Upper Class Colonists - Lower Class Emigrants
Colonists who intended to set sail for the Canterbury Settlement were often people from the British upper class who had been heavily influenced by Edward Gibbon ideas on immigration and the New Zealand Company
They described people from the working class who would travel to the new colony as ‘emigrants’
Colonists expected emigrants to provide the labour force for the new colony. Colonists hoped to attract working class labourers in city and rural areas who had been affected since around 1770 until the 1850s by political change and the British Industrial revolution.
Such people might have experienced:
1. Difficult or dangerous working conditions in the factories of Industrial Britain and crowded living conditions in busy cities. This might attract people to new possibilities helping to set up the Canterbury Settlement.
2. Trade or cottage industry which had been threatened or closed down by the growth of new, larger factories often run by middle class entrepreneurs. The skills of lower class workers who had been affected might be useful in the new colony.
3. Farm labourers whose families might have been smallholders (villagers who owned and worked on a small amount of farmland), before their rural land had been enclosed. There would be demand for their skills from owners of large farms, and they might be attracted to the possibility of owning their own small farm in Canterbury.
Return to Who can go?
Colonists who intended to set sail for the Canterbury Settlement were often people from the British upper class who had been heavily influenced by Edward Gibbon ideas on immigration and the New Zealand Company
They described people from the working class who would travel to the new colony as ‘emigrants’
Colonists expected emigrants to provide the labour force for the new colony. Colonists hoped to attract working class labourers in city and rural areas who had been affected since around 1770 until the 1850s by political change and the British Industrial revolution.
Such people might have experienced:
1. Difficult or dangerous working conditions in the factories of Industrial Britain and crowded living conditions in busy cities. This might attract people to new possibilities helping to set up the Canterbury Settlement.
2. Trade or cottage industry which had been threatened or closed down by the growth of new, larger factories often run by middle class entrepreneurs. The skills of lower class workers who had been affected might be useful in the new colony.
3. Farm labourers whose families might have been smallholders (villagers who owned and worked on a small amount of farmland), before their rural land had been enclosed. There would be demand for their skills from owners of large farms, and they might be attracted to the possibility of owning their own small farm in Canterbury.
Return to Who can go?