This item is held in Loughborough University’s Institutional Repository (https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/) and was harvested from the British Library’s EThOS service (http://www.ethos.bl.uk/). It is made available under the following Creative Commons Licence conditions. For the full text of this licence, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ CAROLINE CHISHOLM 1808-1877 ORDINARY WOMAN - EXTRAORDINARY LIFE IMPOSSIBLE CATEGORY by Carole Ann Walker A Doctoral Thesis Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University 2001 Supervisor: Dr. M. Pickering Department of Social Science © Carole Walker, 2001. ABSTRACT Caroline Chisholm Australia Nineteenth century emigration Nineteenth century women's history Philanthropy The purpose of this thesis is to look at the motivations behind the life and work of Caroline Chisholm, nee Jones, 1808-1877, and to ascertain why British historians have chosen to ignore her contribution to the nineteenth century emigration movement, while attending closely to such women as Nightingale for example. The Introduction to the thesis discusses the difficulties of writing a biography of a nineteenth century woman, who lived at the threshold of modernity, from the perspective of the twenty-first century, in the period identified as late modernity or postmodernity. The critical issues of writing a historical biography are explored. Chapter Two continues the debate in relation to the Sources, Methods and Problems that have been met with in writing the thesis. Chapters Three to Seven consider Chisholm's life and work in the more conventional narrative format, detailing where new evidence has been found. By showing where misinformation and errors have arisen in earlier biographies that have been perpetuated by subsequent biographies, they give specificity to the debate discussed in the Introduction. Chapters Eight to Ten discuss, in far greater depth than a conventional narrative format allows, the relevant political, religious and social influences which shaped and influenced Chisholm's life, and which facilitate an understanding of her motivation and character. r .,- py - .ýýý -1 s 4 /, V/[G Ufic ý-L CONTENTS Page Preface i Acknowledgements iii Abbreviations vi Illustrations vii Chapter One - Introduction 1 Chapter Two - Sources, Methods and Problems 18 Chapter Three - England 1808-1833 46 Chapter Four - Empire 1832-1838 56 Chapter Five - Emigration 1838-1846 65 ChapterSix - Englandand Emigration 1846-1854 85 ChapterSeven - The late years 1854-1877 93 ChapterEight - Chartism 104 ChapterNine - Catholicism 133 ChapterTen - Philanthropy 155 Chapter Eleven - Conclusion 184 Appendices 1. Will of William Jones 187 Signatures of the witnesses to William Jones's Will 188 2. Family Trees: a) Tree showing the birth of William Jones, Caroline's father, 189 and his Grandparents and siblings b) Separatetrees for the four marriages of William Jones 190 c) Descendants of Caroline and Archibald Chisholm 194 d) Archibald Chisholm's family tree 195 Bibliography 196 PREFACE While visiting the beach where the first free settlers to Western Australia arrived, I was told that the emigrants spent a year living there, along the shoreline, during which time the men-folk cleared the land and started a settlement on the Swan River valley, now known as Perth. This innocent trip fired my imagination and filled my mind with questions. Why had the emigrants made that trip? What were the conditions they faced at home that made them want to risk such a long and arduous journey to Australia? What had they been told about the conditions they would meet with on arrival in the new colony? How had they coped on the beach? On my return home to England I embarked upon an MA in Victorian Studies. The subject I chose for my dissertation was not hard to find. It was while researching documentation on Single Female Emigration to Australia in the Nineteenth Century, that I came across the name of Caroline Chisholm and her read of considerable achievements. I was amazed that I had not heard of her before. Yet it appeared in that the mid-nineteenth century she was a very well known woman, achieving what the suffragettes were campaigning for nearly fifty years later. A number of poems were written singing her praises, and the artist Angelo Collen Hayter exhibited a portrait of her at the Royal Academy in 1852. There were many articles in The Times, The Illustrated London News, Household Words, Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper, The Sidney Morning Herala The Argus, The Empire, Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, and The Lady's Newspaper to name but a few. Chisholm's work spanned three continents, Britain, India and Australia; she worked tirelessly for the betterment of emigrants, and more particularly, initially, single women leaving England to settle in the colonies of Australia. Florence Nightingale considered herself Caroline's "friend and pupil" (Anstruther, 1916,17; Harris, 1862, ii; Kiddie, 1957,237). Practically without exception, people here in Britain today have heard of Florence Nightingale, yet very few have heard of Caroline Chisholm. My mind was yet again tumbling with questions. Why had British historians neglected Caroline Chisholm? What motivated her to undertake such all-encompassing work? And why do we remember women like Florence Nightingale when Caroline Chisholm is long forgotten? The more I read about Caroline Chisholm, the more fascinated I became and the stronger the desire to reinstate her in the annals of history. My enthusiasm led to the opportunity of being able to undertake this thesis. This inevitably led to the questionof how to approachwriting the life of Caroline Chisholm.The writing of Chisholm's life, a woman from the past, would be a woman's historical biography. An account of her life would need to avoid the pitfalls of fictionalisation and fabrication. However, a straightforward biographical account, concentrating on a single subject, would not necessarily give an opportunity to look in depth at the possible motivations which helped to shape her life. At the height of her fame in the mid-nineteenth century she was a political animal with strong religious beliefs, at a time when middle and upper class women were consigned to the restricted private sphere of the home. The structure of the thesis would need to give a broader basis to show the key social and historical influences on her individual formation. As will be commented upon later, George Eliot wrote in Middlemarch, "there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it". In Mill on the Floss Eliot wrote in similar vein. She described the failure of one of Mr. Tulliver's plans, not because his "will was feeble, but becauseexternal fact was stronger". Eliot's complaint against "silly novelists" was that they ignored the truth that there were external facts and circumstances that shaped character. As will be shown in the Introduction, it is difficult in the context of a narrowly conceived historical biography to show the diffusive aspects of the subject's life along with the impact and influence which historical events and all other people have upon that life. The structure of this thesis has, therefore, been organised in such a way that it allows for a discussion in the Introduction of certain theoretical issues concerning biography and history. The second chapter deals with the Sources, Methods and Problems that arose in writing a life of Caroline Chisholm. Chapters three to seven consider Chisholm's life and work in the more conventional narrative format, detailing where new evidence has been found. These chapters also highlight the difficulties of writing biography. Examples from previous biographies of Chisholm show how misinformation has been perpetuated to such an extent that it has been taken as undisputed fact. The various aspects of biographical detail, however, do not provide an opportunity to discuss and debate those subtle and intangible developments and events, to which Eliot referred, that could have influenced Chisholm's thinking and the way she lived her life. Chapters eight to ten, therefore, look in more detail at the relevant political, religious and societal formations that would have had some impact on her life and which may now help to facilitate an understanding of her motivation and character. 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all those archivists and librarians in all three continents that have given me so much help over the last five years in pursuing documentation on Caroline Chisholm. The list is lengthy, but I include their names here, for without their help and advice this thesis would not have been written. I apologise if I have inadvertently omitted names or organisations from the list, but that does not diminish my appreciation of their help. In the U. K: The Archives of the Bishop of Birmingham; British Library - Newspaper Library, Colindale, Oriental and India Office Collections and the Manuscript Department; Cathedral of Our Lady and St. Philip Howard, Arundel, West Sussex; The Catholic Record Society, Clan Chisholm Society; Scotland; Coutts & Company; Durham University Library, University of Edinburgh, Professor M. H. Kaufiman, and the Special Collections Section of the University Library, Fawcett Library, Guildhall University, Fortrose Academy, Glasgow City Library, Greater London Record Office and Library; Highland Regional Archives; Inverness Library; Institute of Commonwealth Studies; James Oliver, the psychologist; Leicester University Library, Lincolnshire Archives; Liverpool University, The Sidney Jones Library, London Phrenology Company Limited; Loughborough University Library, Mary Evans Picture Library, Metropolitan Cathedral of St. George, Westminster; National Library of Scotland; Newcastle upon Tyne City Library, Margaret Osbourne and the staff of the Catholic Cathedral, Northampton; Oscott College, Sutton Coldfield; Our Lady's Presbytery, Olney, Buckingham; Records Office, Kew, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; Royal Commonwealth Society Library, Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts; St.