DOROTHY Dugdale is a valued member and regular speaker at Todmorden Antiquarian Society and spoke to the society last week on "Brideships to British Columbia".
In the early 1990s Dorothy visited her Vancouver cousins. The father of these three sisters had lived at Holly Bank in Walsden, and he was the son of James Dugdale who had a position on the first Todmorden Borough Council.
By chance, the middle si
ster was also named Dorothy Dugdale and related to a lady who had arrived in British Columbia on a brideship in 1862. Our Dorothy had heard of brideships to Australia but not to North America, and thus her interest was fuelled.
She sought information from libraries, second-hand book shops, the Hudson Bay Company, the Salvation Army and Dr Barnardo – all to no avail. But a letter to the Canadian High Commission directed her to researchers on the subject and British Columbian archive material.
Through these contacts Dorothy gathered information, then pooled knowledge about the brideships with her cousin in Vancouver and a Canadian journalist who wanted to write a book on this historic story. Their combined studies revealed how the "matrimonial market" came about, the voyage of 99 days, and of the great, great grandmother herself named Jane Ann Saunders.
Dorothy explained that in mid-19th century England there was a surplus of unmarried young women, whereas the Colonies were desperately short of both domestic servants and potential wives.
In 1858 there was a gold rush along the Fraser River near Whistler. The established churches thought that the miners needed a more staple Christian lifestyle. A Rev Brown of Victoria worried about the problems and wrote to the Bishop of Oxford in England voicing his concerns. The London philanthropist, Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts, donated £25,000 to the Church to send a Bishop and two Archbishops on a "civilising mission".
The Columbian Emigration Society was formed to send young women to become wives and mothers in the Christian land. Meanwhile, the London Female Middle Class Emigration Society was initiated in 1862 for educated ladies who wished to work in the Colonies. It gave the opportunity to women with their own means, helped with assisted passages or enabled loans for the voyages.
June 1862 saw SS Tynemouth set off on the 17,000 mile journey via the Falkland Islands with 60 ladies on board. They were set exclusive use of a portion amidships under the supervision of a matron and a clergyman. Matron was responsible for teaching the arts of womanhood and to protect her young females from "lascivious attentions of the crew"!
The advertisements for the ship had promised comfort for all, but Dorothy told of the hardships endured especially from the lack of fresh water, during terrible stormy weather and tropical heat.
Little was known from the ship's records but some 60 years later a former passenger, Charles Redfern, wrote of his memories on board the SS Tynemouth.
He wrote of a storm when a cow was killed and pigs were washed overboard. He told of a mutiny among the sailors.
