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Title Entry-Books of Correspondence: Letters from the Emigration Commission, 1840
Date 29 Jun-31 Dec 1840
Document Type Correspondence
Reference CO 386/25
Library / Archive The National Archives
Collection Name Colonial Office: Land and Emigration Commission, etc.
Description Correspondence regarding emigration to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Falkland Islands, Jamaica and South Africa. Assorted topics include complaints of delay, appointments to office, the price of land, quarantine services, surveying, tendering, the relatives of convicts and the colonisation of the Falkland Islands. Also included is a memorial of Glasgow merchants for emigration to New Zealand, and documents relating to Captain Bunbury's emigrants, Captain Mackenzie's emigrants and the Liverpool Emigration Association.
Series Description This series contains original correspondence, entry books and registers of the Agent General for Emigration, the South Australian Commissioners and the Land and Emigration Commission. Amongst the miscellaneous contents are registers of births and deaths of emigrants at sea 1854-1869, lists of ships chartered 1847-1875, registers of surgeons appointed 1854-1894, and volumes of The Colonial Gazette 1838-1842.
Biographical Note / History A Colonial Land and Emigration Commission was created in 1840 to undertake the duties of two earlier and overlapping authorities which were both under the supervision of the Secretary of State. These were the Colonisation Commissioners for South Australia, established under an Act of 1834, and the Agent General for Emigration, appointed in 1837. The new commission dealt with grants of land, the outward movement of settlers, the administration of the Passengers' Acts of 1855 and 1863 and, from 1846 to 1859, the scrutiny of colonial legislation. In 1855 it became the Emigration Commission. In 1873 the administration of the Passengers' Acts was transferred to the Board of Trade. The commission's powers were gradually given up to the larger colonies as they obtained self-government, and after 1873 its only duties were the control of the importation of Indian indentured labour into sugar-producing colonies and it was abolished in 1878.
Theme(s) Politics, Legislation and Governance
Places New Zealand; Falkland Islands; Canada; Tasmania, Western Australia, Australia; Jamaica; Glasgow, Scotland; Cape Horn, South Africa
Ports Sydney, New South Wales, Port Phillip, Victoria, Australia
Nationality English; Scottish; European
Ships SS Crusader; Cornwall; SS Orestes; China
People Bunbury, Captain; Mackenzie, Captain
Keywords surveying, finance, agent, complaints, land sale, customs, land price, merchant, emigration, quarantine, land grant, immigration, colonisation, convict, accounts
Language English
Copyright Crown Copyright documents © are reproduced by permission of The National Archives London, UK