibald Boyd (more to come)

MP conservative, shipowner, convict contractor, merchant, banker, Robert W. Brooks (1790-1882). He assisted Caroline Chisholm. Robert Brooks began apprenticed to Hull timber merchant John Barkworth (Broeze on Brooks, p. 299, Note 8.) He was associated with Union Bank. Member of Jerusalem Coffee House, where all merchants of the Australia trade would meet. Member of London's General Shipowners' Society. (Both Dalgetys and Elders, pastoral companies in Australia, can trace some origins to the 1830s with John Gore and Robert Brooks. He and John Gore in London are directors of the London Dock Company by the late 1830s. By 1832 he deals with Launceston merchant Michael Connolly who links to Thomas Hewitt at Hobart, who linked to John Gore and Co. of London, exporters from England and importers of Austn wool to Britain. He links to A. Fenn Kemp in Tasmania and Raine and Ramsay at Sydney. Brooks became an agency house for Ceylon, and had earlier tried coffee from there, then tea (he backed the Bousteads tea plnaters of Ceylon). Broeze on Brooks (p. 342) has it that Brooks largely controlled the firm of tea handlers in Ceylon, Boustead Bros, citing Sir Thomas Villiers, Mercantile Lore., Colombo 1940, and this information is not in D. M. Forrest, A Hundred Years of Ceylon Tea, 1867-1967, London, 1967, which latter is taken as a standard history.
Brooks helped found Younghusband and Co., wool dealers of Melbourne. Before 1846 he is one of the largest importers of Australian wool and in 1846 was chairman of NSW and VDL Commercial Association which regulated London wool auctions of Australian wool. Broeze has noted (p. 203) that by 1844 Brooks was the third-largest importer of wool from Aust and by 1846 he was chairman of the Committee of the NSW and VDL Merchants' Commercial Association; p. 203, in 1848 Brooks had enough prestige to be called before the 1848 Select Committee on Navigation Acts; p. 203, Brooks in 1847 had 12 ships, alternatively employed as cargo, migrant or convict carriers. Re ship turnarounds, Brooks handled goods for other merchants or exporters. In 1848 his ship Kinnear benefited when Brook's agent Robert Towns contracted to carry mail. Robert Brooks and Co., the last incarnation of the firm to survive, ended in 1967. Various UBA directors in touch with Brooks were Joseph Dowson, Robert Campbell (of Sydney), William Fletcher, Frederick Dalgety and Sir Charles Nicholson. Brooks was also associated with Australasian Coal Mining Co. of 1853 and Australasian Gold Mining Co. Brooks extended credit via UBA to Gold Mining Co. at Bathurst, and He joined Enderbys in 1849 with the ill-fated second Southern Whale Fishery. He raised funds for Caroline Chisholm but had no involvement in the SA, NZ or WA Companies. In 1855 he became partner with Robert Spence as Rbt Brooks and Co. He made profits in Australian gold rush and from the Crimean war. Brooks had links to Thomas Icely, and the firm R. Towns and Co. had partner Alexander Stuart (1824-1886) a colonial treasurer and in 1883-1885 premier of NSW. In the 1860s Brooks was involved with shipowning, wharfage, ship repair, Australian coastal trade, regional tea and sugar hauls, the Pacific sandalwood trade, trade to Calcutta, some voyages to Britain, and with Towns, with sugar and kanakas. Brooks once used a Melbourne agent James Cain. Family tradition is that Brooks bought the first bale of Australian wool auctioned by the Lord Mayor himself of London. Brooks' father had invested with Hull timber merchant John Barkworth who trained young Rbt. Brooks. The Union Bank (some directors were Philip Oakden and George Fife Angas, see re chairman from 1829-1862 Lord Mayor Sir Peter Laurie) was a rival in London to Bank of Australasia. Brooks became chairman of the NSW and VDL Commercial Assoc., and was a founding director of Union Bank. He had an estate Woodcote Park at Epsom. (See Broeze's essay on this man in Appleyard and Schedvin.) Brooks is named as a persistent convict contractor (though the information does not surface from Bateson's book on convict shipping) in a roundtable essay on Broeze and Mr Brooks in International Journal of Maritime History, Vol. 6, No. 2, Dec. 1994, p. 201, in a comment by John Hackman that Brooks sent convicts to VDL, his ships still carried convicts in 1850, yet in 1851 he was part of Society for Promotion of Colonisation that was anti-convict-transportation. His own entry in English DNB 2004 edition, by Frank Broeze. Brooks was member of the first commiittee re Family Colonization Loan Society, see Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273. Brooks had one son a mercahnt in the Australia trade and another, Herbert, a director of Bank of England. Cf., A. Ellis, Heir of Adventure: the story of Brown, Shipley and Co, Merchant Bankers 1810-1960. Cf., Broeze, British Intercontinental Shipping and Australia, 1813-1850. Stenton, British Parliamentarians, p. 50.

Brewer MP Charles Buxton (1822-1871) He possibly assisted Caroline Chisholm. He is of 7 Grosvenor Crescent, Belgrave Square, London. Of Foxwarren, Cobham, Surrey. A classicist and mathematician, a partner in brewers, Truman, Hanbury and Co. He wrote a life of Sir Fowell Buxton. Stenton, British Parliamentarians, Vol. 1, p. 60. Member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society, see Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273. thepeerage.com. His own wikipedia page. He was father of a Governor-General of South Africa and a relative of a later governor of South Australia. GEC, Creations after 1901, p. 188. The Buxtons were much intermarried with bankers Hanbury and the financier name Gurney of Gurney and Overend.

Carter and Bonus, emigration agents - Robert Carter and John Bonus. Bounty Agents, emigration agents. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. See Broeze, British Intercontinental, p. 201, and Broeze on Brooks, re this firm as passenger brokers to Australia. Carter and Bonus was the only London firm handling the migrant trade to America, and were a major force in the Australian trade. One website avaialable says that by mid-1841, Carter and Bonus with Messrs John Gore and Co. and Robert Brooks and others, had established a new line of packets to sail from London on the first of each month, and Cork on 12th each month, alternatively for Port Phillip and Sydney. See Norwich Mercury, 7 May 1836. Carter and Bonus also had the only regular line of British packets from London to New York, sailing 10th of every month. They ran eg Andromeda 600 tons Captain Edward Willis; also transported migrants to Canada. Carter and Bonus were at 11 Leadenhall Street, by the East India Co. address, and also had links to the NZCo. (John Chapman and Co were at 2 Leadenhall Street.)

Thomas Chirnside (1815-1887 suicide). A bachelor. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. First of his district to employ Aboriginals as station hands. Respected as a busy and informed Port Phillip area pioneer interested in issues of the day, although brusque with it. In 1840s was member of Geelong and Portland Bay Immigration Society Committee. Interested in horse racing, sheep, imported horses, foxes, hares, pheasants, partridges, red deer, His horse won the Melbourne Cup in 1874. He became depressed, transferred property to brother and nephews and shot himself. See his own entry in ADB online.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, (1801-1885) Lord Ashely. Seventh Earl Shaftesbury. Philanthropist. He assisted Caroline Chisholm. He opposed the Reform Bill of 1832, a conservative but interested in social reform, in bettering working class conditions. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage for Shaftesbury. He is anti the opium trade. Promoted Acts re prohibiting women and children working in coal mines, wanted use of a 10-hour working day. Promoted "ragged schools" for waifs. See his biography by J. L. Hammond and Barbara Hammond, 1936. 4th Edn. His sister Caroline Mary Cooper married banker Joseph Neeld. GEC, Peerage, Shaftesbury, p. 650; Templemore, p. 662. See thepeerage.com.

Banker Raikes Currie 1801-1881. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. A multi-faceted career. In Pike, Dissent, p. 187, he and Samuel Mills dealt largely with The London Assurance (Co). In Pike, Dissent, p. 117, p. 528, Note 52 to chapter 5, Raikes Currie is a director of Van Diemen's Land Co., citing J. Bischoff, Sketch of the History of Van Diemen's Land. London, 1832. He is also a banker with Glyn's. (Fulford on Glyn's, p. 187.) He is a first cousin to one vice-admiral Mark John Currie born 1785 son of Mark Currie MP married to Elizabeth Close. He is of 4 Hyde Park Terrace, London. A cousin of Rt Hon C. S. Lefevre and of Sir Frederick Currie, Sir, Baronet. A banker of London and an East India proprietor, director of Sun Fire Office, a county magistrate, a liberal advocating national education. first elected in July 1837 for Northampton. Stenton, British Parliamentarians, Vol. 1, p. 98.

George Hay Donaldson (1810-1872). thepeerage.com. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. A member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273. See Broeze on Brooks.

Wool trader Sir Stuart Alexander Donaldson (1776-1849). He once owned Tenterfield Station according to e-mail from Jan Friar in June 2004. He was of firm Donaldson, Wilkinson and Co., the London woolbrokers for the Macarthurs of Parramatta. He seems to have been be a well- established London merchant "who has extensive colonial interests". GEC, Peerage, Wenlock, p. 488. His son's ADB entry. He (probably) assisted Caroline Chisholm. He married to Betsy Cundall. (See thepeerage.com.) He was father of a premier of NSW.

On William Fanning (1816-1887). Assisted Caroline Chisholm. Fanning's career still seems oddly cloudy. Burke's Landed Gentry for Fanning says he was in Sydney by 1842, a partner in Fanning, Griffiths and Co., owning 195,000 acres in Queensland, while he and his brother Frederick own 48,000 acres. He was of Australian Gold Mining Co. By 1854, of Colonial Sugar Co., Union Bank Australia. He connected to Swanston in Van Diemen's Land and Victoria/Melbourne. See an article by Dyster, Rise of William Fanning and the ruin of Richard Jones. Dyster says (pp. 366ff), Fanning was an agent for George Dent and Co, the great tea and opium trader between China, India, Britain and Australia. Fanning became a leading Sydney businessman, and his diary began 1 April, 1841, while the first British-Chinese opium war ended. The existing Sydney agent for Dent and Co had been Richard Jones, who was deeply in debt to Dent. The case arose of ship Lord Amherst to Hobart. Dent's Tasmanian correspondent was Thomas Learmonth, who had friends Capt. Charles Swanston and Robert Kerr, who between them managed Tasmanian consignments for Jardine and Matheson, Dent's major rival in the China trade. Learmonth and Swanston were heavily involved in woolgrowing and land speculation on the Australian mainland. By default, Jardine and Matheson had a virtual monopoly on tea etc for Tasmania. Fannings decided in Hobart to take on Richard Jones in Sydney by March 1842. Jones had meantime been a leading Sydney merchant for W. S. Davidson for 30 years, Davidson ie the founder of Dent and Co and Jones's sleeping partner in Australian woolgrowing. Jones presided at Bank of New South Wales, a nominee in legislature, a man who "treasured" the China connection. Inside 18 months after meeting Fanning, Jones declared bankruptcy. Fanning was visited by Leslie Bros, brothers of William Leslie (related to W. S. Davidson), and they had married into the Macarthur family. Charles Swanston was Tasmania's leading banker and a political power. Dyster says Fanning's diary ties all the networks together. A Jardine-Matheson collection of papers at Cambridge has despatches from John Thacker, a merchant ex-Bombay and Sydney who had gone to Sydney in 1842 to maintain an agency for Jardine-Matheson consigments. (Thacker called Fanning a "dog in the manger" re treatment of Jones.) In business, Fanning was a keen underpricer. NB; Patrick Leslie managed a sheep station for W. S. Davidson. In Sydney in 1840s, Fanning has a business partner, George Richard Griffiths (1802-1859), mention of one Henry Denison. Fanning also had business connections with John Gore in London. Fanning became a member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273. Cf, M. Kelly, (Ed), The Discrete Interest of the Bourgeoisie, before the Age of Gold, in Nineteenth Century Sydney. Sydney. 1979, pp. 4-6; See Ruth Teale on Fanning in Vol. 4 of ADB, print version.

John Pascoe Fawkner (1792-1869). He is one-time editor/owner of Launceston Advertiser. He is of Melbourne. He assisted Caroline Chisholm. A pioneer with Batman of Melbourne, he made 20,000 pounds in four years in Melbourne, with a newspaper Melbourne Advertiser and a hotel. He inaugurated the area of Pascoe Vale, Melbourne. Began Port Phillip Patriot and Melbourne Advertiser. Later had a bookselling and stationery business. Had to sell much land during the 1840s depression. Entered politics. Believed that Victoria needed more working men, hence his backing for Caroline Chisholm. His own entry in ADB online.

Financier Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid (1778-1859). Assisted Caroline Chisholm. Dealer in precious metals. Moccata and Goldsmid, bullion broker to Bank of England and East India Co. His own wikipedia entry. He became UK's first Jewish Baronet. See Burke's Peerage for D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Barts. Burke's Landed Gentry for Sebag-Montefiore. GEC, Peerage, Goldsmid, p. 339. See Jewish Encyclopedia online. Was one of the founders of London Docks.

Edmund Gore. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. Broeze on Brooks. Member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

Wyndham Harding (1817-1855). Civil engineer and Philanthropist. Fellow of Royal Society. Supported Mechanic's Institutes, benefit societies, promoted systematic emigration to extent of making loans to intending emigrants. He financially assisted Caroline Chisholm's first ship sent from Southampton. He is member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273. Brother of noted lawyer Sir J. D. Harding. His own wikipedia page.

D. H. Henriquez. He assisted Caroline Chisholm. Is he a link to Jewish interests in South Australia? Member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

MP Sydney Herbert. Secretary of State for Colonies. GEC, Peerage, Vaux of Harrowden, table, p. 228; Pembroke, p. 429. His son is 14th Earl Pembroke. He was partly responsible for sending Florence Nightingale to the Crimean War. Baron1 Herbert of Lea. Once Secretary of War. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. Hoban, Wedding Cake, p. 232.

John Gellibrand Hubbard (1805-1889). Assisted Caroline Chisholm. Burke's Landed Gentry for Thornton of Brockhall, GEC after 1901, Gladstone of Hawarden, p. 512. See paper by M. J. Daunton in 1988 isue of journal, Business History. GEC, Peerage, Addington, p. 56; Rendel of Hatchlands, p. 765. Was of J. Hubbard and Co., Russia merchants, St Helen's Place, London. Sometime Governor of Bank of England, Conservative MP. GEC, Peerage, Addington, pp. 56ff. Of Stratford Grove, Essex. Stenton, British Parliamentarians, Vol. 2, p. 183. His own wikipedia page. thepeerage.com.

J. A. Jackson, (c.1809-1885) active 1846. public servant and colonial agent. First a draughtsman in Sydney. Went to England, returned in 1831 on ship David Owen. had two farms by 1834, in 1833 became editor of John Pascoe Fawkner's Launceston Advertiser. By about 1842 had become a local director of Bank Australasia. (Which caused complicated problems). In 1846 he compiled a Census of NSW. Then went to Launceston. Arranged to become colony agent in London. Advocated emigration to Australia, stoppage of transportation, use of steamships, and more self-government in Australia. Became barrister. Always strangely feckless about where he would be living. In 1853 became colonial inspector of ES&A Bank from a base in Melbourne. Held this position till 1872. See Pike, Dissent, p. 411, by 1846 he was engaged by private citizens in VDL as their agent and Adelaide wanted his services also. He assisted Caroline Chisholm. Member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273. His own ADB online entry. Item on www.archive.org/stream on James Irving of Ironshore and his descendants 1713-1918.

MP Sir William Jackson (possibly). MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme. Burke's Landed Gentry for Glynn formerly Of Glynn. There was a little-known W. Jackson associated with Chisholm. He is maybe a member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Pike, Dissent, p. 411, by 1846 this man was engaged by private citizens in VDL as their agent and Adelaide wanted his services also. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. Member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

S. Kennard. (Stephen?) Probably of the London general merchants (and brothers?), John and Stephen Kennard, who do not seem to be part of any Kennard genealogy so far available on the Internet.

James Levick (1816-1884), merchant but rather little-known. Probably an ironmonger? He finally emigrated to Sydney and died at Hunters Hill [Ellesmere?] Sydney). He was once at West Hill House, England. A colonial merchant with partnerships in Australia and South Africa. When his first wife Averilda died he remarried. Moved to Hill House, Streatham Common. He was associated with Hookfield Grove, Clay Hill, at Epsom, which he sold to Sir Isaac Braithwaite in 1869. He assisted Caroline Chisholm. He emigrated to Australia in 1871 and died at Hunters Hill Sydney 12 Nov 1884, aged 68. Member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society, see Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273. His first wife was Averilda whose daughter Emmeline married London banker Henry Willis (of Willis and Percival, which failed 1878 due to over-extending about 250,000 pounds to a client of the London area). Emmeline's sister Florence became second wife of Sir William Owen (b. 1834) father of Sir Langer Meade Loftus Owen (1862-1935) by his first wife Elizabeth Charlotte Cary. Sir William Owen was an Irishman who became the first of three generations of Owen men, noted judges in Australian legal circles. Their sister Anne Helen Levick married Charles Hermann Goschen a one-time chairman of Lloyd's of London and a director of Bank of England.

Shipowner William Schaw Lindsay (1816-1877) Contractor MP and shipowner. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. WS Lindsay by March 1854 had told Chisholm his firm had 10,000 tons of mostly steam shipping used as transports for France, he understood that transport of ships, men and stores to the Crimea was a huge chaos. - Lindsay in Hoban (p. 325) seems to have fitted out ships according to the specifications of Chisholm. He ws brought up an orphan from Ayr by his uncle a Free Kirk minister, he left home in 1831 on a collier, cabin boy to West Inides, rising to ship commander by age 20. He retired from the sea in 1840 after some injuries, then went into a Hartlepool coal company. In 1845 he went to London, his brother-in-law being a Glasgow iron merchant. Lindsay became one of the largest shipowners in the world [but how?], retired in 1864. Elected MP. He built the Caroline Chisholm for Chisholm's endeavours, sailing in 1853. WS founded the shipping house of W. S. Lindsay and Co., 8 Austin Friars, London. He became an author of books and pamphlets on maritime affairs, eg in 1842, Our Navigation and Mercantile Maritime Laws. A magistrate for Middlesex. See Stenton, British Parliamentarians, Vol. 1, p. 239. Broeze on Brooks. See A. G. E Jones, Ships Employed, p. 275. See a website by UK National Portrait Gallery. See a website: www/nationalarchives.gov.uk/

Robert Lowe (1811-1892). Notably anti-labour-union in outlook. He (probably) assisted Caroline Chisholm, see her notes qv. GEC, Peerage, Sherbrooke, p. 678. His own ADB entry. His own wikipedia page.

Thomas Lowndes. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. Member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

London MP John Masterman (1781-1862) Director East India Co. (There was an emigrant ship to Australia the John Masterman arriving 2 August 1861 to Sydney.) Assisted Caroline Chisholm. His bank Masterman. Peters, Mildred and Masterman. was much concerned with C19th railway finance, in which Bensons invest as linked to Kleinworts. Of 35 Nicholas Lane, Lombard St, London. Once a deputy-lieutenant of City of London. A conservative.

W. Millikin (still difficult to trace). Assisted Caroline Chisholm. Member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

William Monsell, Baron Emly (1812-1894) thepeerage.com. A Catholic. Assisted Caroline Chisholm, see Hoban, Wedding Cake, p. 232.

Nathaniel Montefiore (d.1883). Assisted Caroline Chisholm. He is of Coldeast. Burke's Landed Gentry for Sebag-Montefiore.

J. R. Morrison (more to come)

Louis Nathan nd. Probably the President of the Hobart Synagogue. Little-known. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. Member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

S. W. Silver. Surprisingly little-known. Of Stratford East London or Cornhill London. His works were founded in 1852. An outfitter and contractor for clothes and supplies for emigrants to Australia and to sea-going officers, cadets, passengers. Manufactured waterproof clothing. Distributed folding furniture and ammunition. Also provided India rubber and first (rubber-insulated) telegraph cables. He assisted Caroline Chisholm, seemingly for obvious reasons. Anyone selling folding furniture would have been absolutely riveted by an Australian gold rush and the extra passenger traffic!

Philip William Flower (1810-1872) Assisted Caroline Chisholm. of the firm, Flower and Salting (Salting being a Dane.) Flower rather confusingly operated in both Australia (from 1834) and London (fromk 1858). PW's first two children were born in Australia, the rest at Tooting, London. In London he had offices P. F. Flower and Co. at Prince's Street, then at 62 Moorgate, then at 6 Moorgate; continues with the firm at Port Jackson and Melbourne. He had a collier's quay and other London wharves, plus two office blocks, Weaver's Hall in Basinghall St and Dane's Inn chambers off the Strand; plus lands in Surrey and Westminister, Furzedown, Streatham in Surry. The firm at Sydney invested in sheep stations and sugar plantations. From 1834 he has a ships chandlers in Sydney, a bank, and was an insurance Co director. His brother Horace remained in Australia shipping wool, tallow, and gold to his brothers wharves in London. Evidently, PW saw out the first energy of the gold rush period and had made enough money to repair to London, where from 1862 he became a private land developer for the first decade of the Battersea area. (See Metcalf on development of Battersea, pp. 27ff.) See Priscilla Metcalf, 'The Park Town Estate and the Battersea Tangle" a peculiar piece of Victorian London property development and its background', London Topographical Society Publication, No. 121, 1978. See Dakin, Whalemen Adventurers, pp. 116ff. Had one address at Furze Down, Streatham, Surrey. There was lately a Montefiore Street in the Battersea development. M. J. Daunton, 'Australian Merchants in the City of London, 1840-1890', Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Collected Seminar Papers, No. 30, in The City and the Empire, Vol. 1, 1987. See Broeze's article on Imperial Axis in Push from the Bush. Also, Broeze on Brooks. Flower evidently in Sydney at the time became a member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. It would seem that Chisholm knew him from her depression-time days in Sydney. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273. Stenton, British Parliamentarians, Vol. 2, p. 124 and p. 155.

Frederick R. Gore. (All the Gores mentioned are difficult to trace.) Of the Australia trade. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. He is member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

S. Kennard. Little known. Assisted Caroline Chisholm. A member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

Hobart merchant Thomas Learmonth (1783-1859) He possibly assisted Caroline Chisholm. He had three wives. His family entries in ADB online suggest he was influenced by Captain Charles Swanston and the Mercer connection. He is member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

Marshall MacDermott (c.1793-1877). Regarded as a quixotic sort of character. Former Captain 8th Regt/Kings Liverpool Regt. Bought a 500-ton ship in Sweden, sailed to Swan River Colony. Manager, Bank Australasia, in WA. (Butlin, Foundation, pp. 389-392.) Assisted Caroline Chisholm. He established the first bank in Western Australia. See www.austpostalhistory.com/

NSW banker Henry Gilbert Smith (1802-1886). He assisted Caroline Chisholm. He arrived in Australia in 1825, became MLA. Owned large parts of the Manly area of Sydney, was an original director and later chairmain of the Commercial Banking Co. of Sydney. (Noted in Mowle's books of genealogy for Thomas Smith of Sydney.)

Melbourne Mayor J. T. Smith (1816-1879). He assisted Caroline Chisholm. Publican, married into a publican family. He built Melbourne's first theatre, Queen's Theatre Royal. The Melbourne Argus criticised him seven times in gold-rush times as one of a breed of publicans grown rich on newly-arriving immigrants (and because the Argus preferred independent politicians). He assisted Caroline Chisholm. He owned rural property/stations on the Darling River NSW and in the Warrego District of Queensland. A Freemason of the Irish Constitution, he was buried an Anglican. (His own entry on ADB online. Online item from http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/)

Robert Towns (1794-1873). He had early experience on a collier out of North Shields, England. He married Sophia, half-sister of William Charles Wentworth. Towns and wife had two sons and three drs. On his daughter Sabina see the Salsbury/Sweeney book. In about April 1852 Towns imported Chinese workers using ship Spartan from Amoy under Capt Marshall and a second trip from Amoy in December 1852 on which was a mutiny; within China, the major coolie shipper was James Tait who had an emigrant ship, Emigrant. He wanted to import labourers from China, Germany, India (he also used Kanaka labour); he claimed he had saved Moreton Bay by bringing in Chinese. In 1859 Towns assisted in England E. C. Merewether to negotiate a steam service UK-Aust. By early 1855 he had taken Sir Alexander Stuart as his partner. Towns was President Bank NSW 1853-1855 and 1866-1867. Holder on Bank of NSW, Vol. 1, p. 152, sees Towns with others, Donald Larnach, John Thacker, William Ranken Scott as being much interested in the operations of the post-1850 "new" Bank of NSW. Towns had connections with Robert Brooks. On his use of Kanakas for sugar planting, see Lowndes, (Ed.) on CSR p., 15. See Hainsworth, Traders, p. 177. Broeze, on Brooks, p. 325 Note 76, and see F. Broeze, 'Australia, Asia and the Pacific: the maritime world of Robert Towns, 1843-1873'. AGE Jones, Ships Employed, p. 275. Notes. Lyons' article in May 1957 Business Archives Bulletin, p. 3. His own ADB entry online. See Broeze, British Intercontinental, p. 206, Note 39 re Carter and Bonus to Towns, 13 September 1845, ML, Towns Papers, Box 89. See p. 48 of Jan Walker on Jondaryan. See Dakin, Whalemen Adventurers, pp. 124ff.

William Sydney Walker (1787-1840). Assisted Caroline Chisholm. After working for a Scots bank, he from 1813 or so had worked for some years for a Calcutta firm, Fairlie, Ferguson and Co., came to Aust in 1813 on Eliza to collect debts from Robert Campbell, and 1820, then settled, had nephew Thomas Walker 1804-1886 came to Australia, Wm and his brother Thomas both directors of the Bank of NSW. An investor in Australian Agricultural Co. Director Bank NSW. Once treasurer of the Agricultural Society of NSW. Had a wharf at Dawes Point, involved in shipping and coastal whaling. Was both frugal and philanthropic. Engaged in coastal shipping, whaling and grazing. He and wife had nine sons and two daughters. Holder, (p. 167) sees Walker making an agency agreement for Bank of NSW with the Western Bank of Scotland in 1850ff as the Bank of NSW expanded into Queensland, then Hobart, then maybe via Jardine -Matheson with Hong Kong, Shanghai (they had links with John Thacker's firm), to Russell and Sturgis at Manila, also to Ker, Rawson and Co. at Singapore, Maclaine, Watson and Co. at Batavia, and Frazer, Eaton and Co. at Sourabaya; to retain links with London Joint Stock Bank and in July 1851 came an arrangement with Oriental Bank for collections at Calcutta. Holder (p. 164) sees him virtually an agent and ambassador for Bank of NSW in organising English and Scottish connections. (Holder, Bank of NSW, Vol. 1, p. 135.) He and a brother established a firm Walker Bros and Co. in London, handling wool. He is director of Bank of NSW in 1820-1824, on committee's examining Bank of NSW in 1844-45. Once President of Chamber of Commerce in Sydney. Latterly he lived in England where he died. (Had been joint-treasurer of Ag Society NSW at its inception.) Was uncle of Thomas Walker (1804-1886). He or a similar name (W. Walker) was member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. (See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.) His own entry in ADB online. Broeze on Brooks. See D. E. Fifer p. 99, re Walker Bros handling NSW wool in London. See Prentis, Scots in Aust, p. 112.

Australia trade merchant Joseph Webb (active 1845). Not well-known. Was he a Tower Hill marine dealer? Born 1816? Assisted Caroline Chisholm. A member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. Broeze on Brooks. See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

William Westgarth (1815-1889) Assisted Caroline Chisholm. A firm believer in the economic ideas of Adam Smith. He initially entered the firm George Young and Co. of Leith who were in the Australian trade. He emigrated to Australia, was at Melbourne by 1840, when its population was 3000-4000. He once saw a corroboreee of 700 Aboriginals. Had firm Westgarth, (Alfred) Ross and Spowers by 1845. In 1850 was elected to represent Melbourne in the Legislative Council of NSW. In 1851 he founded Melbourne Chamber of Commerce. In 1853 produced a book, Victoria, Late Australia Felix. He talked govermment into subsidizing German workers to go to the Port Phillip district. He returned to Australia in 1854, then helped a commission examining into the Eureka Rebellion. In 1857 he returned to settle in London to establish as a stockbroker. In 1862-64 he wanted abolition of convict transportation to Western Australia. He was co-founder of Colonial Institute in 1869 and one of six-co-founders of Imperial Federation League in 1884. He contributed items on Australia to Encyclopedia Britannica. (See an electricscotland webpage on this man.) Via his stockbroking activities, it is said that Westgarth "became the centre of the syndicates of speculators who have chiefly controlled Australian loans". Westgarth probably dealt with Rothschilds in London, as did Lanarch, he and Larnach (see below) being closely associated. (See Blainey on mining history, The Rush That Never Ended, pp. 43-44. Westgarth returned to Victoria in 1888. He had married in 1853 and had three daughters. (See his own ADB entry and his entry by Geoffrey Serle in DNB 2004 edition.) In the late 1880s he was trying to convince the Australian colonies to confederate, if only for joint guarantee of colonial debts. In 1887 he published a Sketch of the Nature and Limits of a Science of Economics, and was interested in problems of poverty and social inequality. His firm Westgarth and Co. failed in 1890, which was possibly not unconnected with the fact that he had taken £100,000 from it when he retired. Had he perhaps seen another depression coming? See Geoffrey Serle, The Golden Age: A History of the Colony of Victoria, 1851-1861. 1963.
On Larnach: He had older brother John who came first to Australia. Early in career Larnach had a flour mill. He supervised gold-buying for the Bank NSW, of which he was a director. He was also an auditor for Bank NSW. Generally, Larnach deplored excessive Australian colonial borrowing. Was director of London Joint Stock Bank, a director of Indemnity Mutual Marine Insurance Co., an investor in colonial banks and in Colonial Sugar refining Co. (CSR). He was friends with George Alfred Lloyd and William Forster. By the late 1840s (Holder, Bank NSW, Vol, 1, pp. 134ff, p. 164, p. 199) his father-in-law Walker ran the family business from London and was virtually an agent for Bank NSW for its Anglo and Scots linkages. Larnach counted Rothschild as a major connection. There is a Rothschild/Bank NSW loan in October 1868. The crash in Britain of Gurney/Overend made Larnach quite uneasy. Larnach also had a long business association with William Westgarth from Melbourne and became a director in London of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China. When in London he dealt in Australian gold. He and William Walker and Robert Tooth of Bank NSW established a branch at 37 Cannon Street, near Threadneedle St. He becomes auditor of Bank of NSW. Larnach became manager of the London branch of Bank NSW till 1879 and was once a director of the London Joint Stock Bank. See Sweeny and Salsbury on the husband of Sabina Towns qv. See R. S. Gilbert's essay on this man in Appleyard and Schedvin. Barnard's book on Mort, p. 228. Cited in Barnard, Visions and Profits, on T. S. Mort, 1961. Appendix II, Biographical Notes. His own entry on ADB online. Broeze on Brooks, p. 237. Prentis, Scots in Australia, p. 119.

SA and London financier Edmund Wheeler (active c.1840). In early 1840 he was a London manager of SA Co., about the time when Angas is in trouble, and Angas has to sell disposable property at Newcastle-on-Tyne, his Union Bank shares, and to get out of the mahogany trade. Wheeler possibly assisted Caroline Chisholm. There is an E. J. Wheeler named as a member of first Committee re Family Colonization Loan Society. (See Hoban, Wedding Cake, pp. 272-273.

Connections leading to connections? ? ? ?

(1) There is more than a hint in the information gathered here that Rothschild investment may have been quietly working its way in affairs, it is hard to say. The chief agent for Rothschild investment in Australasia was the Jewish name, Montefiore. Otherwise, apart from the banks operating in Australia, credit generally was made available by pastoral companies who had links to various investors in Britain. Those various British investors are not easy to identify, not is it easy to find the names they loaned to in Australia.
(2a) Comparative information: The New Zealand Company.
Members of The New Zealand Company are listed in the appendices in Peter Adams, Fatal Necessity: British Intervention in New Zealand, 1830-1847. Oxford University Press, 1977. As, Abraham Wildey Robarts. James Faden. William Mannings. Russell Ellice a merchant in the East India Trade and chariman of the East India Company in 1853. Edward Ellice (1781-1863), politician and merchant, involved also in the Canadian land and fur trades, with a life connection to the Hudson's Bay Co., a radical Whig MP and government minister.
Stewart Marjoribanks a merchant in the India trade, an East India Co. figure, and founder in 1825 of Pacific Pearling Co., also associated with the Australian Agricultural Society. Ralph Fenwick, member of a family firm in shipping insurance. George Lyall (died 1853) politician and merchant, head of a family firm in the East India Trade and shipowners from 1805, chairman of the General Shipowners Society in the 1820s, and in 1830 a director and in 1841 a chairman of East India Co., a Tory MP.
George Palmer (d.1853), politician and merchant, had East India Co. naval service, entered a family partnership of East India merchants and shipowners, chairman in 1832 of the General Shipowners Society, Tory MP for Essex. Colonel Robert Torrens (1780-1864), of Royal Marines, political economist, a founder of South Australia and chairman of the South Australian Commissioners. Hon. Admiral Sir Courtenay Boyle (died 1844).
Edward John Littleton (1791-1863), first Baron Hatherton, landowner and politician, MP, chief secretary for Ireland 1833-1834. James Pattison MP, in 1818 the chairman of the East India Company, Governor of the Bank of England 1834-1837.
Adams also lists members of the New Zealand Association Committee of 1837.

(2b) Comparative information. (More to come here)

On John Marshall, emigration agent, nd. See DNB entry for his son. He is agent for the 1834 London committee for female emigration, was also interested in carrying Irish women. See name John Marshall in line of Gillett bankers in Burke's Landed Gentry for Gillett formerly of Woodgreen. See D. E. Fifer, pp. 93ff. Broeze on Brooks, p. 26. Follows some note from Michael Rhodes - By 1841, migrant brokers included John Marshall, Masson and Higgins, and especially Carter and Bonus (Robert Carter of Bank of British North America, and the North American Colonization Association of Ireland) along with Joseph Somes, J. A. Smith, John Chapman, Russell Ellice, Ross Mangles, Sir Edward Parry). Carter and Bonus dealt with UBA in 1840, and in 1841 were dealing with Robert Brooks and John Gore for regular migrant carriage. By March 1841, men in the Australasian trade met regarding emigration regulations to Australia, including. Buckle, Brooks, Gore, Donaldson, Lambert, Willis, Angas, Cummins, Thomas Icely, Alexander Smith of Liverpool, John Gilchrist from Glasgow (once resident in Sydney as a director of UBA). All liked John Marshall’s ideas. In 1841, government stopped bounty payments for emigration, and those upset by this included Marshall, Pirie, Duncan Dunbar (about 1848 Dunbar sent seven ships to South Australia), Thomas Ward, wine merchant Frederick Friend and UBA chairman Cummins. Broeze, Brooks, pp. 133-134, p. 216. 1841: Australia: With the 1840s Depression, in February 1841 the Montefiore Bros stop payments, let down by Sydney and the wool trade, with liabilities of about £200,000, sending shock waves in eastern Australia. Others to follow, in trouble, were: Arnold and Woollett, George Bishop, Masson and Hoggins, John Marshall. Men in less trouble were Walker Bros. and Co., John Gore and Co., London Lord Mayor John Pirie. Robert Brooks was in some trouble. Also, Duncan Dunbar was involved in the bankruptcy of Alexander Brodie Spark, (1792-1856), merchant at NSW, (born 9 August, 1792 at Elgin) at Sydney, Welsh in Melbourne and Marshall in London. In other 1840s troubles, Connolly and Co. of VDL were replaced by William Borrodaile. Thomas Gore at Sydney was replaced by John Gore's son Edmund Gore who was going to Sydney. Gore's reorganisation lead to the Melbourne firm of Dalgety and Co., led by Frederick Gonnerman Dalgety, who later succeeded Robert Brooks as leader of the Australian interest in the City of London.

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