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Title Registers of Correspondence, Orders, Statistics, etc., and Miscellaneous Register of Births and Deaths of Emigrants at Sea, 1861-1869
Date 1861-1869
Document Type Correspondence
Reference CO 386/172
Library / Archive The National Archives
Collection Name Colonial Office: Land and Emigration Commission, etc.
Description Register of deaths and births on board migrant ships, listing the causes of deaths, and personal details of those who died.
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; Ships and Shipping Lines; Journey Conditions
Places Northern Territory, Australia
Ports Hobart, Tasmania, Melbourne, Victoria, Adelaide, South Australia, Brisbane, Queensland, Perth, Fremantle, Western Australia, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Ships Atalanta; Adamant; Burlington; Coldstream; Canterbury; Clara; Earl of Southesk; Great Britain; Matilda; Natal Star; Queen of the South; Tartar; Utopia; White Star
Keywords emigration, shipping, child migration, female emigration, birth, death, diarrhoea, tuberculosis, pneumonia, measles, dysentery, typhus, disease, vomiting, seizures, injury, peritonitis, health and sickness, scarlet fever
Language English
Copyright Crown Copyright documents © are reproduced by permission of The National Archives London, UK