How History is Made: The Hird Family Migrates to Australia, 1872
By: George G
Tags: Essay, History, World, Immigration, Australia

Why did they immigrate to Victoria?

The family soon decided to immigrate to Victoria, Australia. In those times, each of the different Australian colonies employed agents who would travel through rural communities in the British Isles trying to entice people to immigrate — it’s possible that the Hirds had met one of these agents. Potential immigrants also had access to a wealth of information about destinations that were competing for migrants (including the USA and Canada), such as widely disseminated pamphlets and books; they’d almost certainly have seen of some of this material.

The trip to North America was much shorter and cheaper than the trip to Australia, and other Australian colonies such as New South Wales had assisted migration schemes that offered migrants free tickets. Yet still, the Hird family, despite having endured economic hardship in Luddington, chose instead to pay their own way and immigrate to Victoria. Why?

Example of a poster in Britain advertising assisted migration, in this case to New South Wales and Tasmania in the 1850s. / Image: Public Domain

Well, Australia in general was advertised abroad as something of an agricultural dreamland, where any family could easily obtain their fair share of land and make an independent living for themselves. This was clearly a persuasive narrative: while only 27% of emigrants from the British Isles chose Australia as their destination, it received a whopping 82% of emigrating agricultural workers. Additionally, Victoria specifically had recently instituted a scheme called ‘land selection’, whereby settlers could rent-to-buy land from the government for relatively affordable prices. The Hirds themselves took advantage of this scheme soon after arriving.

Thus, it’s fair to assume that the Hird family, disillusioned with their fortunes in Luddington, made a conscious decision to make the move to Australia, in the hope of transitioning to a more independent, agricultural lifestyle. This is greatly supported by later evidence, as they quickly settled into their own farmland once in Victoria. Additionally, in letters sent back home in the late 1870s, they write about how much they enjoy their new lives, suggesting to their friends & family back home, who seem to have been in dire economic straits, that they make the move as well.

Immigration & early years

William migrated first, by himself. He died in 1912, and his death certificate states he had been in Australia for 49 years, so he likely arrived in 1863. He definitely didn’t return afterwards, as the 1871 census shows his family still in Luddington without him. Thus, he almost certainly went on ahead of his family to make money to send back and pay for their passage. To earn this money, he worked in the famous goldfields of Victoria, something that he mentions in the aforementioned letters. In June 1872, the rest of the family, which included two new daughters, Mary J (10) and Annie (8, probably conceived right before William left), finally joined him. They left Plymouth — some 320 miles from Luddington — for Melbourne on the clipper ship, Queen of Nations, eventually arriving after what would have been about a nine-week long voyage. They subsequently linked back up with William for the first time in nine years.

The family, minus William, listed in the Queen of Nations’ shipping manifest. Thomas (‘Thos’) and William Jonathan (‘W. M’) are listed separately from the rest of the family. / Image: PROV, Creative Commons 4.0

Five years later, in 1877, both William and Thomas Hird wrote letters to family in England. These letters give us a great idea of how’d they’d gotten along since arriving. At this point, William was already an established farmer with 320 acres (the maximum allowed to be selected per person) of land in Gannawarra, Northern Victoria, having taken advantage of the liberal land selection policies of the Victorian government. He had no plans to return to England, evidenced by his inclusion of an apology to his father for not coming back to care for him in his old age.

Thomas, the eldest son, had worked the previous two years with a local cheesemaking family. Now 20, he moved back home and selected some farmland of his own. The family ingeniously took advantage of land selection legislation: Thomas selected the land immediately adjacent to his father’s, effectively ensuring them a family farm that would eventually cover 640 acres (1 square mile). When the letters were written, Thomas’ own farm was fledgling, only being nine months old and covering 50 acres. To help him get established, both of his younger brothers were sent to work on his land.

There is, as you might expect from the times, less information about the women of the family. William writes that Mary J (now 15) was earning £8 per week working in Castlemaine, about 110 miles to the south. He makes no mention of exactly what she was doing, but given her age, she was probably a domestic worker living with a host family. The younger Annie was a student, while little mention is made of Hannah, aside from her sending her love to family back home and a note that she apparently still feels like a young woman at 46.

Additionally, the letters offer little insight into how they’d been assimilating into their new community, aside from a mention about Thomas’ former employers having taken a liking to him. Their lack of complaints indicate that they were doing just fine fitting in. There’s two clear reasons why they probably had few issues integrating: firstly, they were English, which meant they were already a part of the social and political majority, in contrast to immigrants from other places, especially Ireland and Germany. Secondly, they lived in a rural, sparsely populated area on vast tracts of their own fenced-in land, meaning there was a lot of separation between them and other residents. They likely could have easily gone weeks at a time without so much as seeing someone from another family.

Life goes on

Three years later, in 1881, Thomas penned a letter to someone whom he owed money. It appears that times had become tough, as he writes of his difficulties paying his rents, stating that “times are rather hard up here, and it takes a man all he knows to make ends meet.” However, his previously 50 acre holding had already reached its limit of 320 acres, bringing the family farm up to 640 acres in total. Thus, his progress had clearly been rapid up until this point.

Letter from Thomas Hird, 1881. / Excerpt from Charles Fahey, ‘The Wealth of Farmers: A Victorian Regional Study 1879–1901’, Historical Studies, 21/82 (1984), page 35.

Thomas was not alone: other land selectors in northern Victoria also suffered from poor harvests and other hardships in the late 1870s/early 1880s, and the Hirds clearly weren’t spared these difficulties. However, while others abandoned their selections as a result, later records show that both William H. and Thomas persevered through these rough years. It’s likely that optimism stemming from their highly successful initial years, combined with their preference for an agricultural lifestyle, gave them a determination that others may not have had.

From 1881 to 1895, there’s a gap in primary source material concerning the Hirds. However, by the second half of the 1880s, records indicate that the farmers who still remained in the region were prospering, and even those with more modest farms were still, at the very least, far richer than the average wage-earning, working-class family. We can surmise that the Hirds also did well during this period, and later evidence certainly supports that notion.

Marriage certificate of Thomas Hird and Rosannah Jane Hall, 16th October, 1895. / Image: © State of Victoria, Creative Commons 4.0

In 1895, the 38-year old Thomas married Rosannah Jane Hall from Adelaide, a woman 15 years his junior. Thomas had married unusually late, especially since he had been a successful farmer for at least the better part of a decade. This can be explained by gender imbalances prevalent at the time, especially in rural areas. For example, in 1891 in Castlemaine — a nearby urban area — there were 15% more men than women, and the ratio was surely worse in rural Gannawarra. That Rosannah was from Adelaide might even imply that she had travelled to marry Thomas. Whatever the reason, Thomas marrying shows that he was socially successful, as the dating game was clearly very competitive for men in northern Victoria.

A picture of Thomas Hird, taken in Melbourne near Newmarket Railway Station. Date unknown, but likely from the 1890s when he was known to frequent the Melbourne area. / Image: PROV, Creative Commons 4.0

Indeed, in 1896 Thomas gave a statement regarding the proposed construction of a new railway extension in the Gannawarra region that provides strong evidence of his wealth and social status. In it, Thomas notes that he had 640 acres (260 hectares or 1 square mile). This lines up perfectly with the two lots of 320 acres that we know the family held. William — who was still alive, now aged 63 — had evidently retired by this point, giving his own 320 acres to Thomas and uniting the family farm under a single official owner for the first time. Today, their land, based off area alone, would be worth about $741,000; quite a respectable sum considering their humble beginnings only 23 years earlier.

Excerpt of Thomas Hird’s testimony before the Commission on the Walhalla Narrow-Gauge extension, 1896. / Image: PROV, Creative Commons 4.0

Thomas additionally states that he had sold 1,200 sheep in Melbourne the year before, and that there were another 1,240 on his farm that he raised himself, along with 500 that he’d recently bought. The Hirds thus followed the same path that many other similar farmers did during this period: they started out cultivating, then gradually swapped over to farming livestock as their wealth grew. He’d also become an important member of his community, enough that he was, as he states, chosen as the chairman of a local Trust.

Thomas died an abrupt death in 1899, aged 42, leaving everything to Rosannah in his will. He was survived by his two children, Henry and Eva, as well as his wife, his mother & father, and, it seems, all or most of his siblings. His children are first mentioned in his will, and couldn’t have been older than three or four at the time, given the date of his marriage to Rosannah and their marriage certificate not mentioning any children.