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From: "elizabeth kraus" <>
Subject: Re: [GEELONG] More Reasons for emigration
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2011 18:39:56 +1000
References: <E4707EFE11B646C097B1F00B7D5124E0@Fredthesexyone><0C118ECF79FA429E8FDBD07A591FC51E@barbara58d25fe>


I really enjoyed reading Barbara's comments about Wiltshire.
My Hobbs family came to South Australia in 1847 in a similar situation.
regards
Liz
----- Original Message -----
From: "Barbara OConnor" <>
To: <>
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 11:59 AM
Subject: Re: [GEELONG] More Reasons for emigration


>I have g-g-grandparents who immigrated from Wiltshire in 1883. He was a
> shoe-maker, initially from the London area, she was the daughter of a
> Wilshire agricultural labourer, and most likely came from a long line of
> agricultural labourers.
>
>>From the time of the agricultural depression after the Napoleonic war, the
> situation for agricultural labourers steadily worsened in Wiltshire, as it
> did in other counties. The introduction of farming machinery drastically
> decreased the living wages of the labourers, who were generally paid by
> the
> day.
>
> Despite organised "industrial action", including the destruction of
> threshing machines, etc., they learnt that you can't stop progress when
> progress means big bickies for the few.
>
> Thomas Hardy's Mid Wessex was, in fact, Wiltshire and I was reading The
> Woodlanders when I discovered that my great-grandparents had come from
> Wiltshire. Chapter XLV describes the wedding-party of Suke Damson and Tim
> Tangs - "a gay procession of people coming down the way .. the women in
> light attire and the flowered waistcoats of the men .. each of the gentler
> ones clung to the arm of her partner so tightly as to have with him one
> step, rise, swing, gait, almost one centre of gravity."
>
>
>
> Suke explains that they are "walking around the parishes to show ourselves
> a
> bit" because they are going to New Zealand. Perhaps my g-g-grandparents
> walked around the parishes on the day of their marriage to show themselves
> a
> bit and to tell of their plans to go to Australia.
>
>
>
> One interesting thing (among many) I discovered in my research on
> Wiltshire
> was that at one time in some electorates, voting was confined to those who
> possessed houses which had a pot-well or cooking fire - which leads to
> the
> obvious question of how did those who did not possess a pot-well manage?
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Barbara
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> For on-line indexes and information on Geelong and District
> http://zades.com.au
>
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