MIGRATION WITHIN AND OUTSIDE OF SCOTLAND PRIOR TO EMIGRATION TO NZ

Place of birth is the only clear and consistent indicator of ‘origin’ encompassing all of the migrants in the NZSG and PNZ datasets. Yet, as the examples extrapolated from genealogical material noted in the previous section indicate, basing ‘who New Zealand’s Scots were’ in terms of origins solely on place of birth is problematic. The cited cases, while providing some indication of the various flows of migration within the country, bear this out. Though the frequency of internal migration evidenced by Harriet Sydney Hogg, entailing residence in at least five different Scottish counties over her lifetime,71 appears to have been unusual, at least among those Scots who later migrated to New Zealand, multiple moves within the county of birth were not uncommon.72 Born in Barony parish in 1829, Margaret McArthur married, had her first two children, and continued to reside in Barony until around 1854. Over the following two decades Margaret and her family moved first to Shettleston in Glasgow, then to the parish of Old Monkland, on to Hamilton parish, then back to Barony, all within Lanarkshire. The family left for New Zealand from London in 1874.73 Born in Foveren parish, Aberdeenshire, George Brechin Coull moved within the county at least four times before migrating to New Zealand (via a one year stay in Australia) at the age of thirty-three, shifting from Foveren to Logie Buchan, on to Waterton in Ellon, and then to Aberdeen City itself.74 Given the information provided to the NZSG register and available for the present study, it is impossible to accurately assess just how common internal migration within Scotland was among later emigrants. Nevertheless, the genealogical evidence suggests that a significant number of people were migrating within their birth county, birth region, or within the whole of Scotland, before emigrating to New Zealand.

George Brechin Coull was by no means alone in his experience of migrating to a country outside of Scotland on his way to New Zealand. In some instances this step in the migrant chain further complicates the issue of ‘origins’. Elizabeth Connely is a very clear example. Born in Dunfermline, Fife, to Scottish-born parents, Elizabeth

71

Contributors were asked not to list more than three places of residence, but in this case the contributor filled the available space on the registration form instead. It is not impossible Harriet had more than these five places of residence in Scotland.

72

Moves within county of birth do not appear in the basic census enumeration tables of internal movement, at least at county level.

73

NZSG database, migrants 05437, 05538, 05544, 05553, 05558, and 05561.

74

resided in England for all thirty-seven of her years before migrating to New Zealand in 1892. Though her likely motivations for immigration almost certainly had very little to do with push factors in, or pull factors perceived from, Scotland at the time of immigration, her birth in Scotland necessitates her inclusion in the present work as one of New Zealand’s Scots, a further illustration of one of the difficulties with using place of birth as a signifier of origin.75

Of the 6,612 migrants in the NZSG database, 764 spent some time in another country between their departure from Scotland and arrival in New Zealand, a total of 11.55 per cent of the migrants in that dataset. Information in the NZSG ‘Register of New Zealand immigrants of Scottish birth arriving before 1 January 1921’ is insufficient to permit any very detailed analysis of the immigration patterns of those Scots spending time in other countries on their way to New Zealand – information as to length of residences being especially scarce – but some basic statistics enable at least an indication of the flows.

Figure 2.2

Proportions of Scots residing in only one country other than Scotland prior to migration to NZ

Australia England Ireland Wales America

Canada - McLeod Settlers Canada - General South Africa Other*

*‘Other’ is India (5), Ceylon (3), Brazil, Chile, Germany, Gibraltar, Russia, Samoa, Singapore, Tonga, and West Indies (1 each). Source: NZSG data, 1840-1920

Of the 764 NZSG migrants who had resided in a country other than Scotland prior to immigration to New Zealand, 720 had resided in one other country only. As Figure 2.2 shows, for the vast majority of these migrants that other country was Australia,

75

70.14 per cent having stopped there before travelling on to New Zealand. This pattern of immigration to New Zealand via Australia was relatively common,76 and by no means confined to Scottish migrants, numerous English and Irish migrants also gaining experience of colonial life in Australia before travelling on to New Zealand.77 England was the prior country of residence for 10.42 per cent of this sub-sample, Ireland 3.61 per cent and Wales 0.55 per cent, a total of 14.58 per cent for other countries of the United Kingdom. Canada was not far behind England among the step- migration migrants, but nearly two-thirds of those recorded were followers of the Rev. Norman McLeod who took ship for New Zealand direct from Nova Scotia following McLeod’s exploratory travel through Australia and New Zealand.78

Among those who first took passage to Australia, then moved on to New Zealand, were John and Mary Edie. Both John and Mary came from coal mining backgrounds – Mary’s father had died in a mining accident in Fife, and John recorded his occupation as coal miner on the passenger list of the Anna. Shortly after their marriage in July 1854 the couple succumbed to the lure of the Victorian gold rush, setting sail for Sydney from Liverpool in November that year. Working to pay their way to the gold fields through 1855, John was mining in Bendigo from February 1856. The couple remained there until 1862, when they left for the Otago goldfields, joining Mary’s sister Margaret in Dunedin, where she had arrived as an assisted migrant in 1861. Having learnt from his experience in Bendigo that supplying the diggings was a more steady and reliable source of income than mining itself, John worked as a carrier between Dunedin and the diggings at Dunstan.79 This move, from the Victorian to the Otago gold fields, is a frequent experience in the stories of Scots arriving in New Zealand in the 1860s. Many of them – like John and Mary – remained in New Zealand after the gold rush had passed.80

76

That is, common among those who did not emigrate directly to New Zealand.

77

Erik Olssen, ‘Lands of sheep and gold: The Australian Dimension to the New Zealand past, 1840- 1900’, in Keith Sinclair (ed.), Tasman Relations: New Zealand and Australia, 1788-1988, Auckland, 1987, pp.34-51, provides a useful outline of this Australia-New Zealand relationship.

78

See sections in Chapter One and Chapter Three in the present work for more on this migration.

79

Desiree Margaret Mulligan, ‘Mary Edie’s biscuits and other interesting information about: the Edie family of Edievale’, unpublished family history provided by Desiree Mulligan in April 2009, 1996, chapters 1 and 2.

80

Terry Hearn, ‘Scots miners in the goldfields, 1861-1870’, in Tom Brooking and Jennie Coleman (eds), The Heather and the Fern: Scottish Migration and New Zealand Settlement, Dunedin, 2005, p.74, 75, 77, and 85

Of the forty-four other NZSG migrants with a prior country of residence recorded, thirty-four had resided in two other countries, seven in three other countries, one in four, and another, a soldier, in six prior to arrival in New Zealand. Of these forty-three migrants, the last stop before immigration to New Zealand for twenty-seven was Australia, 62.79 per cent of the sub-sample (see Figure 2.3 below); thirty-one of the forty-two had spent time in Australia; fourteen had stopped for a time in Canada, six of these being McLeod settlers who followed him to Australia before emigrating to New Zealand; sixteen of the migrants had spent time in England or Ireland before coming to New Zealand.

Figure 2.3

Last country of residence for Scots with more than one country of residence prior to emigration to NZ

*‘Other’ is Ceylon, Malta, New Caledonia, and West Indies (1 each) Source: NZSG data, 1840-1920

One of the later migrants for whom Australia was the last stop in a series of steps before immigration to New Zealand was William McIntosh. Born in 1884, in his late teenage years William left for Canada where he found work as a horseman before migrating to South Africa. While in South Africa William was offered an assisted passage to Australia, which he accepted, working first in Queensland as a ploughman until the climate there forced him to move south to Burrinjuck Dam, New South Wales. As soon as his assisted passage was repaid, William left Australia for Taranaki, New Zealand, where he worked on a cattle farm at Eltham.81 As is

81

Personal communication with Marlene Williamson, 30 October 2007

Australia England Ireland USA Canada South Africa Other*

frequently the case for many such migrants, William’s motives for his repeated migrations remain unknown, but it is likely he, like so many others, was simply endeavouring to improve his circumstances.

The remaining migrant of the sub-sample of forty-four, Matthew Findlay, differs in an important respect from the others. He is the only individual in the database exhibiting a pattern of migration known to have been common among migrants to New Zealand – temporary migration to Australia post-arrival in New Zealand. Because the relevant space on the NZSG registration forms queries ‘If resident in another country before N.Z., where & for how long’, contributors omitted providing information regarding subsequent movements after arrival in New Zealand. Thus this further migration can only be deduced from place of death if the migrant died outside New Zealand. Matthew arrived in New Zealand on the Ionic in 1909, the day before his ninth birthday. In 1928 he left New Zealand for New South Wales with wife Isobel and son Robert James. Isobel died in Australia in 1935, and Robert James in 1941. Matthew remarried in 1936, but his second wife Helen Mary died in 1943, and in 1944 he returned to New Zealand. He married his third wife, Winnifred Annie, in Auckland in 1945.82 Though he was in Australia for longer than most New Zealanders spending time across the Tasman Sea, and as such it might be argued that his intention may not have been temporary migration but permanent settlement, it is probable the experience of Matthew Findley of Neilston, Renfrewshire, was more common than the NZSG evidence suggests.83

CONCLUSION

Farewell, my friends! Farewell, my foes! My peace with these, my love with those: The bursting tears my heart declare – Farewell, the bonie banks of Ayr!84

The common stereotype of Scots in New Zealand still tends to be the invented ‘traditional’ Highland image of bagpipes and Highland flings, tartan and claymore

82

NZSG database, migrant 01768

83

Rollo Arnold, ‘Yeomen and nomads: New Zealand and the Australasian shearing scene, 1886-1896’, NZJH, Vol.18, No.2, 1984, pp.117-142; and Rollo Arnold, ‘The dynamics and quality of trans- Tasman migration, 1886-1910’, Australian Economic History Review, Vol.26, No.1, 1986, pp.1-20 provide a useful introduction to this flow.

84

Burns, ‘The gloomy night is gath'ring fast’, in The poems and songs of Robert Burns, Kinsley (ed.) p.292, lines 29-32.

wielding clansmen.85 As this chapter has endeavoured to show, far more of New Zealand’s Scots immigrants joined Scotland’s favourite – and Lowland-born – bard in farewelling the ‘bonie banks of Ayr’ than farewelled any Highland shore. That this was due to an evenness of migrant origin distribution, mirroring to the population distribution of Scotland, rather than from any particular fondness for New Zealand on the part of Lowland-born migrants, is the principal finding from the collected records of Scottish migrant families.

While discussion of the factors that may have impelled migration flows from particular regions and counties has been implicit rather than explicit, it is clear that the frequently recited tales of the emigration of displaced and impoverished Highland crofters bear little resemblance to the New Zealand experience. New Zealand’s Scots did not, by and large, arrive as victims, rather as ‘willing exiles’. Though unemployment due to technological advances was a factor that encouraged migrants to come to New Zealand, these individuals tended to be from the industrial Lowlands and from farming districts in the Lowlands and the North East where intensification and mechanisation were obliging people to leave the land. As Akenson has observed ‘most individuals who came to New Zealand came from those parts of Scotland most closely linked to the rapidly modernising economy of England and that of the north of Ireland’.86 As discussion of internal migration has made clear, though migrants came from all over Scotland in numbers proportionate to the population distribution of that country, internal migration and the availability of employment ensured that even those from far-flung Highland parishes often had first-hand experience of the urbanised, industrial centres in the Lowlands. What should also be clear is that this flow from rural to urban to international migration was not the only story.

This chapter has sought to impart a sense of the diversity of Scottish immigrant backgrounds in respect of origins. The descriptions of several locations in Scotland, though brief, provide sufficient information to make plain the essential differences

85

Tom Brooking, ‘Sharing out the haggis: the special Scottish contribution to New Zealand history’, in Tom Brooking and Jennie Coleman (eds), The Heather and the Fern: Scottish Migration and New Zealand Settlement, Dunedin, 2003; The emblem for the (inaptly named, as may be assumed from what has been discussed thus far) ‘Highlanders’ Super 14 Rugby team, is of just such a claymore wielding clansman: http://www.highlanders-rugby.co.nz/page.pasp?pageid=2, accessed 13 May 2009

86

Donald Harman Akenson, ‘What did New Zealand do to Scotland and Ireland?’ in Brad Patterson (ed.), The Irish in New Zealand: Historical Contexts and Perspectives, Wellington, 2002, p.192

between the various regions of Scotland. This understanding underpins inferences in the following chapters to possible migration motives and pressures.

Finally, this chapter has also set out to demonstrate the importance of disaggregating the statistical mass of migrants to better explore the migration flows. In the absence of an all but unattainable level of detailed information regarding internal migration and step migration between departures from Scotland and arrival in New Zealand, certainly for a sample of migrants of a sufficient size to be meaningful, these aspects of the migrants’ experiences can only satisfactorily be examined through case-studies. While statistics are necessary to such a study of migration flows, they are not always sufficient. In exploring the settlement patterns of New Zealand’s Scots at destination, genealogically sourced evidence will be employed in a similar manner in the next chapter.