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- Title
Jeremiah Goldswain’s Farewell: Family and Fortune in Early Nineteenth-century English Emigration.
- Authors
Tosh, John
- Abstract
Jeremiah Goldswain was one among 4,000 individuals who emigrated from England to South Africa in 1820. Because this emigration was organized and funded by the Colonial Department, it is comparatively well documented, but the official record tells us little about the human side of emigration. Goldswain was a seventeen-year-old sawyer from Great Marlow when he signed up for the scheme. His narrative is analysed here as a means of engaging with the experience of emigrants from the labouring and artisan classes. While their decision to leave England has been correctly attributed to economic recession and a crisis in poor relief, very little is known about the personal circumstances which prompted people to leave. Goldswain was most unusual in writing a frank account of his plans for departure in 1819–20 as the curtain-raiser to his memoirs of life in the Eastern Cape. He appears to have intended his account for his own children and grandchildren rather than for publication. Emigration provided not only the promise of higher living standards, but in many cases an avenue of escape from family conflict, and for young men like Goldswain a means of achieving full masculine status.
- Subjects
UNITED Kingdom; GOLDSWAIN, Jeremiah; CHRONICLE of Jeremiah Goldswain, Albany Settler of 1820 (Book); ENGLISH immigrants' writings; SOUTH African history; BRITISH colonies; GOVERNMENT policy; NINETEENTH century; HISTORY; COLONIAL Africa; EMIGRATION &; immigration
- Publication
History Workshop Journal, 2014, Vol 77, Issue 1, p26
- ISSN
1363-3554
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/hwj/dbt015