I also know of ancestors who left Scotland to become tea-dealers in England. Hugh McDowall left Scotland in about 1830 and set up as a travelling tea dealer in Pontefract in Yorkshire. In 1853 he was joined by his 17 year old nephew, Hugh Clokie. Hugh McDowall came from a farming family in Penninghame and Hugh Clokie's father had been a stonemason in Whithorn. So both Hughs had left rural occupations in Scotland to set up in business in England. I understand that they would buy tea wholesale and pack it into small packets which young Hugh then carried round on his back to sell to customers in the neighbourhood. In 1859 they moved to Castleford, but by the late 1860s the travelling tea business was declining, because London importers were invading the retail market and putting packet tea into grocer's shops. Although the two Hughs then gave up the tea business, they must have made some money out of it because they were able to buy into the existing potteries in Castleford. Hugh McDowall and Hugh Clokie went on to become successful businessmen and founders of the Congregational Church in Castleford. Clearly, although life in agricultural SW Scotland in the early 19th century must have been hard, by travelling to England it was obviously possible to make a success of a new life - even through the apparently humble business of being a tea dealer.