would have known she was one of the lucky ones. For the majority of newcomers, even other well-heeled ladies of fine breeding and education, it was a struggle just to keep a toehold in an avalanche of adversity.
For every miner or merchant in the money, there was another down on his luck. And that very often meant a starving wife and children or a shelved fiancée or a fretful mother at home, waiting for news of a distant sonâs good fortune. In the case of Janet Kincaid, her husbandâs ledger was definitely in deficit. He had been gone for over two years, following the rushes around Victoria, while Janet was left in Glasgow with six children and a slew of unanswered letters. By the time she at last procured her husbandâs latest address from his father, she was heartily fed up. A rare archival find, here is Janet in her full glory:
You left to better your family, you donât need to write that any more, we have had enough of that talk. You had better do something for them . You left the ship to better your self and to get your money to your self . You never earned much for your family, far less for your Wife , you sent five Pounds, two years and a half ago. You mention in a letter to me that you made more money at the digging than ever you made at home. You might have sent us the half of what you made. You are a hard hearted Father when you could sit down and eat up your childrenâs meat your self . I was a poor unfortunate Wretch , little did I think when I was young what I had to come through with your conduck . We might have been the happiest couple in Greenock, you got a good wife and many a good job at home if you had been inclined to do well but folks that cante do well at home is not to be trusted Abroad â¦poor Duncan [child number five] does not know what sort of thing a Father is, he thinks it is something for eating â¦find a proper place where I will send my letters. No more at present from your deserted Wife Janet Kincaid. 6
The ghosts of the past haunted new immigrants, reminding them of their righteous strivings and goading them with the too-often inadequate results.
Some single women fared better on arrival than their male counterparts, often because employment situations had been pre-arranged. When nineteen-year-old Irish girl Eliza Darcy arrived on the City of Manchester in July 1854, she went straight into the service of Mr Jeffries, on the Great Western Road, employed on a three-month contract for £18 with rations. 7 Eliza was born in Ennis, County Clare, in the parish of Killaloe, the second largest Catholic diocese in Ireland. Another branch of the Darcy family from Clare had arrived on the Parsee in June 1854: Anthony and Honora Darcy and their six children aged between fourteen and twenty-five. Eliza travelled alone to Victoria, but also sailing on the City of Manchester were members of the Howard family from Dublin. Devout Catholics, the Howard and Darcy lines would later unite in the passion-fuelled summer of 1854.
The Galway tearaways, Bridget and Michael Nolan, also secured employment as domestic servants soon after arriving in Geelong penniless, and, according to family tradition, shoeless. Bridget had a malformed arm and worried it would be counted against her, but the siblings found permanent work at a Mt Wallace grazing station without much trouble.
One girl, employed as a servant, twittered merrily to her sisters at home about her startling new prospects on the marriage market:
I had an offer a few days after landing from a gold-digger, with £600â£700. Since that I have had another from a bushman, with £900; he has gone to the diggings again, to make plenty of money. That I have not decided on yet. I shall have a handsome house and garden and all I wishâ¦I have so many chances, a midshipman for one, so you may guess how different things are here if you are respectable. 8
Eligible women had a remarkable new power to pick and choose their
For every miner or merchant in the money, there was another down on his luck. And that very often meant a starving wife and children or a shelved fiancée or a fretful mother at home, waiting for news of a distant sonâs good fortune. In the case of Janet Kincaid, her husbandâs ledger was definitely in deficit. He had been gone for over two years, following the rushes around Victoria, while Janet was left in Glasgow with six children and a slew of unanswered letters. By the time she at last procured her husbandâs latest address from his father, she was heartily fed up. A rare archival find, here is Janet in her full glory:
You left to better your family, you donât need to write that any more, we have had enough of that talk. You had better do something for them . You left the ship to better your self and to get your money to your self . You never earned much for your family, far less for your Wife , you sent five Pounds, two years and a half ago. You mention in a letter to me that you made more money at the digging than ever you made at home. You might have sent us the half of what you made. You are a hard hearted Father when you could sit down and eat up your childrenâs meat your self . I was a poor unfortunate Wretch , little did I think when I was young what I had to come through with your conduck . We might have been the happiest couple in Greenock, you got a good wife and many a good job at home if you had been inclined to do well but folks that cante do well at home is not to be trusted Abroad â¦poor Duncan [child number five] does not know what sort of thing a Father is, he thinks it is something for eating â¦find a proper place where I will send my letters. No more at present from your deserted Wife Janet Kincaid. 6
The ghosts of the past haunted new immigrants, reminding them of their righteous strivings and goading them with the too-often inadequate results.
Some single women fared better on arrival than their male counterparts, often because employment situations had been pre-arranged. When nineteen-year-old Irish girl Eliza Darcy arrived on the City of Manchester in July 1854, she went straight into the service of Mr Jeffries, on the Great Western Road, employed on a three-month contract for £18 with rations. 7 Eliza was born in Ennis, County Clare, in the parish of Killaloe, the second largest Catholic diocese in Ireland. Another branch of the Darcy family from Clare had arrived on the Parsee in June 1854: Anthony and Honora Darcy and their six children aged between fourteen and twenty-five. Eliza travelled alone to Victoria, but also sailing on the City of Manchester were members of the Howard family from Dublin. Devout Catholics, the Howard and Darcy lines would later unite in the passion-fuelled summer of 1854.
The Galway tearaways, Bridget and Michael Nolan, also secured employment as domestic servants soon after arriving in Geelong penniless, and, according to family tradition, shoeless. Bridget had a malformed arm and worried it would be counted against her, but the siblings found permanent work at a Mt Wallace grazing station without much trouble.
One girl, employed as a servant, twittered merrily to her sisters at home about her startling new prospects on the marriage market:
I had an offer a few days after landing from a gold-digger, with £600â£700. Since that I have had another from a bushman, with £900; he has gone to the diggings again, to make plenty of money. That I have not decided on yet. I shall have a handsome house and garden and all I wishâ¦I have so many chances, a midshipman for one, so you may guess how different things are here if you are respectable. 8
Eligible women had a remarkable new power to pick and choose their
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