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May 11 , 2002
Since reaching America, Brett and his
wife had been very well. He had put on a stone in weight,
which he attributed to “a mind at ease”.
He sent his thanks to relatives and friends “who
assisted me to emigrate, for it will be a pleasure for
them to hear their exertions were crowned with success”.
Among the emigrants’ descendants are keen family
historians who delight in contact with branches of their
families in “the old country”.
With their kind help it is possible to discover how
their forbears fared in their new land. Sadly, Brett
Athow’s wife died, but he remarried – a lady
from New York.
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When the Ardewell sailed from
King’s Lynn on May 5, 1836, 154 emigrants,
mostly agricultural labourers and including the
Jicklng family of Heacham, were said to be “in
high spirits”. They were intending to settle
on the British American Land Company’s lands
in Lower Canada.
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He was a successful house-painter and
by 1850 owned property worth $1000. He was buried at
Rensselar, Troy, on October 23, 1864.
From 1834 the poor law commissioners in London had to
approve parish emigration schemes funded by government
or private loans secured by the parish rates. They stipulated
that emigration had to be voluntary, it could not be
enforced. But as anti-poor law propaganda had generated
wild myths about the fate of paupers to be sent to the
new “bastilles”, hundreds of “good industrious
people”, complete and incomplete families, husbands
and wives (some pregnant), with tots to teenagers, single
men and women, widows and widowers were keen to leave.
The Norwich Mercury of April 18, 1835 reported that
the Baltic, Wellington and Venus had recently left Yarmouth
quay with emigrants for Quebec, the vessels being “well
fitted up for the occasion”.
When the brig Shannan sailed from King’s Lynn on
Good Friday 1835, with nearly a hundred emigrants to
Quebec, Daniel Gurney, Esq, gave them “bibles,
testaments and prayer books”.
Apart from those emigrating privately, in January 1836
the poor law commission’s emigration agent reported
that during 1835 nearly 3000 poor persons had emigrated
from Norfolk and a small part of Suffolk to Canada and
had arrived safely.
Under the scheme, 3354 emigrated from Norfolk and 1083
from Suffolk between June 1835 and July 1837, in contrast
to 476 from Kent, the next highest county.
The majority were agricultural labourers but some were
shepherds, ploughmen, blacksmiths, thatchers, carpenters,
brickmakers, shoemakers and others.
Whereas agricultural labourers James and Robert Long
of Guestwick had each received more than £20 in
parish relief for their families during 1835-6 others
had received only a few pounds or none at all that year,
but offered to go to leave employment for others.
Lists of emigrants sent to the poor law commissioners
sometimes included character references.
Samuel Smith, 36, of Reepham with Kerdiston, was “a
man of good character and able to do any work”,
whereas another was “not so much respected by the
parishioners as some other men”.
Samuel Craske, aged 57, among 84 emigrants who left
Fulmodeston on April 6, 1836, was “a very superior
man as shepherd and good character.” Robert Utton,
23, with his wife Eliza, 22, and son Robert, was also
listed “but when the emigrants were about starting
he declined going”.
In contrast, John and Mary Newstead of Knapton who had
emigrated with six children, were said to be “located
in Upper Canada and are doing very well with her children.
The woman was in a state of pregnancy at the time of
sailing and the family in very great poverty and therefore
most anxious to emigrate.”
Seventeen parishes within the Docking poor law union
sent 358 people to Canada.
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