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‘On Account of their Disreputable Characters’: Parish‐Assisted Emigration from Rural England, 1834–1860
Author(s) -
Howells Gary
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.12
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1468-229X
pISSN - 0018-2648
DOI - 10.1111/1468-229x.00281
Subject(s) - emigration , ambivalence , paternalism , ideology , population , sociology , political science , history , law , demography , psychology , politics , social psychology
Nineteenth‐century assisted emigration has long been associated with the phrase ‘shovelling out paupers’. This view is challenged by the actions and attitudes of the sponsors of parish‐assisted emigration who invested considerable time and energy in supporting the emigration of their poor. Close investigation of the policy that was applied at the local level for the rural counties of Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Norfolk suggests that assisted emigration was seen as a policy in which rich and poor interacted to secure mutual benefits. Assisted emigration was conceived as a way of helping individual paupers while simultaneously displaying a continued concern for the labouring population. Faced with the challenges of the New Poor Law, the farming class viewed assisted emigration as part of an older tradition of paternalistic help for the ‘deserving poor’. Sponsors were well aware of the ambivalence of the subject and sought to develop a conscious ideology of assisted emigration, which focused on the hope of a better life, for those who left and for those who remained.