STRANGERS TO THE SEA

 Letters Selected From Ordinary Emigrants : 

Steerage Passengers To Port Phillip

 "For nearly a century following the first settlement of Australia, every immigrant, bond or free, had in common an experience none could forget: a passage under sail, lasting anything from two months to six, a passage from the old world to the new. Though nearly all had set out as strangers to the sea, they had crossed the world's most tempestuous oceans by a route not long before sailed by explorers. They had lived during the voyage in a state of limbo, out of touch with everyone but their shipmates, no longer belonging to the old world nor yet to the new. Day by day they had lived under conditions they could scarcely have imagined before their departure. When at last they had landed, they were by no means the same people who had boarded ship months before."

(Don Charlwood, 2000 [1981], The Long Farewell, Burgewood Books, Warrandyte Vic., p. 1)

Historically there has been something of a bias towards the rural elite in writing about the early European settlement of colonial Victoria. This is probably the result of the higher number of personal and business documents from this group preserved in libraries and museums. This volume of material has tended to crowd out the smaller amount of evidence left by 'the many'. 

In contrast, the aim in this exercise is to hear from the type of people who made up the vast majority of emigrants to south-eastern Australia in the mid-nineteenth century. By choosing letters from the non-squatter classes ― the actual workforce of tradesmen, labourers and domestic servants ― I hope to meet 'the mass' of a rapidly increasing Australian population in that period. 

Foremost amongst the concerns of this comparatively silent majority of emigrants from Great Britain was of course their experience of the weather. Rich and poor alike had their minds fully focused on the danger of drowning, but we can imagine how this fear was dramatically intensified by the confined view from between decks. 

The next in order of mention is probably the circumstances that awaited them onshore, when they finally reached their destination. Some had their places arranged with letters of recommendation, but most had to take what was offered once they landed. As at home, their futures were in the hands of employers, for good or ill.

1.  Letter written by a young Scottish emigrant to her father, dated 5 June 1848

An account of shipboard life; also a description of her early life in Melbourne, employed as a housemaid with Mr and Mrs Brown. Based on correspondence between the original owner of the letter Captain McClure and Patricia Reynolds of the State Library of Victoria regarding the letter's provenance, the author of the letter is probably Christine or Mary McRitchie.

     "We are happy to inform you of our safe arrival in Melbourne on May 16th we had a good passage a good Captain a doctor & officers with Temperate sailors we intended keeping a Jurnal but our part of the Ship being so dark many days we could not see there was nothing of Speaking about but we cawte a few Fish & Shirks & they passed away the time chirefully their was some Children died but none of the old people died it would have been a great deal worse if their had been but the Child-ren were never much minded their was Eight Births no Marriages on board but their was two of the Children Baptised named Elizia & William Stewart."

The letter needs fairly subtle interpretation. Christine/Mary seem most anxious to give a positive ('don't worry, we're fine') impression to their parents and siblings back in Dunfermaline (sic). They convey the sort of information that might be expected from well-brought-up girls, and try to maintain an optimistic note throughout. 

"...I hope you received our letters from Pleamouth and we dropt one by the way, we had Church on Board every Sunday weatherin permitting, we never wanted a meal of vitals all our passage, so you may consider what a passage we had, we may thank the Lord for our safe arrival..."

Part of their determination to please may follow from their positioning between two families of Brown they do not want to offend, their referee in Scotland and their employer in Australia. The girls begin by describing the single women's accommodation on board ship, which they do with what might just be a touch too much jolliness.

     "Their was 51 Singal Woman all in our room & we were very happy, their was but 16 English & 35 Scotsh were all ingaged on board but our-selves it was like a Fair, we went to whom we had our letter to and they found Situations for us & we got more wadges then was givean on board, we have good Situations & we are getting £25 the year , the housemaids have no grats to clean they all burn wood their is not such a thing as a grate to be seen, the work is not so haird as it is at home nor the mistresses so sassay, theay are glad to get any person to work to them 

     ... the weather has been very bad since we came & the streets is not for Femails to walk they are in such a state they will not let us out thay bring every thing to us that we want the people are so kind that we are quite ashamed of their kindness to us & as for Mr & Mrs Brown they are afull kind to us & always to make their house our home at any time, be shure and tell, Mr William Brown and the famely that their both well they have three nice Children and let him know how muche Obledged we are to him for his letter ..."

While there occasional glimpses of a reality less than perfect, such as the  darkness of their quarters in steerage and the children who died on the voyage, the girls are aware that things could have been much worse and seem genuinely grateful that they were not. What little sadness that is allowed to emerge is related to their homesickness.

     "Dear Father be shure & let us know the name of our last Sister that was born before we left home ... With our kind kind love to grandmother & all friends & acqentances, that none be afraid to come here but for the passage for it is so long, it is upwards of twenty thousand miles, we have never seen any person  that we know of as yet.  Dear Father be sure and write and let us know how you are all at home ..."

At the time of writing they are clearly still missing family and they are careful not to put any of them off from possibly coming out to join them. Everything outside Melbourne may be exotic and strange but overall the land they present is one of fairness and plenty.

     "Melbourne is as large a place as Dunfermaline the most of the houses are brick it is wounderfull to se such a place only to be 13 yearsy Old it is al,l Buch round thousands of miles what we would call a plantations at hom the naitivs live their and large Sheep Stations and Bolicks Station their, & the natives live like the Soldiers, they ocopy so much ground & they have Kings & Chiefs & any of the rest of them goes on anothers ground they fight with them. The Beef is 2d. per pound Rice 6d per lb, Bread cheap Barly 6d per lb Clothing and Drink very high, their is no Beggars hear Rich & poor lives all alike if people is willing to work, they can get plenty to do the people is grate Tea Drinkers, the tea is 1/6 per lb they have it after every meal ..."

(Letter, 1848, June 5, Melbourne, to the author's father, Scotland, by Miss McRitchie, State Library of Victoria, Online manuscript MS 10233, Original in MS BOX 4435/2)

[Notes on the Voyage: The William Stewart, a ship of 576 tons, under Captain William Jamieson, arrived 15 May 1848 at Port Phillip, after departing from London (Gravesend 14 January 1848) and Plymouth (25 January 1848) a journey lasting 110 days. The vessel carried 284 'Bounty Immigrants', including 54 single woman, 47 single men, 20 children, and the remainder married couples, predominantly Irish. There were 7 births and 3 (infant) deaths. Reference: Assisted Immigrants Index 1839-1896, Museums of History New South Wales, and <portphillipdistrict.info/SE_and_I_Passengers_Lists_1843-48_105.htm>, 2015]

2.  Letter from Alexander Duncan to his parents : manuscript dated 20 Dec 1856

Four-page handwritten land by Alexander Duncan to his parents in Scotland, dated 20 Decembert 1856 (Duncan's 24th birthday). This is his first letter, posted shortly after arriving on the vessel Euphrates, in Port Fairy, Victoria, as an immigrant. The letter was written on the farm established from 1852 by Andrew C. Kell, where Duncan worked as a farm labourer. The farm located just west of the current township of Koroit, close to the north-west rim of the Tower Hill volcanic crater. Three years later, on 27 December 1859, Alexander Duncan married Kell's eldest daughter Agnes. Alexander Duncan died in 1896.

" ... we had a look and tedious voyage we left Southampton on Augt 7th  we set sale that morning and we droped anchor on Nov 11th and we came ashore next day and glade we was to get our feet on land again  we was bliced all with good health  I was as well & stout whin landed as whin I left home  we had 4 births & 3 deaths  thay were all children  we was very well provided for on the ship. we could not complain at all  we was all in mases  8 was about the general run in each mace  there was one of the mace apointed to see those goods wied out and take tham to the cook  we had good weather the grater parte of the voage  we had a months bad weather  it was very cold wet and very disageable that was after we passed the cape of good hope  we never caled in there  since spoting any homeward bound vessel so we had no chance sending a letter back  I have been rather long in writing ... I may well write to you but as for seeing any of you it is a hard question when that may be ... if I keppe my health I am right anigh here better than at home so I will conclude and say no more."

Hidden amongst this understated text is a trauma that Duncan would rather not address.

The writer barely makes mention here of his experience of the much faster and very frightening Great Southern Circle Route that had become standard for emigrant ships after Captain 'Bully' Forbe's 68 day dash to Port Phillip in the Marco Polo in 1852. The old stops at Rio de Janeiro or Cape Town to reprovision and take on fresh water were no longer made. Instead the prevailing catchword was speed, and at any cost ― icebergs and freezing temperatures, severe passenger discomfort and terror, broken masts and shredded sails. Swinging far south to follow the shorter curved route and be swept along by the howling westerly trade winds of 40 and 50 degrees latitude had become the new normal, a passage so horrific that it seared itself into the memories of a generation of emigrants.

Alexander Duncan does not attempt to describe his crossing on the Euphrates in so many words. Perhaps it was enough to have survived it. But one thing was fairly certain. He was unlikely to risk repeating it with a return journey home any time soon. He does at least express this reluctance. It seems that Duncan's mind was more comfortable relating his practical day to day circumstances in the here and now. And in this the reader can detect some satisfaction. Through a combination of good health, common sense, and good luck, the young Scotsman seems to have landed-on-his-feet. There is no personal need for him to go back. He is quite content where he is. Even the goldfields fail to tempt him.

" ... so I am engaged to a farmer  I was engaged the next day after I came ashore  this place is about 12 miles of the Port where we landed and there is a good many of my ship mates around me which is very lightsome for us. the fillows that left Perth side thay are just round about me and I am liking my place very well ... my master is a scotchman  I am working horses here the same as at home  he has 2 pare of horses & a tame of dulekes [a team of bullocks?], a tame is 6 or 8  my neighbours are good aneigh as fare I se of tham  thare are 2 besides me  the one is English & the other Irish  it makes no difference here what Country thay are  thare are all sorts in this country ... I am Engaged 12 months at £1 per week the engagement is rather to long but all emigrants are taken the better of whan they come into this country  its strange to them and they donot no well what to do and the masters consider us not so good for the first while ...the run of wedges just now is 25 or 30 shillings per week and rations  This country is not like the home country  what ever wedges a man has always his meat along with [ ... ?] although he is working piece work it makes no diffirence.  harvest is drawing near I thank it will be in a fourtnight or three weeks and after that wedges is considered to fill so if that be I wont be so [ ... ?]  if we had of taken a little more time we might have down differ  we was not forced to engage we was in the deport before we engaged  we came all to it as soon we came ashore so that was the place the farmers came to hire us. thay new of us all comming and they had it mad up amongst thamselves just to giv a certin thing and that was considered a risionavle offer ... there ware plenty of masters so that the grater part of tham was engaged and that was like the thing, and thare a fue that did not engage  some went one road some another  some went to the diggings. this is a better country for the working man than the home country  I will never come home and work to the farmers as I have down  a man has a fair chance here if he is sturdy and behaves himself ... this is a good country for good living. there is no pease nor porach here  we have our tea morning and night beef roasted & boiled all times and lofebread they have all ovens in the bush and bakes it themselves ..."

(Letter from Alexander Duncan to his father and mother : manuscript, 20 December 1856, State Library of Victoria, Online manuscript MS 17036)

[Notes on the Voyage:  The Euphrates sailed from Southampton on the 7th of August 1856 and arrived at Belfast (present day Port Fairy on the South West Coast of Victoria) on the 19th of November 1856. The vessel carried 232 statute adults including 65 single males, 19 single females, and 60 married couples with 58 children and 15 infants (3 of whom died). Upon landfall, Assisted Passenger No. 213, Alexander Duncan, Laborer from Perth, Scotland, was listed as 'Church of England, Read & Write, Age 23', and 'Engaged by AC Kell, Tower Hill', on 21 Nov at £52 for 12 months. (Public Records Office Victoria, Assisted Passenger Lists, Book 12, Pages 236-244)].

3. Copy of Letter written from 'Benayeo' to family in London, 23 July 1848

Sadly, this letter may never have been delivered. It's author left two addresses with the original. One was to the intended destination, "Mr. J. Bentley at The Simpson Lane Coffee House, Old Bailey, LONDON, ENGLAND". The other was a presumably a return address for his parents' reply; "DIRECT TO THE OLD MR McLEOD, BENAYEO, PORT PHILLIP DISTRICT, SOUTH AUSTRALIA". The reason for doubting its posting is that this copy was, in 2014,still in the possession of Daryl Cother, then owner and resident of 'Benayeo homestead', on the Border between Victoria and South Australia. 

The author seems to have disappeared shortly after writing it.  Random clues in the letter raise a number of possible endings, none of the them cheerful. He may have died from injury or disease, he may have lost his way in the bush, or he may have got caught up in a sly grog shanty. Any of these could have resulted in burial in an unmarked grave. It is best to let him explain his situation after arriving in the colony.

"It happened very unfortunate, a few days before we arrived [at Geelong] a vessel with emigrants had anchored and they were the cause of wages being very low. Men came on board and would not give more that 14 pounds a year with rations.

I and many more went on shore to chance it with what little money we had; but things were so dear ... lodging one shilling a night with a blanket and straw to lay on, and if you had anything to eat 1 shilling a meal ...

When we arrived, it being winter, no work to be had anywhere. After I had been there a day I made enquiries and was told a Mr McLeod  needed young men to go with him into the new country, (that is a place just settled upon about 300 miles in the interior). I went to him and he would not give more wages than 20 pounds a year and rations which owing to my circumstances I agreed to take and now at his station in the new country and an excellent place it is. 

The blacks are troublesome at times being savage and cannibals. To see me now you would not know me. They never shave in this place; (carry) a bell ring powder stop and a double barrelled gun (Robinson Crusoe). The blacks kill you for the sake of fat around your kidneys and if they come any tricks with you the only thing you can do is shoot them, to save yourself from being tomahawked which I hope I shall not have occasion to do ...

... I did not know when I should be able to let you know anything about me, but the master told me today, Sunday, he was going to Geelong in the course of the day. I thought I would write not knowing when I should have another opportunity ...

... In going up the country or anywhere about it, wherever you can find a house you go to it. You are sure to get everything you want, but when you cannot, you sleep in the bush on the bare ground and it being the wet season it gave me an inflammation in the side and nearly killed me. But now, I thank God, I am nearly well but it has left a pain in my side and slight cough which the doctor says the summer will take away.

You have no occasion to fear my drinking again here; the brandy, rum and gin is 10 shillings a bottle and beer 3 pence a bottle, little more than a pint ... The first opportunity I have commenced drawing teeth in the bush for which I got 5 shillings for every tooth and when it is known I am here, I believe I shall have plenty to do.

... I shall write and let you know all about the places this week and keep the letter till an opportunity occurs to send it."

Exactly how this letter got 'marooned' at Benayeo is unlikely to ever be known. In addition, while he mentions his voyage to Hobart Town and subsequent passage over Bass Strait, John Bentley fails to name the ships or give dates for the landings in each case, so the passenger lists are also unavailable. Despite the gaps in our knowledge however, it is clear that memory of the weather remained front and centre for this emigrant as it did for others.

"We sailed the same morning my brother William came to see me. After a few very rough days we cleared the [English] channel and had a fair wind but very rough all the way to Hobart Town which we made in 85 days, a voyage which had no been done but once before and that 14 years ago.

After leaving Hobart Town, crossing Bass's Straits (48 hours voyage with a fair wind) we were 15 days and such weather !! We lost our flying jib boom, twice our top gallant masts. The passage is very dangerous with a foul wind, much more so than any other coast in the world, but thanks be to God we arrived safely."

(Copy of the letter sighted and reproduced by Max Neale, 2014, Broad Sails, Fresh Fields and High Flyers: Stories of Squatters, Settlers and Success in Australia Felix, Self published by author, Naracoorte SA 5271)

4.  Diary entry on emigrant voyage by Monarch of the Sea, July - Nov 1857 

An extract from the Diary of John Dill, Giving His Account of the Voyage of the Ship 'Monarch of the Seas', which left Port of Liverpool 22 July 1857 and arrived Port Phillip 3 November 1857. John Dill 14 yo and his brother Joseph Dill 16 yo continued on by steamer to Sydney. Copy of the diary extract is attached to 'Monarch of the Seas' passenger lists kept at Public Records Office, Victoria. Original diary copied by D. Street, 5/12/95-7. The perils of the Great Southern Circle Route are clearly recalled.

"The sailing vessel in which we came out called Monarch of the Seas was considered one of the largest and best clipper ships then built. The passage out was not without many incidents, some of which are now fresh in my memory.

We got into what is called a white squall south of the Cape, lost our mainmast and mizzen-mast. Sails torn to shreds and only the vessel was a good one, no doubt it would have been all up with us. We were becalmed for three weeks on the line [equator] and afterwards got too far south and got among the ice. I shall never forget that part of the voyage.

The day previous an old sailor said to me, 'We are too far south and the Captain is out of his reckoning; if you stay up tonight you will probably see ice". Like most boys I was fond of the sailors and spent a good deal of my time with them. Consequently, after the conversation with my old sailor friend I decided on staying up and was well repaid for doing so, as about 12 o'clock at night we got into sheet ice.

The grating of ice on copper [bottom] of the vessel made a terrific noise, at least so it appeared to me at the time and no doubt was very alarming to the passengers of whom there were about three hundred. The deck soon presented an appearance not easily described and impossible to forget with so many passengers, men and women and children, all in deshabille who had rushed on deck thinking we were about to be wrecked. Among the passengers were about eighty Welsh people who could not speak a word of English, and the screaming of women and children and din of voices is still vivid in my memory.

The passengers were all ordered to their cabins and some of them had to be forced down and the hatches closed over them. One very big woman rushed up to the first mate, threw her arms around his neck and asked him to save her. The following morning we found we were pretty well surrounded with sheet ice and that there was a large iceberg about a mile from us. Our course was altered at once and we got clear of the ice in a few hours.

Another incident of the voyage was that one of the sailors was put in irons for threatening the chief mate. My impression at the time and ever since was that the sailor had great provocation as the mate was a most overbearing man and none of the sailors and passengers liked him; he was however considered a good sailor."

(Attached to 'Monarch of the Seas' Passenger Lists, Images 259-260 of 393, Public Records Office of Victoria, PROV Online)

[Notes on the Voyage: The vessel left Liverpool bound for Melbourne under Master John A Burgess. Registered tonnage of 1980/2040 with legal carrying capacity of 430½ Statute Adults. On 22 July 1857 at Liverpool the captain certified that 'Provisions actually laden on board this Ship are sufficient according to the Passengers Act for 385 Statute Adults for a Voyage of 140 days'; and signed 'a correct list of the Names and Descriptions of all the Passengers' comprising 356 married and single adults and 46 children and infants, including 247 single males ('Equal to 374 Statute Adults).]

TO BE CONTINUED ...