New Horizons is the theme for this week, and I immediately think of those brave ancestors of mine who sailed off to new horizons as they emigrated to Australia. For many is meant leaving their homelands and extended families forever for a strange place with strange customs, strange landscapes and strange animals. For a few it even meant learning a new language.
What prompted these people to take such a step? For my father's family, his parents left England within weeks of their marriage in 1907 to sail to Australia to start their married life. Frank and Rosa (Pike) Green married 10 October 1907 and arrived in Australia 1 December 1907. They enjoyed a much faster and safer journey than other ancestors who emigrated in earlier years. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 had given ships from Europe an alternative route to Australia and by the early 1900s, steamships had become the established method of transport. No longer dependent on the strong winds encountered on the 'Great Circle' route, many shipping lines by this time travelled via the Suez Canal, reducing the length of the journey to Australia to 35 or 40 days. My father's parents were lucky indeed.
For my mother's side of the family, most branches travelled to Australia in the 1840s and 1850's, a much longer and riskier voyage. A diverse group, they came from many different places. The Pummeroy family travelled from London to Melbourne around 1849. The Davis family came from Kent, also to Melbourne, making the voyage in 1853 with wife Margaret tragically dying at sea giving birth to twins, neither of whom survived. The Beseler family came from Hanover in Germany, emigrating from the port of Bremen to Adelaide in 1847 before moving overland to Ercildown, where they settled to farm. The Flowers came from Glamorgan in Wales to Melbourne in 1863. The Clark family came from Bristol around 1855 to settle in Port Sorrel, Tasmania for over 15 years before moving on to Melbourne, and the Mulhollands and McCraes came from Ireland in the 1850s to settle on farmland near Bright.
For all of these families, their new horizons in Australia were permanent, with no return to their homelands so far away. They built new lives, raised their families and spread out across their new homeland.
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