Chapter 1 - Immigrants

 
    It was no easy decision for people to uproot themselves to settle in unknown places overseas when they had lived within the same area for ages past.
    Faith in the future of English village life had been destroyed by the impact of the Industrial Revolution;  cotton mills and factories obliterated the views of plains and hills seen for centuries past;  the skyline darkened as smoke belched from factory chimneys;  desurtude of agriculture led to uprooting of the population.
    Colin Holt's Immigration data for the Cambridgeshire area reveals that hundreds of agricultural labourers migrated overseas to Victoria and New South Wales to work for squatters as farm labourers or servants.
    Some went to work in neighbouring Hertfordshire rather than go overseas. Hertfordshire had a number of large estates owned by gentleman farmers. Emma Pateman and her brother David were two who went to Ashwell in Hertfordshire.
    They lived in Arrington, Cambridgeshire, but the Census for 1851 shows that Emma Pateman, twenty-one years of age, was working as a house servant in the home of Abraham and Mrs. Hail, 20 High St., Ashwell.
    At 36 High St., Ashwell, the Census reveals that a family by the name of Briant lived. George, twenty-six, a carpenter/journeyman, lived with his father, James and mother, Phyllis and their three youngest children, Charles, Eliza and Esther.
    Hertford County records have a Will in their archives which indicates that George's great grandfather, James the elder, owned freehold property in Ashwell. His Will, dated 20th May 1817 left the cottage and orchard to his grandson, Thomas and his heirs; Thomas and James were given the cows; William, Paul and James inherited al the rest of the cattle, goods, chattels and personal estate.
    It seems that there were three sons, one of whom was Paul, George's grandfather, who was born in 1775. Paul is named as the executor of the estate with a William Westrope who was owned money on the cottage.
    Paul married Mary Bailey on 1st December 1795 at Ashwell. They had six girls and four sons, one of whom was James, George's father. When James was born in 1799, his father, Paul Briant, was listed as a labourer.
    James Briant married Phyllis Picking on 24th July l823. They were married by banns, and James signed the register, indicating that he could write; Phyllis made a mark, a sign that she was unable to write. Witnesses were Isaac and Rebecca Picking, both of whom signed their names.
    Times were changing. The future seemed uncertain as people moved away from village life, and the Church's influence waned. As old values and ways of life died, the past seemed better than the present. A resultant sense of loss and confusion among the people upset by the upheaval caused by the Industrial Revolution was replaced by hope as the message of Charles Wesley and his brother penetrated their minds.
    It is evident from the Parish records that James and Phyllis Briant were not immune from this change, because George's baptism is the only record of their children being baptised in the Church of England.
    George Briant was baptised at the Ashwell Church on 14th November 1824 (born 17th July). His father's occupation was given as labourer. The Ashwell register up to the end of 1835 has no record of any further baptisms, but an entry was found for Sarah, daughter of James and Phyllis, baptised at the Meeting House on 12th October 1828 (born 3rd March 1826).
    An unnamed infant child of James and Phyllis Briant was buried in the chapel burial ground in 1828. They were typical of thousands of English people, troubled about leaving the safety of the established Church, but inspired by the religious fervour of the Wesley brothers who offered inspiration and hope for the future.
    James himself had been baptised at the Independent Meeting House at Ashwell on 2nd March 1800 (born 3rd December 1799), but Paul and Mary, his parents, had several of his brothers and sisters baptised in the Church of England. James later worked as a maltster at the Flinton Flour Mill.
    When George Briant came to Australia, he called himself a Wesleyan Methodist. Old ties had been severed by many of the immigrants who arrived at Geelong - most said their religion was Independent - Primitive Methodist, Wesleyan Methodist, Church of Christ, Presbyterian, Baptist.
    Did he meet his future wife, Emma Pateman, when she worked at the Hail's house? They were neighbours, so it is likely that they would become friendly at Church social events.
    Emma Pateman was born in Arrington, Cambridgeshire, in 1828. In 1830, her brother, David, was born. Emma's father, David Pateman was born at Guilden Morden in 1804. He married Mary Moule on 7th January 1828 in the Parish Church at Arrington. His occupation was shown as carpenter.
    For centuries the Pateman family had lived within the areas bounded by Steeple Morden, Guilden Morden, Bassingbourne and Arrington, but at the end of 1840 unemployment was rife.
    The Moule family were leather makers, a skilled trade highly rated in pre-industrial England, but by 1840 Cambridgeshire was poverty stricken. Houses were overcrowded, wages were poor and illness prevailed. The future was bleak for the young, and the Poor House was the refuge for the aged.
    Some, like Emma and her brother David, moved to nearby Hertfordshire. At Mr. Hail's farm in Ashwell, he employed nine men to work his farm of two hundred acres, but it is not known whether David worked as an agricultural labourer on this farm.

    When he married sixteen year old Ann Ellis at St. Mary’s Church of England, Ashwell, on 2nd November 1850, his occupation is shown as an agricultural labourer on the marriage certificate.
    On 27th November 1851 Emma Pateman married George Briant at the Parish Church, Ashwell, and on the certificate George's occupation is shown as labourer. The Census records indicate that his occupation was a carpenter/journeyman in 1851, so it would seem that unemployment had reached Ashwell, and that George Briant was working at any job he could find.
    By 1853 both Emma and her brother David had families.   Emma and George Briant had a son, George Pateman Briant, born in 1852. David and Ann had two children; George aged two, and Mary, one year old. The outlook for the future was bleak, overseas colonies promised a better future for the children.
    David and Ann decided to migrate to Australia, and they sailed from Liverpool on the "Childe Harold" on 11th March l853, arriving at Geelong on 16th June of that year, but on 16th April Mary died and on 29th April l853, George died. It took six months for news from Australia to reach England, but it is likely that Emma and George would have heard about the sad deaths of the two little children.
    George and Emma sailed from Southampton on 25th April l854. They were on the "Marshall Bennett" which arrived at Geelong on 11th August 1854. They were not to know that a week before they set sail Emma's brother, David, had died of a fever on the Ballarat goldfields. He had died on 8th April 1854.
    On the shipping record's nominal list, their religion is listed as Independent; they have a one year old son, George; they intend to stay at William St., Newtown. They came "on own account", so were not engaged to work for anyone, and George's "calling" was shown as carpenter. On the passenger list, their name was spelt Bryant, not Briant.
    There is no record that they went to the address in William St. The only record is that Emma stayed at the Immigration Depot, where her second son, James David, was born. These Immigration Depots were at Melbourne, Portland and Geelong, where single women could take refuge.
    The only reliable source for this period is the birth certificate, which shows that an unnamed male, father George Bryant mother Emma Bryant was born.
    James was born on the 26th August 1854, at the Immigration Depot, but his birth was not registered until the 30th November 1854, by a clerk at the Depot. George's occupation is shown as a carpenter. This is a mystery. Why didn't Emma sign the certificate of registration, as she did for subsequent births? Had they left soon after James' birth?
    Their concern would have been for Ann, David's widow.        In Colin Holt's immigration data he mentions that a William and Charlotte Pateman and their three children migrated from Bassingbourne on the "Isle of Skye", which arrived at Geelong on 12th December 1852. Their destination was the Barrabool Hills (near Geelong.) Rumour says that two or three years later the went to New Zealand. Did Ann find shelter with them after her husband's death? Did Emma and George stay with her at this place for awhile?
    Evidently they were reunited, because family sources say that she lived with Emma and George for some time before she eventually remarried someone by the name of Joseph Pateman. They had a large family, and settled at Tarnagulla.
    Ballarat, their next destination, was about fifty miles from Geelong, to be traversed along a sea of mud. For centuries past their ancestors had rarely moved beyond a radius of ten miles.
    Congestion and filth greeted new arrivals. Melbourne, as well as Geelong and Ballarat, had trouble in coping with the unexpectedly large numbers of migrants who came from all nations in their search for gold. Goldrush immigration created havoc for the government and administration when storekeepers, police and public servants left their posts to join the queue of folk looking for gold and untold wealth.
    To the newly arrived migrants like Emma and George, the country looked inhospitable, almost hostile - there was a difference in the constellation of the stars;  although it was winter, the brightness of the sun would remind them they were in an alien land. It would be easy to feel afraid in a strange country amidst strange people.
    Emma never forgot the trauma of her arrival at Geelong and their early days at Ballarat. What happened to Ann after the death of her husband, David Pateman? It is unlikely that she would have travelled to Geelong, knowing that Emma and George would arrive within two months' time. Travel at that busy time was expensive and arduous.
    If she and David were mining, had a claim and a tent on the goldfields, she would be unwilling to leave their claim knowing that at that time it would be "jumped" by unscrupulous golddiggers. As they had been at the goldfields for some months, it is possible that she had made friends with other miners' wives and their families, who would befriend and protect her until George arrived.
    George probably received a message when he arrived at Geelong, and it could be assumed that he would have left immediately for the goldfields, leaving Emma at the Immigration centre, which was a refuge for single women; George would have been unable to stay there.
    Could it be that George Briant took over David's claim, forming a partnership with Ann? George did mine for gold; the family agree on that fact. He might have found gold while it was close to the surface, because jewellery was made from a good sized nugget.
    Emma's family each inherited a piece of gold jewellery after her death;  my grandmother Louisa, was given gold ear-rings, which she had made into a brooch. To return to 1854 - I'll assume they went to Ballarat to rejoin Ann on the goldfields. If I'm wrong in my assumption, the following description of goldfields life at that time would apply to many migrants, as well as to them.
   
              Page last updated - 18 Jan 2006