While this is a belated blog entry, the time period between WWI and WWII was a very significant time in the history of the Scottish Diaspora. In WWI, New Zealand lost 17,000 men. Australia lost over 60,000 men with another 150,000 wounded. Lastly, Canada lost over 60,000 men during the war. The loss of men had a significant impact on the economy of these British Dominion territories. By 1919 there were settlement schemes (programs) to populate the Dominions with able-bodied men. In 1922, the Empire Settlement Act was enacted by Parliament to assist emigration from England and Scotland to Australian, Canada and New Zealand. The Crown advanced people who wanted to go to AU and NZ 75% of the £10 passage.
Many Scots from the Highlands took advantage of this fresh start, in what was advertised as the “land of opportunity and adventure” and made the decision to leave Scotland. During the interwar period, approximately 165,000 British emigrated to Canada, 120,000 emigrated to New Zealand, and over 1,000,000 emigrated to Australia. Many of these emigrants took advantage of the Empire Settlement Act and the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme.
The number of emigrants is quite impressive and what is interesting to me is the fact that this assisted migration went on from the 1920s to the 1970s. It is not surprising to learn that many who went to Australia found the hot and somewhat desolate landscape quite unlike the Scotland and England that they left and returned after a few years. We know much about the emigrants’ experiences from letters and oral histories. During the course discussion, which I will write about in a later blog posting, we talked about the need to locate and preserve these written and oral testimonies of immigrant experiences from our grandparents who made the journey from Scotland to far away places. We know from our research of Leslie genealogies and history that there were a significant number of Leslies who went to Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Their stories are important to preserve.
Here is a link to a very interesting website https://driscollname.com/leslie/index.php
New Zealand Information The interwar immigrants, 1916-1945 – | NZ History
2 responses to “Week 10: Interwar Exodus”
This is very interesting. I didn’t know about this emigration between the wars and after and I had wondered how so many Leslies ended up in Australia.
Thanks for this informative piece.
The Foundation is actively searching for and reaching out to Leslies in both New Zealand and Australia. We now have contacts in both locations and working on documenting genealogies for both countries.