N: Newspaper Report AtoZ Challenge

Earl Grey Orphan Scheme

The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge is an annual challenge put out to bloggers, to publish a post from A-Z, every day in April, except for Sundays. April 1 is A, April 2 is B……….and so on throughout the month. Participants can post on a chosen theme or publish random posts with no theme at all.

My Theme

My theme for 2025 is The Earl Grey Orphan Scheme. I became interested in the scheme when I realised that my great great grandmother was an Earl Grey Girl, coming to Australia as part of the scheme. This scheme was a government sponsored program designed to give young, impoverished Irish girls a chance at a better life in Australia.

Newspaper Report

There was much controversy and negative bias about the young Irish Girls who arrived in Australia between 1848 and 1852, under the Earl Grey Orphan Scheme. Immediately they started to arrive, many negative newspaper articles appeared all over Australia, Most times, the articles in the papers were not based on reality, but more on hysteria. Following is one of the kinder articles.

from: Freeman”s Journal (Sydney, NSW: 1830-1952), Thursday 11 July 1850, page 5.¹

IRISH ORPHAN GIRLS

” Where is my cabin door, fast by the wild woods?
Sisters and Sire, did you weep for its fall?
Where is the mother that looked on my childhood?
And where is the bosom-friend dearer than all?”

A French writer says, ” that man is born a tyrant, and that he seeks for the helpless and forlorn as victims for the exercise of his tyranny.” We doubted, for a time, the correctness of this misanthrophic assertion, but from the unfeeling manner in which a portion of the Sydney and Melbourne press has treated the homeless Irish Orphans, we have been induced to think that there is some truth in the sarcastic observation of the French philosopher. Well may these helpless orphans exclaim in the pathetic words of the Exile of Erin, when they hear of the ruthless and unmanly attacks made on them by the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Argus.

“Where is the mother that looked on my childhood?
And where is the bosom-friend dearer than all ?”

Both these chivalrous and gallant assailants of helpless girls, dipped the point of their spears in the juice of wormwood, and the Argus poured a strong infusion of falsehood into the decoction, in order to inflict a more, deadly wound on the objects of his cowardly assault.

The principal charges made against the Orphans are, that they are more expensive, and less useful than other immigrants; that they are unacceptable to the Protestant contributors to the Land Fund. The immaculate Argus goes further and brings a wholesale charge of vice and immorality against the; Proh pudo !²

We shall make a few remarks on each of these charges, and will premise that we are no advocates for sending out so many o£ these girls, and in such rapid succession. We think, however, that this is owing to the answer returned to Earl Grey’s first despatch on the subject by the Immigration Committee in Sydney to the effect, that thirteen hundred Orphan Girls could be provided for, annually in New South Wales, for some time to come.

This opinion was given before the committee were aware of the great influx of other immigrants to the colony. For our own part, we would prefer to leave many of these girls exposed, even to the dangers of starvation at home, than to have them exposed to the taunts and bad treatment, which some of them have experienced here.

Several of them have been obliged to get their indentures cancelled, under various pretexts, in order to escape from the brutal grasp of licentious masters. As to their being too expensive to the colony, we hold that they have been the occasion of a great saving to the colonists, by reason of the reduction in the wages of female servants, consequent on the low rates at which these girls have been hired. We know that several discharged their servant women, who were in the receipt of high wages, as soon as they got an Orphan Girl at £6 or £8 per annum, and then insisted on these girls doing all the work of their former servants; though these apprentices, were neither supposed, nor expected to be equal to the work of thorough servants- hence arose much of the complaints of their being useless, because they were not as expert as older and well-trained servant women. No doubt there were several useless ones among so many hundreds; and so, also, are there many useless amongst the ordinary immigrants.

That some of the Protestant contributors to the ‘Land Fund’ do not like such an importation of Irish Papists, as they are pleased to call them, we freely admit. When the purchasers of crown lands get value for their money in the shape of broad acres, any further right upon their part to demand a second equivalent, in the selection of immigrants of their own peculiar way of thinking, cannot be admitted, for as Earl Grey, in answer to Dr. Lang on this point, justly remarks, the money arising from the sale of crown land forms an Imperial Fund available for the purposes of emigration from England, Ireland, and Scotland, in proportion to the relative number of inhabitants of the three countries, and not according to the religious opinions of any parties wishing to emigrate, to these colonies.

No doubt we have amongst us some who would fair see inscribed on the ‘ Sydney Heads’ the motto that once adorned the gates of bigoted Bandon— ‘ A Turk, Jew, or Atheist Is welcome here, but not a Papist.” Hence more sympathy seemed to be shewn by certain parties towards the Pagan Savages of Cannibal Islands, who had been kidnapped some time back from their homes, by sordid speculators, than towards these Christian children of Catholic Ireland. There is a curious incident regarding these Orphans, which is, that their arch reviler and the inveterate declaimer against their religion, is now, with matchless effrontery, soliciting the votes of Irish Catholics to return him to the Legislative Council, as the great champion of liberty and equality. Truly wonders will never cease !

The most shameful and groundless charge of immorality made against the Orphans by the Argus, and re-echoed by the City Council of Melbourne, has been taken up and most triumphantly refuted by the Irish residents in Port Phillip. From the written evidence of the Chief Constable, the Sergeants, and members of the Police Force, produced at the meeting of St. Patrick’s Society, it has been proved that not more than three, or six at most, out of the thirteen hundred Orphan Girls landed at Melbourne turned out disreputably.

The Mayor and Immigration Agent certified the same, and spoke in high terms of the moral character of these girls. We doubt not but that a similar conclusion would result from a like investigation in Sydney not withstanding the many snares and temptations by which these Orphans have been surrounded. Wherever any of them have fallen, it has been the work of seduction or violence. We have received satisfactory information from several respectable parties in the interior, as to the general good character of the Orphans in their localities.

We freely admit that the majority of them are not thorough servants, but in general they are, honest, sober and hardworking, three qualities not always found united in the female servants of New South Wales. And as a proof that these girls are beginning to be appreciated, we may adduce the fact, that out of about 280 arrived a few weeks since by the “John Knox,” 200 have been hired in that time from the Depot in Sydney.

The Herald complains of the expense of supporting these girls for a few weeks at Hyde Park Barracks, but these expenses are small, when compared to the benefit that the public derive from having a sufficient supply of female servants. at hand, and that at reduced wages. No, neither the expenses, nor the pretended uselessness of these girls, is the real cause of the outcry against them, but it is because they are under the ‘curse,’ of which Dean Swift so bitterly complains — they were born in Ireland, and that is aggravated in the eyes of some, because the majority of them have held fast to the ‘ Faith’ of their forefathers; Hinc illæ lachrymœ. Hence the tears of the Herald. This is the “Head and front of their offending.”

Several of their employers differ from them in religion, and some revile and insult them on account of their Faith; but this is not the way to train them up to be docile and useful servants. No right-minded person will ever ridicule another on account of his religious opinions. Many of the Orphans have reason to complain of the many impediments thrown in their way to prevent them from attending their place of worship, although this is expressly provided for in their Indentures — this sours their temper and then they become sullen, and indifferent to the fulfilment of their duties, and then new causes of complaint arise, which a little kindness and forethought on the part of their masters, and especially of their mistresses, might have prevented.

We have dwelt rather long upon this disagreeable subject, but we were anxious to remove from the public mind some part of the prejudice which has been excited against these unoffending Orphans; and to point out the real cause of that prejudice.

*Please note: Punctuation and paragraphs have been added to the above transcription for ease and speed of reading

In memory of
one million people who died in Ireland
during the Great Hunger of 1845-1852.
In praise of the courage of
tens of thousands of dispossessed Irish
who sailed to Hobson’s Bay to build a new life.
In sorrow for the dispossession
of the Bunnurong and Woirorung people
but in a spirit of reconciliation.
In solidarity with all those
who suffer hunger today

The Famine Rock on the foreshore at Williamstown, memorialises the many Irish Orphan Girls
who came to Australia, under the Earl Grey Scheme between 1848 and 1852
– Image: Irish Famine Girls Commemoration Facebook Page

1. 1850 'IRISH ORPHAN GIRLS.', Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932), 11 July, p. 4. , viewed 27 Aug 2024, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article115765917

2. Latin for shame