Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (80): Freeman’s Journal

You may remember a few posts ago (post 76 ‘Re-defining the task’ https://wp.me/p4SlVj-2sJ ), i suggested we look at the Freeman’s Journal to understand the Sydney Irish community’s response to the unfolding scandal about the Irish orphan ‘girls’ in the late 1850s. Why did they take so long to respond to an 1855 Immigration report condemning the Cork women who had recently arrived by the Lady Kennaway? Two of my earlier posts, 26 and 28, about the ensuing 1858-9 NSW Government enquiry had tried to put that enquiry into context, suggesting we do not accept it at face value. See https://wp.me/p4SlVj-BT or/and https://earlgreysfamineorphans.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/earl-greys-irish-famine-orphans-28/

The enquiry had morphed into looking at the ‘Earl Grey Irish Female orphan scheme’.

Did anyone take up my invitation to have a go at using that great resource, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/? I’ve only just had a quick dash at it. Here’s an article worth following up that throws light on the Irish community’s response. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/115563278

The article shows how long it took for the Blue Books , that is, the published reports of British Parliamentary committees and royal commissions, to reach Sydney. The ‘tyranny of distance’ had struck again. It was not until 1857 that Governor Denison’s and Immigration Agent H.H. Browne’s condemnation of Irish female immigration became widely known. Or is that too simple? Browne’s report on the alleged scandal associated with the young Irish women from Cork Workhouse who arrived in Port Jackson by the Lady Kennaway in 1855 finished with,

Orphan immigration having been so distasteful to the inhabitants of this colony, the Board did not contemplate the arrival of any fresh drafts of that class of immigrants. This feeling against them still exists, and the Board feel that they should ill perform their duty were they not to bring this fact pointedly under the notice of his Excellency the Governor-General, with a recommendation that instruction be given to the Commissioners not to continue this description of emigration, it being most unsuitable to the requirements of the colony, and, at the same time, distasteful to the majority of people.

Freeman’s Journal, 5 December, 1857, p.2.

The Journal continued to print extracts from the Blue Books, the following from Lord John Russell via the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners to Sir William Denison,

We learn from the report…that the conduct of the young women on the voyage was good; that the care with which they had been selected was apparent…We shall act on this expression of opinion (that is, that of H.H. Browne, which was supported by William Denison, asking for an end to this sort of migration) although we may be permitted to observe that the readiness with which the young women in question obtained situtations, and the wages paid them, are scarcely reconcileable with the statement that they are”most unsuitable” to the wants of the colony.

Freeman’s Journal, ibid.

The author goes on to accuse the Governor-General of acting too hastily in support of the Sydney Immigration Board, and to raise the issue of prejudice against Roman Catholics. Sectarianism was never far from the surface of colonial politics, and beyond.

Without accusing the gentlemen constituting this Board, viz., Messrs. H.H. Browne, Gother G. Mann, and Haynes G. Alleyne, of having been influenced by undue motives in coming to their expressed conclusion, yet, when it is remembered that they are all identified with the modern Church of England party in the colony, it is not unfair to conclude that they suffered themselves, maybe unwittingly, to have been betrayed by their prejudices into the commission of this act of injustice towards a defenceless class, adherents of the ancient faith…

We expect, nay we demand–to use the language of the illustrious O’Connell– for the Irish the right to “a clear stage, and no favour”.

Freeman’s Journal, ibid.

We’ll need to do further research on the Journal and its contributors. Was the author of this article the founder of the Journal, Archdeacon McEncroe, himself? or perhaps it was from Daniel Deniehy? There were plenty of willing contributors at the time. And there were plenty ready to push for a parliamentary enquiry. And soon would do so, through the Celtic Association.