IRISH FAMINE ORPHANS THOMAS ARBUTHNOT charles strutt

ISBN 0646274503

Size = 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall

In 1849 the Thomas Arbuthnot set off for New South Wales. The ship carried 195 Irish girls — mostly from the counties of Clare, Galway and Kerry — as well as 4 Irish families, a widow with 2 children, and 6 other single females.

The Emigration Commissioners gave each girl a wooden sea chest containing new clothes and goods such as needles, threads, tape, a few yards of calico or cotton. Each girl also received a bible, a paper from the workhouse certifying her good conduct and 'unblemished moral character,'and a medical certificate showing she was of good health and had been vaccinated against smallpox.

The girls on the Thomas Arbuthnot were fortunate enough to be placed in the care of Surgeon-Superintendent Charles Edward Strutt. We are fortunate that he kept a diary of the trip. Most men would have quailed at the thought of supervising 194 teenage girls on a ship for two months, but Strutt was well qualified for the job. Medically trained, cultured and open-minded, he was also young enough, at 35, to turn the voyage into an adventure.

Emigration was not for the faint-hearted. The girls were shipped from Dublin to England in late autumn on the open decks of a steamer. The journey took 36 hours, and left them exhausted, chilled and fearful. To raise their spirits, Strutt made sure they had a warm bath and a haircut. To keep them healthy, he got the Catholic girls a dispensation so they could eat meat on Fridays (eating meat on Fridays was against their religion), and did his best to make sure they kept the ship clean.

He wasn't perfect though. On Christmas Eve, when the girls began keening for their lost homes and families, he bullied them out of their grief by threatening to withhold their Christmas pudding (for which he made the brandy sauce himself). He wrote that they cheered up and began dancing and singing, but many of them surely would have sobbed themselves to sleep that night.

At Sydney Cove, the Colonial Secretary, the Immigration Agent and the Health Officer boarded the ship for an inspection. Strutt wrote: 'They were greatly pleased with the order and regularity of the ship, the fatness of my girls and the cleanliness of their berths, tables, decks etc, and to do the poor wretches justice, they deserved the praise, for they had exerted themselves and worked like horses'.

CONTENTS:

PART 1:

Introduction
The Journal of Charles Edward Strutt

APPENDICES:

1. The Hiring of the Irish Orphan Girls: A List of Cabin Passengers
2. 'Female Emigration"
3. Irish Relief Fund 1846: Yass & District
4. The Journey of the Thomas Arbuthnot Orphans to Yass & Gundagai
5. Material from NSW Immigration & Colonial Office (London) Records
6. Letters from Matthew Kennedy to Orphan Bridget Davies
7. Timeline: Charles Edward Strutt 1814-1897

Select Bibliography
Index

PART 2:

Genealogical Information Sheets: Irish Orphans brought to Yass from the Thomas Arbuthnot
Orphans Index

197 pages plus Part 2 which were unpaginated. Hard cover with UNCLIPPED dust jacket. Ex-Library, very much cleaner & better than usual.

Weight = 800 g

BOOK / DUST JACKET CONDITION = VERY GOOD / FINE

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GOOD: Average used book with all pages present. Possible loose bindings, highlighting, cocked spine or torn dust jackets.

FAIR: Obviously well-worn, but no text pages missing. May be without endpapers or title page. Markings do not interfere with readability.

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