The 1830s were years of social and political change in Britain. Rural unrest in 1830-31 spurred politicians and landlords to re-examine the roles government and individuals should play in fighting poverty. "Assisting Emigration to Upper Canada" examines how new attitudes and policies towards the English poor in this decade affected the British government's approach to emigration and to new immigrants in British colonies. Using a rich collection of contemporary sources, Wendy Cameron and Mary McDougall Maude focus on one group of English immigrants sent to Upper Canada from Sussex and other southern counties with the aid of parishes and landlords. They follow the work of the Petworth Emigration Committee over six years and trace the emigrants from their place of origin to their first settlement in Upper Canada. Their work demonstrates that new rules for poor relief in England were reflected in Colonial Office instructions for receiving new immigrants in Upper Canada. Paternalism strong enough to slow the wheels of change is embodied here in Thomas Sockett, the organiser of the Petworth emigrations, and his patron, the Earl of Egremont, and in Lieutenant Governor Sir John Colborne in Upper Canada. The friction created as these men sought to sustain older values in the relationship between rich and poor highlights the shift in British emigration policy. In these years of transition immigrants sent by the Petworth Emigration Committee could accept assistance and the government direction that went with it, or they could rely on their own resources and find work for themselves. Once the transition was complete, the market-driven model took over and immigrants had to make their own best bargain for their labour. Wendy Cameron is a partner in Wordforce and a visiting scholar at the Northrop Frye Centre, Victoria University at the University of Toronto. Mary McDougall Maude is a partner in Wordforce and Shipton, McDougall Maude Associates, a coordinator of the Publishing Program at Ryerson Polytechnic University, and a visiting scholar at the Northrop Frye Centre, Victoria University at the University of Toronto.
