Alan Crosby shares his views on family history
Waving Goodbye
Alan Crosby considers how emigration has affected our families over the centuries
Among the most popular subjects for Victorian artists was emigration. There are numerous paintings on the theme, each guaranteed to evoke sad and sentimental feelings. Here’s a crowd of people at a quayside watching in sorrow as their departing loved ones climb the gangplank, carrying bags and bundles, or press against the rail on deck to catch a last sight of the family and friends they’re leaving behind. There’s a young couple, he shabbily dressed and resigned to what is happening, she wearing her best shawl as though making a brave show, but the lost and wistful expression on her face reveals the pain she is going through. They are standing lonely on the platform at Ballinasloe Station, waiting for the train that will take them to the ship at Galway and thence to a new life in the USA. A sturdy working man and his family turn back to take their final look at the familiar scenes of home – the smallholding, the sweet meadows in the valley, the sunny fields and shady woods – as they begin the long journey to the New World.
These are just three of the many comparable images portrayed by painters 150 years ago. The powerful emotions that they captured were unquestionably experienced by hundreds of thousands – the heartbreak of parting, the sadness and sense of loss in leaving familiar people and places, the fear and apprehension, but also a genuine excitement about what the future held.
We know that every statistic is about an individual story
We can easily find plenty of bare statistics about 19th-century emigration from the British Isles to the USA and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and other colonies. We can also study the reasons for this phenomenon – it has long fascinated historians, and the general motives for emigration are clear. From the Great Famine in Ireland in the 1840s, and its haunting longterm consequences, via the cruel clearances in the Scottish Highlands, to desperate rural and urban poverty in later Victorian England, the economic factors are all too apparent. Then there are other imperatives, including seeking one’s fortune, the irresistible lure of gold, the desperate desire to escape from burdensome responsibilities or irksome liabilities, the fortunes of war and serving your queen and country.
Our own family histories provide the personal dimension to the columns of numbers and tables of figures. We know that every single statistic is actually about an individual story – those of members of our family, with their triumphs and tragedies, successes and failures. We can see beyond the impersonal numbers and understand the human experience that lies behind.
Of course emigration continued on a grand scale in the 20th century. My paternal grandmother travelled alone to western Canada in 1919, going to Calgary to marry a man whom she hardly knew. Five years and two children later, she returned to England, with them and without him. In 1955 my mother’s sister and her new husband also went to Calgary – he was a soldier from a small town in Saskatchewan, she was a Manchester girl. My grandparents thought they’d never see her again (although thanks to cheaper and more manageable transatlantic flights, they eventually did).
Now, my daughter and son-in-law are going to live in Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia. His work is taking them there, and it’s a great opportunity. There won’t be any watching as they climb the gangplank to board a ship… but goodness me, I do begin to understand how those Victorian painters tapped into deep emotions. For so many British and Irish families 150 years ago, it really was an overwhelming experience to say goodbye to sons and daughters for ever.
Alan Crosby lives in Lancashire and is the editor of The Local Historian