What made people migrate to Western Australia? In the early years of the State, or the Swan River Colony as it was called, there were a couple of main reasons which depended upon the social and economic background of the immigrant. Those with money saw it as an opportunity to acquire land and improved their financial assets. Working class immigrants might also aspire to owning land and making money, but there were also ‘push’ factors which stemmed from their economic prospects in England. This was particularly the case with farm labourers who seized on the opportunity to emigrate to get away from harsh conditions in England.
Parts of England were experiencing civil unrest in the agricultural sector in the 1830s, not long before the Rosers and Playles decided to come to Australia. The cause was the change that the agricultural industry was undergoing because of increasing mechanization. At the centre of the change was the invention of machinery that was starting to replace the work that agricultural labourers traditionally performed, such as threshing. When farmers introduced new machines they began to pay agricultural labourers less and some workers lost their jobs. The Roser and Wilson families would have experienced these problems directly as they lived in Kent and Sussex, the centre of the unrest. The unrest extended to Essex as well so it is possible that John Playle’s family also experienced it.
Writing about East Grinstead, where the Rosers lived, Wallace Hills said that
[At] the close of 1830 the riots throughout the South of England left their effect on this district. The outrages commenced in the adjoining county of Kent and the progressive march of incendiarism was as much feared as that of an invading army. Stacks of grain and farm buildings were everywhere burned and consumed; gangs of men went from farm to farm, breaking all the machinery on the premises, and where the general body of rioters did not go the local discontent was sufficient to change the character of the simple labourer to that of the midnight incendiary. Some neighbouring villages actually assumed the appearance of encampments, as the military and yeomanry made their presence felt and arrested the rioters. (Hills, Wallace Henry. 1906. The History of East Grinstead. p. 223)
The Rosers were a young family at this time and the future must have looked bleak for agricultural labourers in this area. John Playle was in a slightly different position, a single young man of 21 he must have seen what was happening around him and decided that he would be wise to follow the others leaving the farming sector and head overseas to establish himself, preferably as a land owner rather than a labourer.
The label ‘Captain Swing’ came from the circulation of threatening letters that purported to come from someone named Captain Swing, who turned out to be a fictitious character. The letters were intended to frighten farmers into abandoning their new machinery. For a detailed analysis of the unrest see Hobsbawn, E.J. and George Rude. 1973. Captain Swing. Harmondsworth: Penguin University Press, which describes the changes being experienced in England’s agricultural industry and explains why workers were motivated to leave. Many did leave, some coming to British colonies like Western Australia who were only too happy to attract fit, eager workers to build up their fledgling communities.
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