X: Extreme Opposition to the Scheme

Earl Grey 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.

About My Theme For 2025

My theme for 2025 is The Earl Grey Orphan Scheme which saw young destitute girls of about 15-16 years old sent to Australia between 1848 and 1850 to start their lives over. I became interested in this scheme when my research showed that my great great grandmother was an Earl Grey Orphan. I am not at all an expert on this topic. The posts in my A to Z Challenge come from information that I have come across over many years of research and reading.

Extreme Opposition To The Scheme

The opposition to the girls arrival in Australia at times was extreme. There were many in the community who thought the girls were '‘not of the class required in Australia’. Others described them as prostitutes and vagabonds. Most of the opposition was caused by the unknown and by bigotry.

Regardless of the extreme opposition, most orphans flourished - “they married and raised families in the harsh conditions of the new colony. Great numbers would live to see the dawn of the new 20th century in their new land”

There were less articles published about the success of the scheme, than the extreme opposition to it. The following articles and letter to the editor, are just an example of many that appeared in the newspapers, at the time.

from: The Argus , 4 April 1850, page 2 ¹

Another ship-load of female immigrants from Ireland has reached our shores, and yet, though every body is crying out against the monstrous infliction, and the palpable waste of the immigration fund, furnished by the colonists, in bringing out these worthless characters, nobody has, for so far, sufficiently shaken off the ordinary apathy which besets the community, to set about the necessary means for getting up a remonstrance against the farther continuance of a system fraught with such fearful evils to the whole community.

In these circumstances, we learn, with very great gratification, that the Sydney Board of Guardians, appointed to superintend this system of immigration, have deemed it to be their duty to offer a strong remonstrance to the Government, against its further continuance; and we earnestly hope, that the admirable example thus set, will be followed by the Boards of Guardians, here and at Adelaide; the evils attendant upon such an ill-advised and unjust appropriation of the colonial immigration funds, having been equally felt in both colonies.

It is the duty of gentlemen, placed in such a position, to see that they are not made the instruments of wrong-doing to the community; and their fellow colonists have, therefore, the right to expect that, as they must see the evils which belong to the present system, they will remonstrate against its continuance, and, failing success, refuse to have anything farther to do with the matter.

Remonstrance from the Board of Guardians, though highly desirable, is, however, insufficient. The colonists ought to let themselves be heard in the matter, and it will be shameful, indeed, if long time is suffered to elapse, before steps are taken for the redress of a grievance of such serious magnitude.

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from: The Argus, 24 April 1850, page 2 ²
Original Correspondence.
IRISH POOR HOUSES AND ORPHAN IMMIGRATION.

To the Editor of the Argus,

Sir,—These two subjects are so intimately connected with the welfare of our adopted country, that we cannot reason, on the more than melancholy failure of the latter, without bestowing some consideration on the former.

The whole country cries out against the further admission into our colony, of such degraded beings as the majority of the female orphans have been found. Nor has their cry been raised without reason, for we venture to say, every vessel that brings an increase of this kind to our female population, brings a melancholy increase to the vice and lewdness that is now to be seen rampant in every part of our town.

From this class we have received no good servants for the wealthier classes in the towns, no efficient farm servants for the rural population, no virtuous, and industrious young women, fit wives for the labouring part of the community; and by the introduction of whom a strong barrier would be erected against the floods of iniquity that are now sweeping every trace of morality from the most public thoroughfares of our city.

Surely there must be a cause for this wide spread propensity to wickedness, other than the depraved inclinations of unprincipled individuals. Where then is that cause to be sought after, if not in the establishments in which these persons are subjected to a long course of training, prior to their embarkation for the colonies?

It is from the Irish poor houses we have hitherto received almost the whole of this class of immigrants. In these establishments many of the female orphans have been supported for periods ranging from two to six years, before they were considered eligible for emigration.

It therefore becomes a matter of serious consequence to the inhabitants of this province, to know how so large a portion of the young female population has been prepared for the various tasks that have been imposed upon them by those who placed them in situations, for which all their previous habits have rendered them so eminently unfit.

The seed that has in this province, so signally blighted the expectations of those who planned, and carried out this species of immigration is the idleness, habitual and systematic idleness, of the inmates of the Irish poor houses. Large masses are there congregated, their food is pre-pared and laid before them at certain hours, their employment, if any, is sedentary; their mental culture is of the lowest kind, and their religious instructions all but neglected.

In fine, their whole preparation for the busy scenes of a young community, in a new country where nature is on every side to be subdued, and rendered subservient to the wants of mankind, by the untiring energies of the people, male and female, in their various departments, has been found worse than inadequate.

An unvaried round of constant uselessness at home has produced a rich harvest of vice and degradation in this province. The females of this class can neither wash nor bake, they can neither attend to household wants nor field labour. They refuse in general to go into the country, and when placed in town they refuse either to work, or to learn those parts of their business of which they are ignorant. They lose their places, they have no friends to fall back upon, the brothel is open, and it receives them and there, amid unhallowed orgies, that youth and strength, and beauty, is spent and ruined, which under a more sane management at home, would have shed praise and honour, and blessing around its possessors, abroad.

That this is a true statement of the subject, none need doubt. It may be difficult to amend it, but is it therefore not to be attempted? To the root of the evil the remedy must be applied: and until that remedy has not only been applied, but has worked its effect, it is unjust in those in power, to afflict this fair province with such a curse, as has in this instance, hitherto, been so wantonly cast upon us.

I am, Sir,
your obedient servant.
ADSUM.

1. 1850 'IRISH ORPHAN IMMIGRATION.', The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), 4 April, p. 2. , viewed 26 Apr 2025, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4768841

2. 1850 'IRISH POOR HOUSES AND ORPHAN IMMIGRATION.', The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), 24 April, p. 2. , viewed 26 Apr 2025, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4771306