Hello Sharon! I asked the same question and never came up with a satisfactory answer. My LAWS family immigrated in the early 1850's also. I have traced my LAWS line back to Littleport. You might find the below link on the Littleport Riots a little interesting in explaining how tough it was at the bottom of the social scale at the time. Wages were so low that people could not afford food. There were also problems with high unemployment at the time. While it is about 25 years before your suggested time period and things were somewhat better by the 1840's, many still struggled to survive. In 1845, it was the height of the Potato Famine. While it did not strike England as hard as Ireland, many Irish were flocking to England as well as other countries having an effect on wages, particularly on the low end wage jobs. http://www.btinternet.com/~strawson.online/riots/riot.htm In my families case, my gggg grandfather, Benjamin HARPER, owned 45 acres of land in Methwold, Nfk, so the family was not exactly poor. But money was raised to send three of the family men to the U.S. (including my ggg grandfather, William LAWS). They worked, established a place and sent back money to England. Over the next three years, over 30 extended family members came in three main waves (groups on a ship). The land in England was not sold until the end, so that wasn't used to finance the trip. Further, many more families from the villages they were from, came to the same area and were helped to settle. It was not uncommon for someone at the destination to pay transportation costs in exchange for a specific amount of labor, i.e. I pay your fare and you work on my farm for two years. I am not sure what the cost of transportation aboard ship was at the time, but it would be an interesting study! John Laws > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sharon > Sent: Wednesday, 31 January 2007 3:53 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [ENG-CAMS] English History lesson > > Does anyone know the history of England well enough to explain to me why > people were leaving England for places like South Australia and New Zealand > in the 1840's and 50's? If it was for homestead land like I suspect how > could they afford the cost of traveling there and how did folks in little > villages get word of such land? > > Sharon > >