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BUILDING THE ‘BRIDGE OF HOPE’: THE DISCOURSE AND PRACTICE OF ASSISTED EMIGRATION OF THE LABOURING POOR FROM EAST LONDON TO CANADA, 1857-1913 A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the Department of History University of Saskatchewan By Elizabeth A. Scott © Elizabeth A. Scott, July 2014. All Rights Reserved. PERMISSION TO USE In presenting this dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Doctoral degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this dissertation in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my dissertation work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my dissertation work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this dissertation or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my dissertation. Requests for permission to copy or to make other use of material in this thesis in whole or in part should be addressed to: Head of the Department of History Room 522, Arts Building 9 Campus Drive University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5 Canada i ABSTRACT Between 1857 and 1913 approximately 120,000 of the labouring poor from the East End of London were assisted to emigrate to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and sometimes South Africa in order to transplant surplus urban labour to emerging colonial markets and to provide the poor with a means of personal and financial improvement. These charities described the work they did as building “The Bridge of Hope for East London.” By the end of the nineteenth century, Eastenders had long been plagued by poverty, dependency on the Poor Law, and periods of unemployment. Typecast as morally, socially, economically, and racially degenerate in an emerging slum discourse, Eastenders were rarely considered ideal colonial emigrants. For Canada, these emigrants made poor prospects for the westward-expanding nation intent on recruiting agricultural immigrants. At times over the course of these six decades, the Canadian government grew so concerned about their migrations that it took legal measures to bar their entry. By 1910, Canada effectively banned charitably assisted emigration from East London in an attempt to control its borders and dictate the kinds of immigrants it desired even when they were English. Despite these shortcomings and obstacles, assisted emigrants from East London made new lives for themselves and their families in Canada most often in cities. We know something about their experiences from letters some of them wrote to the emigration charities that sponsored them. As a migrant group, they present a unique type of English settler in Canada. Forever failing, despite their many successes and their integration, to meet the ideal imperial British standard, Eastenders were considered undesirable on both sides of the Atlantic – a blight on British prosperity at home and unsuitable representatives abroad. Eastenders occupied an uneasy “third space” struggling to fit in somewhere between home and empire. This dissertation, employing analytical models and methodologies inspired by the ‘New Imperial History,’ the ‘British World’ model, post-colonial theory, and transnationalism seeks to understand why and under what circumstances Canada restricted charitable emigration from East London by 1910. It examines how British charities, politicians, commentators, and, above all, emigrants developed and experienced an imperial discourse and practice of assisted emigration over the course of six decades under ever-changing economic circumstances at home. Overall, it argues that British emigration charities, under the mounting pressures of poverty at home and spurred on by liberal and imperial reformist attitudes, rarely heeded Canadian warnings about the ii sending out of poor urban emigrants from East London even though they were English. Instead, these emigrationists developed a system of assisted emigration that largely suited their own objectives of poverty management. East End emigrants experienced this system with varying degrees of success, failure, benefit, and harm. The dissertation explores their experiences in two case studies in addition to three chapters on the evolution of assisted emigration discourses and practices in the East End. In placing assisted emigration of the urban poor from East London at the centre of a discussion of late nineteenth and early twentieth century intra-imperial responses to poverty, the dissertation reveals a complex interplay between social welfare, liberalism, and migration in two disparate but connected parts of the ‘British World,’ home and abroad. In doing so it fosters a deeper understanding of the evolution of colonial immigration policy and complicates the limits of race and class for studies of English emigration. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dissertations are often as only as good as the supervisors who oversee their completion. In my case, I have had one of the best. Having worked with Dr. Christopher Kent as an undergraduate, later a Masters student, and now as a doctoral candidate over the last fifteen or so years, his knowledge of British History and his support and encouragement of my work never cease to impress me. This dissertation would not have come together without the numerous letters of references he has written for me, the significant amount of time he has dedicated to meetings and emails, and the precise eye with which he copy-edited the text – even in his retirement. I sincerely thank him for the way he has struck a balance in encouraging me to work independently while gently guiding me through the long process that is crafting a dissertation. I would like to thank my dissertation committee Dr. Bill Waiser, Dr. Gordon DesBrisay, Dr. Erika Dyck, and Dr. Robert Calder for their helpful input at our yearly meetings and in numerous emails along the way. To Dr. Valerie Korinek and Dr. Jim Handy who have served as Department Heads and to Dr. Martha Smith-Norris, Dr. Geoff Cunfer, and Dr. Matthew Neufeld who served as Graduate Directors during my program, all of your time and support have not been overlooked. Thank you also to Nadine Penner and Linda Dietz who helped me on countless occasions with administrative issues. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded the first three years of the project with a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Doctoral Scholarship and a Michael Smith Foreign Studies Supplement. The last two years of the project were funded by the Department of History and the College of Graduate Studies with a Senior Teaching Fellowship and a Teacher-Scholar Doctoral Fellowship as well as several research travel awards. I also received a Pre-Dissertation Fellowship from the Institute of Historical Research in London and the Mellon Foundation to conduct the initial research for the proposal. I would also like to thank the Department of History for the many teaching contracts I was given during my Ph.D. program; thank you to Dr. Lisa Smith and Dr. Mark Meyers for helping me construct my courses. All of these sources of funding made transitioning from my career as an immigration officer with the federal government much easier to manage. The research for this dissertation was conducted mostly in England but also in Saskatoon. In London I would like to thank the many archivists and librarians who fetched sources for me and introduced me to ones I would never have found on my own. In particular I would like to iv thank Head Archivist Malcolm Barr-Hamilton and Heritage Assistant Anna Haward at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, undoubtedly my favourite place to conduct research on my beloved East End. I would like to thank Head Archivist Jonathan Evans at the Royal London Hospital Archives for introducing me to this lovely hidden-away archive chocked full of East London social history. To all the staff at the London Metropolitan Archives and the British Library who are always helpful in locating and suggesting sources, thank you. Christine Charmbury at the Saskatchewan Archives Board was very helpful in showing me the potential of the Saskatchewan homestead records for my study of emigration. Interlibrary Loans at the University of Saskatchewan have been wonderful, sourcing books for me from afar in a timely fashion. Finally, chapter five would not have been nearly as rich without the extraordinary input of Kitty Krister (thank you to Don Knibbs for introducing us). Kitty, over ninety years old now and the granddaughter of two of the Moosomin settlers in the East London Artizans Colony, provided unparalleled insight into the experience of these emigrants. I am forever grateful for our correspondence. Dissertations are also crafted amongst community and mine has been amazing. Thank you to my friends and colleagues who helped me never to give up and took me out for drinks or some much needed retail therapy – Amy Samson, Omeasoo Butt, Leslie Baker, and Justin Bengry in particular and to all of my extended community here in Saskatoon and in England. Thank you also to Lisa Chilton, Barbara Taylor, David Feldman, David Green, Royden Loewen (and the CCMET crew), Kent Fedorowich, Tolly Bradford, and Kristine Alexander. To varying degrees these scholars shaped the work presented here. To David Feldman, Birkbeck (University of London), in particular who mentored me in the summer of 2010 – the dissertation would not be as coherent and tight in its focus without your input and I would have bitten off more than I could have ever chewed; thank you for reining me in.

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