TOWARDS AUSTRALIA.
Although my mother's family had lost heavily by him, her mother gave us
500 pounds to make a start in South Australia. An 80-acre section was
built for 80 pounds, and this entitled us to the steerage passage of
four adults. This helped for my elder sister and two brothers (my
younger brother David was left for his education with his aunts in
Scotland), but we had to have another female, so we took with us a
servant girl--most ridiculous, it seems now. I was under the statutory
age of 15. The difference between steerage and intermediate fares had
to be made up, and we sailed from Greenock in July, 1839, in the barque
Palmyra, 400 tons, bound for Adelaide, Port Phillip, and Sydney. The
Palmyra was advertised to carry a cow and an experienced surgeon.
Intermediate passengers had no more advantage of the cow than steerage
folks, and except for the privacy of separate cabins and a pound of
white biscuit per family weekly, we fared exactly as the other
immigrants did, though the cost was double. Twice a week we had either
fresh meat or tinned meat, generally soup and boudle, and the biscuit
seemed half bran, and sometimes it was mouldy. But our mother thought
it was very good for us to endure hardship, and so it was.
There were 150 passengers, mostly South Australian immigrants, in the
little ship. The first and second class passengers were bound for Port
Philip and Sydney in greater proportion than for Adelaide There was in
the saloon the youthful William Milne, and in the intermediate was Miss
Disher, his future wife. He became President of the Legislative
Council, and was knighted. There was my brother, J. B. Spence, who also
sat in the Council, and was at one time Chief Secretary. There was
George Melrose, a successful South Australian pastoralist; there was my
father's valued clerk, Thomas Laidlaw, who was long in the Legislative
Council of New South Wales and the leading man in the town of Yass.
"Honest Torn of Yass" was his soubriquet. Bound for Melbourne there
were Mr. and Mrs. Duncan, of Melrose, and Charles Williamson, from
Hawick, who founded a great business house in Collins Street. There
were Langs from Selkirk, and McHaffies, who became pastoralists. Our
next cabin mate, who brought out a horse, had the Richmond punt when
there was no bridge there. All the young men were reading a thick book
brought out by the Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge about sheep,
but they could dance in the evenings to the strains of Mr. Duncan's
violin, and although I was not 14, I was in request as a partner, as
ladies were scarce. Jessie Spence and Eliza Disher, who were grown up,
were the belles of the Palmyra. Of all the passengers in the ship the
young doctor, John Logan Campbell, has had the most distinguished
career. Next to Sir George Grey he has had most to do with the
development of New Zealand. He is now called the Grand Old Man of
Auckland. He had his twenty-first birthday, this experienced surgeon(!)
in the same week as I had my fourteenth, while the Palmyra was lying
off Holdfast Bay (now Glenelg) before we could get to the old Port
Adelaide to discharge. My brother saw him in 1883, but I have not set
eye on him since that week in 1839. We have corresponded frequently
since my brother's death. In his book "Poenama," written for his
children, there is a picture of the Palmyra, with an account of the
voyage and the only sensational incident in it. We had a collision in
the Irish Sea, and our foremast was broken, so that we had to return to
Greenock for repairs, and then obtained the concession of white biscuit
for the second class for one day in the week. Sir John Campbell's gift
of a beautiful park to the citizens of Auckland was made while my
brother John was alive. Just recently he has given money and plans for
building and equipping the first free kindergarten in Auckland--perhaps
in New Zealand--and as this includes a training college for the
students it is very complete. These Palmyra passengers have made their
mark on the history of Australia and New Zealand. It is surprising what
a fine class of people immigrated to Australia in these days to face
all the troubles of a new country.
The first issue of The Register was printed in London, and gave a
glowing account of the province that was to be--its climate, its
resources, the sound principles on which it was founded. It is
sometimes counted as a reproach that South Australia was founded by
doctrinaires and that we retain traces of our origin; to me it is our
glory. In the land laws and the immigration laws it struck out a new
path, and sought to found a new community where the sexes should be
equal, and where land, labour, and capital should work harmoniously
together. Land was not to be given away in huge grants, as had been
done in New South Wales and Western Australia, to people with influence
or position, but was to be sold at the high price of 20/ an acre. The
price should be not too high to bring out people to work on the land.
The Western Australian settlers had been wellnigh starved, because
there was no labour to give real value to the paper or parchment deeds.
The cheapest fare third class was from 17 pounds to 20 pounds, and the
family immigration, which is the best, was quite out of the reach of
those who were needed. The immigrants were not bound to work for any
special individual or company, unless by special contract voluntarily
made. They were often in better circumstances after the lapse of a few
years than the landbuyers, and, in the old days, the owner of an
80-acre section worked harder and for longer hours than any hired man
would do, or could be expected to do.
In the South Australian Public Library there is a curious record--the
minutes and proceedings of the South Australian Literary Society, in
the years 1831-5. As the province was non-existent at that time, this
cultivation of literature seems premature, but the members, 40 in
number, were its founders, and pending the passage of the Bill by the
Imperial Parliament, they met fortnightly in London to discuss its
prospects, and to read papers on exploration and on matters of future
development and government. The first paper was on education for the
new land, and was read by Richard Davies Hanson. The South Australian
Company and Mr. George Fife Angas came to the rescue by buying a
considerable area of land and making up the amount of capital which was
required. It is interesting to note that the casting vote in the House
of Lords which decided that the province of South Australia should come
into existence was given by the Duke of Wellington. Adelaide was to
have been called Wellington, but somehow the Queen Consort's name
carried the day. The name of the conquerer of Waterloo is immortalized
in the capital of the Dominion of New Zealand, in the North Island,
which, like South Australia, was founded on the Wakefield principle of
selling land for money to be applied for immigration. The 40 signatures
in the records of the South Australian Literary Society are most
interesting to an old colonist like myself, and the names of many of
them are perpetuated in those of our rivers and our streets:--Torrens,
Wright, Brown, Gilbert, Gouger, Hanson, Kingston, Wakefield, Morphett,
Childers, Hill (Rowland), Stephens, Mawn, Furniss, Symonds. The second
issue of The Register was printed in Adelaide. It was also The
Government Gazette. It gave the proclamation of the province, which was
made under the historic gum tree near Holdfast Bay, now Glenelg. It
also records the sales of the town acres which had not been allotted to
the purchasers of preliminary sections. These were of 134 acres, and a
town acre, at the price of 12/6 an acre. This was a temptation to
invest at the very first, because afterwards the price was 20/ an acre,
without any city lot. From this cheap investment came the frequent
lamentation, "Why did not I buy Waterhouse's corner for 12/6?" But
there was more than 12/6 needed. The investment was of 80 pounds, which
secured the ownership of the corner block facing King William street
and Rundle street, and besides 134 acres of valuable suburban land.
There were connected with The Register from the earliest days the
enterprising head of the house. Robert Thomas, who must have been well
aided by his intelligent wife. The sons and daughters took their place
in colonial society. Mr. George Stevenson left the staff of The Globe
and Traveller, a good old London Paper, to try his fortunes in the new
Province founded on the Wakefield principle, as Private Secretary to
the first Governor (Capt. John Hindmarsh, R.N.). It is matter of
history how the Governor and the Commissioner of Lands differed and
quarrelled, the latter having the money and the former the power of
government, and it was soon found that Mr. Stevenson could wield a
trenchant pen. He had been on the "Traveller" branch of the London
paper what would be called now a travelling correspondent. The Governor
was replaced by Col. Gawler, and Mr. Stevenson went on The Register as
editor. Mrs. Stevenson was a clever woman, and could help her husband.
She knew Charles Dickens, and still better, the family of Hogarth, into
which he married. My father and mother were surprised to find so good a
paper and so well printed in the infant city. Then there were A. H.
Davis, of the Reedbeds, and Nathaniel Hailes, who wrote under the
cognomen of "Timothy Short," who had been publisher and bookseller.
There was first Samuel Stephens, who came out in the first ship for the
South Australian Company, and married a fellow passenger, Charlotte
Hudson Beare, and died two years after, and then Edward, manager of the
South Australian Bank, and later, John Stephens who founded The Weekly
Observer, and afterwards bought The Register. These all belonged to a
literary family.
People came out on the smallest of salaries with big families--H. T. H.
Beare on 100 pounds a year as architect, for the South Australian
Company, and he had 18 children by two wives. I do not know what salary
Mr. William Giles came out on with nine children and a young second
wife, but I am sure it was less than 300 pounds. His family in all
counted 21. But things were bad in the old country before the great
lift given by railways, and freetrade, which made England the carrier
for the world; and the possibilities of the new country were shown in
that first issue of The Register in London in the highest colours. Not
too high by any means in the light of what has been accomplished in 73
years, but there was a long row to hoe first, and few of the pioneers
reaped the prizes. But, in spite of hardships and poverty and struggle,
the early colonial life was interesting, and perhaps no city of its
size at the time contained as large a population of intelligent and
educated people as Adelaide.
Mrs. Oliphant, writing in 1885 at the age of 57, says that reading the
"Life of George Eliot" made her think of an autobiography, and this was
written at the saddest crisis of her life. She survived her husband and
all her children, and had just lost the youngest, the posthumous boy.
For them and for the family of a brother she had carried on the
strenuous literary work--fiction, biography, criticism, and
history--and when she died at the age of 69 she had not completed the
history of a great publishing house--that of Blackwood. Her life
tallies with mine on many points, but it is not till I have completed
my 84 years that her sad narrative impels me to set down what appears
noteworthy in a life which was begun in similar circumstances, but
which was spent mainly in Australia. The loss of memory which I see in
many who are younger than myself makes me feel that while I can
recollect I should fix the events and the ideals of my life by pen and
ink. Like Mrs. Oliphant, I was born (three years earlier) in the south
of Scotland. Like her I had an admirable mother but she lost hers at
the age of 60, while I kept mine till she was nearly 97. Like Mrs.
Oliphant, I was captivated by the stand made by the Free Church as a
protest against patronage, and like her I shook off the shackles of the
narrow Calvinism of Presbyterianism, and emerged into more light and
liberty. But unlike Mrs. Oliphant, I have from my earliest youth taken
an interest in politics, and although I have not written the tenth part
of what she has done, I have within the last 20 years addressed many
audiences in Australia and America, and have preached over 100 sermons.
My personal influence has been exercised through the voice more
strongly than by the pen, and in the growth and development of South
Australia, to which I came with my parents and brothers and sisters
when I was just 14, and the province not three years old, there have
been opportunities for usefulness which might not have offered if I had
remained in Melrose, in Sir Walter Scott's country.