Emigrants sent by the Petworth Emigration Committee were part of a wave of rural workers in the 1830s whose immigration to Upper Canada was sponsored by English parishes and landlords. Their letters written or dictated to family and friends, leave us a rare first-hand view of the immigrant experience from a working-class perspective. Collected from published, archival, and private sources, these letters place the Petworth immigrants in the context of their times and challenge the image of English immigrants to 1830s Upper Canada as officers and gentlewomen. Wendy Cameron, Sheila Haines, and Mary McDougall Maude have carefully annotated the letters to sketch the stories of individual writers, link letters by the same author or members of the same family, and explore the connections between writers. What eventually happened to some of the writers is also revealed in this engaging collection. "English Immigrant Voices" provides a valuable insight into the rural poor and their experiences in emigrating to a new land. Wendy Cameron is a partner in Wordforce and a visiting scholar at the Northrop Frye Centre, Victoria University at the University of Toronto. Sheila Haines is a partner in Kinship and has recently retired from the Centre for Continuing Education, University of Sussex, England. 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.
