Emigration

As with most of the poor rural villages of East Anglia, there was a phenomenal amount of migration and emigration in the 19th century. In the 1850s alone, a number equivalent to one-fifth or more of the 1851 Clavering population left Clavering just for Australia - this was in addition to all those who went to other countries, or migrated north to the industrial areas or to London looking for work. The 1850s were one of the peak times for emigration generally, and a lot of Australians today can date their English ancestry back to that time. There are literally thousands of Australians over there now who are descended from Clavering families. One of them has just sent us these interesting notes about his ancestor. We would like to add some more such stories to this, so do please send them in if you would like to contribute. If you have any additional information or queries re this story, please contact John Piggott at piggottj@bigpond.net.au.

John writes:

Many Piggotts emigrated from Clavering to Australia in the 1850s. Conditions in the village were bad, especially for farm labourers such as my great-great-grandfather James (Jim) Piggott. He was born in the village, the son of Daniel and Elizabeth (nee Onions, or possibly Unwin). He was about 19 and single when he arrived in Sydney on board the Constitution in 1855 as an assisted emigrant. The story goes that he was “encouraged” to leave, because he had been in some kind of trouble. Whether this is true is hard to say.

The voyage to Sydney was awful. Jean Duncan Foley (In Quarantine: A History of Sydney's Quarantine Station, 1828-1984) writes that four people died from smallpox and 10 from whooping cough, diarrhoea or fever. On arrival, there were 12 cases of smallpox among the emigrants, and during the 65-day quarantine that followed a further 13 died. Charlie Moore, a passenger who kept a diary of the voyage, wryly noted: "I don't believe anyone can tell what Emigration is like but them that is in it.” Descendants of the survivors commemorated the 150th anniversary of the emigrants’ arrival in fine style at the old North Head quarantine station on July 17, 2005. For a thoroughly researched and entertaining account of the voyage, see Humin Hopes: The 1855 Diary of Charles Moore, English Immigrant to Australia on the 'Constitution'  (Charles Moore and Robert Wills [ed], ISBN 097576540X.

Jim's elder brother Nathan had come out with his wife, Rebecca, and children on board the Plantagenet about 12 months earlier. Rebecca's sister Ellen and married brother Moses were also on board. Nathan's cousin George Kemp, who was apparently his sponsor, was already in Sydney.  Many other young relatives appear to have emigrated to Australia about the same time.

Jim and Nathan linked up in Sydney, leaving a few years later for the Braidwood district of New South Wales (apparently by bullock waggon) to try their luck on the goldfields.

Before setting off, Jim met and married Pennuel Dow, the native-born daughter of a Scots stonemason. Their first-born was Daniel, in Braidwood. Their second son, my great-grandfather, also James, was born in Sydney on November 10, 1860. Thereafter, five more children were born on the goldfields.

Apparently the family had some early success. But  within a few years alluvial gold mining petered out and James became involved with a syndicate named Dargues Reef, which operated a shaft mine. While initially profitable, this, too, did not last.

By about the 1880s Jim Piggott and his family had moved to Surry Hills, Sydney. I gather that Nathan's line settled in the Goulburn district

People often wonder how country folk got to know about other countries and find the information to enable them to emigrate. The answer was probably some local benefactor or someone else who helped them. In Clavering for instance there was the British School master, William SAVILL who recorded in a letter of how in the 1840s and 50s he saw emigration as one solution to the problem of unemployment and rising poor rates: 'Deeply sympathising with the sufferings of the poor, more especially during the high price of provisions in 1847, I told them of Australia and America where plenty of good food and wages could be obtained. In a few years upwards of 200 emigrated…'

Local vicars and ministers also helped the poor to emigrate. Among the travelling preachers who ministered to the Primitive Methodist chapel in Clavering was William COLLEY. He was here from 1852-3, but later emigrated to Australia where he became a noted PM missionary first in Morpeth, then from 1860 in Brisbane 'in the new and rising colony of Queensland'. This was hard work in the new colony where life was rough and hard. Primitive Methodism was introduced in Sydney in 1844 and by 1855 still had only 128 members. Sydney had 80,000 people and church accommodation for 20,000 but there were many empty seats. Society was very different from England, they said, with little unity among so many who were strangers – in one day they might come in contact 'with a greater variety of persons than we should be likely to meet at home during a lifetime'. Meanwhile at home the Saffron Walden circuit which covered Clavering complained that they were losing all their best members and it was unsettling those left behind: emigration was 'the engrossing topic of conversation' in the chapels.

CLAVERING EMIGREES TO AUSTRALIA 1850s

Research © William Olive

Click here to see the list of ships to new South Wales with people from Clavering between 1849 - 1858