PublishedNational Library Of Australia, August 2020 |
ISBN9780642279620 |
FormatSoftcover, 252 pages |
Dimensions23.4cm × 15.3cm |
Teach your protegees to emigrate; send them where
the men want wives, the mothers want governesses
For educated middle-class women in nineteenth-century Britain, options
were limited. Marry and bear children, accept the drudgery of keeping house for
relatives or friends, or attempt to find a position in one of the very few
industries that would employ women. This is the story of a group of intrepid
ladies who found a different solution on the other side of the world.
Wanted, a Governess competent
to teach music, dancing, and the usual branches of education. Respectable
references required.
The Female Middle Class Emigration Society scheme helped governesses and
would-be governesses emigrate to the colonies from 1861 to 1886. The women who
participated were encouraged to write back to the society, and it is their
letters-sometimes plaintive, sometimes upbeat-that form the heart of this book.
Written by women who were often fluent in multiple foreign languages, skilled
artists and musicians, able to teach the liberal arts, as well as algebra and
geometry, the letters describe wildly different experiences and stories of
culture clash abound.
In my new home I shall make
acquaintance with a new class of people-the nouveaux riches, but I may consider
myself now colonized
Some women gained employment with well-established families even before
their ships had docked, formed close relationships with their employers or
found husbands. Dublin-born Mary Bayly had a heavy workload teaching the six Hills
children of Cooks River, New South Wales, English, French, German, Latin, music
and singing, but her employers were 'very kind', she found the Australian
scenery beautiful-'As to the Harbour and the views over the sea, they can never
to me lose their charming freshness and attractiveness'-and she eventually
married an Australian-born teacher who would rise to the position of
headmaster, thereby retaining her middle-class status.
Be sensible, undergo a little
domestic training and come out here to take your chance
Some women battled extreme loneliness, wild colonial boys and girls,
unsupportive employers, poverty and disillusionment. Rosa Phayne, daughter of
an accountant, considered her fellow ship passengers 'so very low and horrid a
set', described Melbourne as 'beyond anything abominable in every respect' and,
despite finding a position on a sheep station in the Victorian Wimmera, wrote
that her employer had 'not one feeling like a lady, although one ostensibly'
and declared life in Australia for a governess one of 'intense loneliness and
unprotectedness, utter friendlessness'.
I am very glad I came to
Australia, but I cannot say I like it very much, it is such an out-of-the-world
place and so monotonous
Others were great observers of the Australian character. According to
Gertrude Gooch, 'All Australians ride like Arabs, love luxury and money. They
live very much out of doors and eat great quantities of fruit'. The women 'are
certainly very indolent and untidy', which explained their offspring: 'Australian
children are just like the vegetation here for neither appear to submit to much
control. Pineapples, peaches and the finest fruit grow in open air without care
and the children are equally wild and impetuous'.
Great Expectations tells of the colonial experiences of a particular group of emigrant
women, but it also tells a broader story, of emigration, education, class
prejudice and the development of Australian society.
