A New Life in our History: the settlement of Australia and New Zealand: volume II Paradise Found ? (1830s to 1890s)

A NEW LIFE IN OUR HISTORY

THE SETTLEMENT OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

II

PARADISE FOUND ?

(1830s to 1890s)

Justin Cahill

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Justin Cahill

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New South Wales, Australia

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"As many worlds had been colonised for idealist forms of government …

as for purely commercial considerations. The guiding principal of

foundation could not yet be considered the necessary criterion for a

successful subculture. The variables involved were too numerous."

- Anne McCaffrey, Killashandra , 1986.

Cover illustration: Photograph of the Golden Fleece at Invercargill with Mary Lang, dressed in black in the centre, and others standing outside.

oOo

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. A new vision

2. Long, bright world

3. Wakefield’s instant city

4. An eligible couple

5. Moving south

6. Becoming pioneers

oOo

INTRODUCTION

This is the second part of A New Life in Our History, an account of the settlement of Australia and New Zealand told from the perspective of ordinary people. The first part, The Fatal Shore ?, covered the transportation of Solomon Bockerah to New South Wales on the Second Fleet and the lives of Ann and Sarah Bockerah with Richard Atkins, the Colony’s sometime Deputy Judge Advocate. It also followed the Laurie family, who provide a classic example of how the Colony was not always the fatal shore the British government hoped it would be.

This part describes how the colonial reformers, particularly Edward Gibbon Wakefield, hoped to provide a more enlightened solution to Britain’s increasing levels of poverty and unemployment. It centred on establishing colonies intended to be social paradises in which everyone had a chance to support themselves and get ahead. It also covers the Laurie’s days at Kawhia, their dealings with the local Māori and how the differences between Māori and Pākehā expectations of British settlement ultimately led to war - shattering the reformers’ efforts to promote the new settlements. Its outcome is told from the perspective of the Laurie’s distant relative, Wiremu Te Mōrehu Maipapa Te Whēoro.

It also follows the experiences of two families who immigrated to New Zealand, the Langs and Nicholsons. The Langs, in search of new opportunities, were selected to be among the first settlers of Canterbury. The Nicholsons, by contrast, were rescued from famine and the infamous Highland Clearances and shipped to the new colony of Victoria. The Otago gold rush ultimately brought the Nicholsons from Victoria to New Zealand. The Langs, having made their fortune sheep farming, also moved to Invercargill.

Gold, and the war in the North Island, also brought the Edwards, a branch of the Laurie family, to the South Island. They were eventually joined by the Biggar and Harland families. The Biggars personify the choice facing many immigrants: where to go ? The family of Catherine Biggar’s brother, Peter McKay, had chosen Minnesota - which turned into a war zone when the Sioux Wars erupted. The Biggars chose the more distant, but safer option of the Free Kirk settlement at Otago. After initially settling in Victoria, the Harlands also came to Otago.

The arrival of the enigmatic Norwegian seafarer, Peter Petersen, in about 1878 rounds off the arrival of the progenitors of the families included in this book.

The new societies threw up challenges of their own. The Langs, having opened the Golden Fleece Hotel, found themselves firmly in the sights of the local prohibition movement. Others, such as the Edwards and Biggars, having moved to wherever they could find work, looked for a place to settle their growing families. How these contingencies brought them to Croydon Bush and how they established themselves there is told in part three, Crimson Ties.

oOo

1. A new vision

i

At the time the Lauries left Sydney, the British government was under increasing pressure to implement a systematic, long-term solution to unemployment and poverty. Previously, it had hoped to deal with them by passing laws to protect property and transporting many of those who broke them to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land in Australia, the fatal shore that was supposed to deter further crime. But by the 1830s it was clear that this was not an adequate solution. Transportation did not deal with the actual causes of unemployment and poverty. Many of the convicts were professional criminals who were unlikely to be deterred by the chance they would be caught and punished. Some of those transported to Sydney, such as John Laurie, had established comfortable lives there, creating the impression that it was a land of opportunity.

While the government implemented some of Bigge’s recommendations, it remained ambivalent about New South Wales’ future. Ultimately, its failure as a deterrent to crime and worsening domestic unemployment and poverty would prompt the end of its time as a penal colony. The idea of a fatal shore would give way to building new, model societies in its place

ii

In Solomon Bockerah’s time, enclosure and the mechanisation of agriculture were gathering momentum. Although they resulted in some unemployment and social disturbance, their effects were muted. But by the 1830s, the situation had changed dramatically. The full impact of these developments was now clear. One of Meikle’s threshing machines, for example, could put a hundred men out of work during the harvest. The economy remained depressed, exacerbating the situation. Prices, including the cost of staples such as wheat, remained high while wages stayed low.

There was a very real prospect of a revolution. As ordinary people had no voice in government, riots broke out in some areas. In 1830, rural workers in southern and eastern England protested against machines and demanded higher wages. Some farmers received letters threatening their lives if they bought threshing machines or did not get rid of the ones they already had. Many were signed by ‘Captain Swing’, the figurehead made up by the rioters who gave his name to these events – the Swing Riots.

Grey’s Whig ministry reacted harshly. It prosecuted almost 2000 rioters, with about 252 being sentenced to death. But it was not interested in creating political martyrs. Most of the rioters were pardoned and had their sentences commuted to prison or transportation. While nineteen were hung, about 481 were sent to Australia.

iii

Hanging the unemployed and hungry has never proved to be a long-term strategy for governing. Grey’s ministry hoped to prevent any revolution by extending the vote to give more people a say in governing the nation. Parliament passed the Reform Act of 1832. It was not much of an improvement. The Act gave the vote to men who lived in towns and occupied property with an annual value of at least £10. But this excluded about six out of seven men, including most of those who participated in the Swing Riots, and all women from voting. It also excluded most of the growing numbers of people who lived in the growing towns and cities. This unrepresented majority now demanded reform in two crucial areas: the Poor Laws and the Corn Laws.

Up until 1834 people who relied on poor relief had a choice. Those who could look after themselves lived in their own homes and were paid a dole by the parish authorities. Those who were too ill, disabled, young or old to work could fall back on the almshouses, hospitals, orphanages or workhouses. The Annings, for example, had the choice of staying in their home and receiving three shillings worth of poor relief each week or moving to a workhouse where they would be provided with food and board. But, in the brave new world of the 1830s, attitudes had hardened. Previously, it was accepted there would always be some people who, through no fault of their own, were poor and that those better off had a duty to help them. Many now believed the poor were responsible for their plight and could improve it if they wanted to.

By this time, the growing number of those dependent on poor relief increased the rates land-owners were required to pay the parish authorities. They baulked at paying and demanded the government intervene. It responded in 1834 by producing a series of amendments to the Poor Laws, known as the New Poor Laws. When the new laws commenced, relief was only be provided to those prepared to work for it. If an unemployed person could not find work in their own parish, they were required to move to the nearest workhouse. If they refused to move, they would get nothing.

The New Poor Law contributed to a growing climate of fear and anxiety among those living close to the breadline. Between 1830 and 1845, more than ten percent of the working population of England were unemployed. In the past, the unemployed relied on the commons or their fellow parishioners for support in times of need. Many now faced a ruthless, impersonal world where they were converted into mindless automatons, like Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist. Those who died as paupers faced a final indignity: they were handed over to the local universities and hospitals for dissection under the Anatomy Act of 1832.

Popular discontent found a new focus, the Chartist Movement. Its main objective was universal suffrage, representative government and the secret ballot. These ideals were enshrined in a Great Charter, the document from which the movement, ‘Chartism’, and its followers, the Chartists, took their names. But their campaigns to have Parliament accept it failed.

iv

The poor and disenfranched soon acquired a new and eloquent advocate. Friedrich Engles witnessed their plight while living in Manchester, one of the centres of the Industrial Revolution. He described what he saw in his classic work, The Condition of the Working Class in England, first published in 1845. Engles drew attention to the farmers who managed to hold onto small amounts of land after their parish was enclosed but could not compete with the owners of large estates. They were often forced to sell up and hire themselves out as labourers and so lost their interest in the land and, to an extent, their freedom by becoming dependent on wage labour. Nor were they guaranteed work. Overpopulation, Engles argued, was apparent by 1830. The manufacturing centres, such as Manchester, could not absorb the excess agricultural population. The resulting unemployment was exacerbated by increasing use of threshing machines. With so much surplus labour, wages fell. Many were in genuine distress. In June 1844, for example, Engles found families in some rural districts had only 6 shillings a week to live on, while the cost of necessities was twice as high.

There was some relief, although it was a long time coming. The Corn Laws caused unnecessary hardship to low income earners and the unemployed by keeping the price of bread artificially high. This forced them to spend most of their disposable income on food. They were not alone. Mercantile groups opposed the Corn Laws as they prevented free trade. Manufacturers found they left many potential customers without enough spare money to buy their goods, forcing them to lay off workers when business turned down. In 1836 representatives of mercantile, manufacturing and employee interest groups formed the Anti Corn Law Association, later known as the Anti-Corn Law League. It succeeded in having the Corn Laws repealed in 1846.

v

The Reform Act, Poor Law Amendment Act and repeal of the Corn Laws had little impact on unemployment and poverty. Something more fundamental was required – something that addressed the causes of poverty, rather than cleaning up its effects. There was really only one viable, long term solution - emigration to the colonies. While emigration seemed like a good opportunity for landless labourers or those with money to invest, it was an unpopular option. Many believed the colonies were socially backward and offered few opportunities for profit. Emigration was viewed as a mark of social failure, the fate which lay in store for debtors or who had fallen into social disgrace - like Richard Atkins. Naturally, prospective emigrants were also worried about leaving their family, friends and familiar surroundings or the dangers of a long sea voyage.

Others were, understandably, concerned over the lack of preparation demonstrated by some colonising ventures. Occasionally, unsuspecting settlers were dumped in a strange land and left to fend for themselves. The challenge facing the government was to turn emigration into a popular option for financial and social success. To achieve this, it would have to persuade the public that the colonies offered the chance for a new beginning, an opportunity to get ahead and build a new life in a new land. But how was the government to ensure the new settlements had the framework required to support these aspirations ? By the late 1820s, Edward Gibbon Wakefield believed he had found the answer.

vi

The solution to Britain’s problems came to Wakefield while he was in gaol. In 1826 he abducted Ellen Turner, a 15 year old schoolgirl and heiress, and convinced her to marry him. Wakefield believed the marriage would somehow prompt William Turner, Ellen’s father, to use his political influence to help Wakefield get elected to Parliament. Wakefield failed and was sentenced to three years in Newgate. While there he passed the time thinking up ways to deal with the impact of social and economic change. It was not entirely an altruistic exercise. Apart from serving the public interest, personal obsession fuelled Wakefield’s efforts. His criminal past excluded him from respectable society and public office. Wakefield hoped his work would rehabilitate his shattered reputation and restore him to the ranks of polite society.

Wakefield’s ideas were published in a series of anonymous articles in the Morning Chronicle. These pieces were collected and edited by Robert Gouger, a social theorist who shared Wakefield’s views, and published as Letters from Sydney in 1829. In these writings, Wakefield argued the solution to the government’s problem was a new approach to settlement, which he called ‘systematic colonisation’.

Systematic colonisation was based on the idea that a new colony would only develop a stable society and economy if it made careful use of its land and was subjected to social engineering. Some colonies, Wakefield argued, had failed to prosper as land was simply given away. In New South Wales, for example, settlers like John and Sarah Laurie had been provided with it for free. While this provided the key to their success, the kind of success that encouraged others to emigrate to Sydney, giving away land created several problems. First, some emigrants would take more land than they could cultivate, locking up the excess that could be sold to settlers who arrived later. Second, as the emigrants would be isolated on farms spread out across the colony, settlement would not be concentrated. This made it difficult to build up the critical mass required to spark the growth of a cohesive, cultured society.