Hello all Seeing Wendy's mention of the Agricultural Labourers Union (or whatever title it had at that time)...Joseph Arch of south Warwickshire was a major player in the formation of this union. They had a very active programme with Canada - Arch visited there and recruited farmers to employ ag labs from England. His autobiography makes interesting reading. The Middlemore Homes in Birmingham area also had a programme to send children to Canada - there is an article about the homes in one of the compilation books about Birmingham Talking of overseas migration generally - when trawling newspapers, I have come across adverts that an agent would be "in town" on particular dates to promote "opportunities" to migrate. You read these snippets when hunting for other material, and forget to write them down! But there were active efforts made to recruit migrants in addition to those being made by Poor Law Overseers, etc, wanting to shift excess population off their patch. Not all who left UK's shores were "felons being off loaded"...Scotland lost a lot of families to overseas particularly from Highlands and Islands during the "clearances", Ireland due to famine - and some of these were helped to migrate, others had to scrape together what they could. England's "clearances" were localised - but hardship and loss of independence occurred. (There are some places around the world that I have visited that are more "Scottish" than Scotland!) It is very difficult for us to understand migration of families at a particular time - but if you look at the area where the family lived, the economic situation at the time in that local area, and the opportunities (or lack of them) of work (no work equated to no food and probably no roof over your head) you can start to get a feel for what drove people to migrate, and in some cases, what drove philanthropists and others to assist the migration process. I wonder if there has been any study to compare the numbers who migrated on government schemes, on philanthropic or commercially-driven schemes or "under their own steam"? Jacqui G'Day Yes there were quite a few schemes to bring people over to Oz. The infamous "let's dump the felons Scheme"- then the "bring wives for the felons Scheme" <grin> In the later years it seemed a good idea to send the surplus ag labs over. Then of course it was "orphans" and other unwanted children who were sent over. Various people recruited potential migrants in the UK. Caroline Chisholm was actively helping young women find employment and lodgings in Sydney and Wollongong NSW in the early years (1850s 60s I think) The Agricultural Labourers Union paid their members fares and actively recruited families in Warwickshire in the 1880s . Some Parishes also paid the fares as it was cheaper to send a poverty stricken family over here than to pay for their long term upkeep in the UK. There were various other schemes around too and I think you will find that copies of the some recruiting posters are extant. There were Agents who visited, gave talks and recruited in the towns and villages. >From past reading- I seem to remember that a family had to have a certain amount of goods - i.e. clothes etc. before they were allowed to board the ship. My husband and I were ten quid tourists in the 1960s when emigration was much easier than it is now for UK citizens. We came to God's Own Country and stayed ! The Populate or Perish slogan was a scare tactic to ward off the invading hordes from neighbouring countries - they are still trying to scare us into having more children! Cheers Wendy Boland Warwick List Admin T Apparently people have been immigrating to Australia for over 40,000 years! Must be a nice place .... Apparently you thought that "Australia must populate or perish...." ?