Tuke's Emigration Scheme - 1882-1885

Tuke’s Emigration Scheme

The following excerpts have been extracted from a memoir of James Hack Tuke (1819-1896) written by his friend, Sir Edward Fry, in 1909.

James Hack Tuke was born in York on September 13, 1819, the second son and seventh child of Quakers Samuel Tuke and Priscilla Hack. He was educated in York at a day school attended by North Country Quakers. When Tuke was nine years old, his mother died, and at the age of sixteen, he left school and joined his father at a counting-house, where his father was a senior partner in a firm of tea merchants.

“In August 1845, Tuke sailed for America. While on board the steamer, he met William Forster, the father of the future Chief Secretary of Ireland, William Edward ‘Buckshot’ Forster, a man who would have a major impact on Ireland during the years of the Land League.

“From New York, Tuke traveled by carriage to Philadelphia, Boston, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. He crossed into Canada and visited Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto. During his travels, he made notes of all the people and places he had visited, including Louisville, and noted the evils of slavery.

“After his return to England, Tuke learned of the disaster that was taking place in Ireland. He traveled to Ireland with the elder William Forster for the purpose of providing famine relief. In Donegal, they contacted the local gentry and ministers of various denominations for the purpose of establishing soup kitchens and visited the cottages of those in greatest distress.”

“In 1847, the worst year of the Great Famine, James again returned to Ireland, travelling throughout Connaught where ‘we saw enough of misery and wretchedness to dispel all other visions. He entered homes where the inhabitants were dying from the ‘fever’ that claimed so many.’ He wrote of entire villages devoid of all human habitation because the people who once lived there had been evicted, their roofs pulled down about their heads. He also visited feeding stations where the Poor Law officers attempted to feed the starving. He counted 300 people at one such station, many of them in various stages of fever, starvation, and nakedness. He was so moved by what he saw that he published a pamphlet in England describing the plight of the Irish.

“Many Irish fled Ireland for England, some ending up living on the doorstep of Samuel Tuke, James’s father, in York, who offered a small field near his own home for the erection of a wooden building to serve as a fever hospital. It was there that James caught the fever—the effects of which stayed with him for the rest of his life. When the mini-famine of 1877-79 appeared to be a repeat of Black ’47, Tuke devised a plan that would save thousands from their wretched existence.”

In 1879, the second year of the mini-famine, Tuke returned to Ireland. Although there was hunger and want, there was not starvation. But it was on that visit that he became “strongly impressed with the necessity of assisting families to emigrate in order to lessen the fearful crowding of those who were attempting to live on small patches of land.”

Emigration was not a new idea. Hundreds of thousands of Irish had fled to America during the Famine and post-Famine years. Many landlords horrified by the scenes taking place on their estates had paid the passage money for their tenants. Other landlords, for less altruistic reasons, saw emigration as a way of clearing the land of impoverished tenants, thus reducing the amount of poor rates they had to remit to the Government to support local workhouses. The cleared land was almost always turned into pastureland.

As outlined in his pamphlet, “Irish Distress and Its Remedies,” Tuke’s idea was different. Rather than one or two members of a family emigrating at a time, he proposed that entire families emigrate together. In order to determine if previous emigrations of Irish had been successful, Tuke sailed to America to investigate. In Minnesota, Tuke noted the success of a relocation program, the Catholic Colonization Association (CCA), established by Bishop John Ireland of St. Paul and Bishop John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria, Illinois. The organization bought land in rural areas of the West and helped resettle Irish Catholics from urban slums. Working with the western railroads and with the Minnesota state government, the CCA brought more than 4,000 Catholic families from the slums of eastern urban areas and settled them on more than 400,000 acres of farmland in rural Minnesota. His partner in Ireland was John Sweetman, a wealthy brewer who helped set up the Irish-American Colonization Company there. (Wikipedia - “Bishop John Ireland”)

“To counter arguments of the Church hierarchy that emigration led to spiritual ruin, Tuke’s plan included emigration of priests to minister to the émigrés. The priests would establish schools and churches to provide stability and continuity. Tuke, a devout Quaker, discouraged any plans for converting Irish Catholics.” His goal was “to make the emigrants into prosperous and independent farmers and laborers.”

After his visit to the United States and Canada, Tuke came away convinced that the “emigration of suitable families with arrangements for their voyage, their reception in America, and their transfer to selected destinations, was one remedy which might be attempted. But how was it to be done?” First, Tuke published a paper, “Ought Emigration from Ireland be Assisted” in the Contemporary Review. In it he pointed out that in the five counties “washed by the Atlantic: Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Clare, and Kerry, over 1,000,000 people were living upon 158,000 holdings, of which nearly half were rated under Class 4, the most primitive housing in Ireland. In his paper, he pointed out the failure of the 1881 Land Act and the fact that the land they tenanted was too poor to provide an income large enough to support their families. “Emigration to a more favored land” was the only cure for the Irish problem.

“Tuke’s message earned supporters for his scheme. After a meeting on March 31, 1882 at the home of the Duke of Bedford, Tuke was asked to return to Ireland to select candidates for emigration. The fund established at this meeting was to become known as ‘Mr. Tuke’s Fund.’

“After making inquiries in Liverpool for emigrant ships, Tuke spent seven weeks in three of the poorest unions of the West: Clifden in County Galway, including islands off the Galway coast, and Newport and Bellmullet in County Mayo. He contacted the Poor Law authorities and then drove about the country making inquiries about those who would be willing to emigrate or ‘sent out of their misery.’ In one week, 1,276 people, many from Achill Island, Mayo, enrolled as candidates for emigration.

“The scheme required extensive organization: “There was the selection of the proper people; the bringing them at the right moment, neither too early nor too late, to the place of embarkation; the provision of proper clothing; the procuring of proper transit across the Atlantic; and at the port of arrival, of proper care and means of transport to the actual places of abode… He [Tuke] had lists of candidates prepared from the different districts of the Union, and finally settled who should go; he gave to the selected ones notice of the time of their departure; he got the emigrants into Galway just in time to start transporting men, women, and abundance of little children, over a country without a railway in it, and for distances usually from fifty to sixty miles; he provided for their clothing; he procured the calling of special steamers in Galway Bay…and through a personal friend he made provision that the emigrants arriving at Boston, New York, and Philadelphia should be looked after. On 4th May [1882] his first consignment sailed from Galway Bay…

“‘You will be much interested to hear by telegram of the successful departure of the 350 emigrants in the Nepigon. She arrived here [in Galway Bay] about seven, and lay in the bay nearly a mile from the quay. The tug, with its first freight of 200 poor Connemara people, was soon alongside. The confusion and searches for missing children, bundles of clothing, etc., were considerable, though perhaps not greater than might have been expected. The wish to change the place of destination on the tickets, the anxiety to know that the ticket was all right on the part of those who could not read, the sense that they were committing their all and their future to an unknown and distant world, doubtless troubled and disturbed many… Then, again, some families who had been expected to come did not arrive, and others had been substituted; two or three brought other members of the family (or near relations), who had not been put down, earnestly begging for them to be accepted at the last moment. One girl went into a paroxysm of grief because a sister was not allowed to go with her, and when she was admitted went into another because a brother was not allowed. This was too much; and she became so excited that she and her bundles were at length replaced on the tender… The greatest trouble really was, that after all we had done to clothe the people, many came up utterly unfit to travel… Father Stephen went back in the tug, and then returned in a sailing-boat with two or three bundles for the captain to distribute towards the end of the voyage…”

Two weeks later, he wrote: “The third and largest batch of Connemara emigrants, numbering in all 430 persons, had, with the invaluable aid of Major Gaskell, been gathered together, and by car, or omnibus, or hooker [a boat used on the coast of Connaught] were, with no little difficulty, collected in readiness for the Winnipeg, appointed to sail the following morning… It is not needful to describe that which is involved in the collection from the lodging-houses, the exchange of tickets, the transfer of so many men, women, and children from the tug to the steamer, and the final shake-down on board. Suffice it to say…it was done after six hours strenuous toil, and with cheers the emigrants left on their voyage of discovery to the New World. Through the kindness of Father Nugent of Liverpool, the Rev. J. O’Donnell, R. C. chaplain of the Liverpool Workhouse, had been induced to take charge of them.”

Up to this point, the scheme had been funded by the Society of Friends and several wealthy members of the British aristocracy, including the Dukes of Bedford and Devonshire, but the popularity of the program required additional monies. In the Arrears Act of 1882, £100,000 was provided for emigration purposes of which £25,000 was designated for Mr. Tuke’s Fund.

In order to make the program a success, and to satisfy concerns about an invasion of paupers to America, there had to be a certain number of breadwinners to dependents, and all had to be physically fit. An exhaustive enquiry was made of each emigrant about “his means, holding, and clothing.”

Another glimpse of the work may be gathered from the following extracts of a letter from Tuke to Mr. Buxton dated May 1883 from Bellmullet in far western Mayo: “Yesterday was passed, as all days before the sailing of the ship are spent, in an infinite variety of interviews, ‘doings and undoings,’ emigrants who wished not to, others who at the last moment wished ‘to lave by the next ship’; husbands who wished to leave the family ‘behint’; wives who wanted to go without the husband, who declared he would not go, couldn’t make up his mind, and why, ‘because…he had vowed to ‘perform a station [religious rite] before he left home, ‘had some earnings owing to him which he would lose,’ and many other possible or impossible reasons for not going as the wife and family wished him to do…

“On one occasion in 1883, when we  were…sitting solemnly in the Board-room at Clifden interviewing emigrants…a poor man came up, very anxious to go to Boston. Mr. Tuke objected to sending people to the cities, requiring evidence that they would be sure of a reception there first. The poor fellow got more and more alarmed as to his destination, and pressing forward with clasped hands called out, ‘Och yer honour, sind me to Boshton. Sind me to Boshton. Shure I’ve got fourteen furst coushins in Boshton.’”

During the first year, Tuke’s passengers were allowed to go directly to American ports. However, in 1883, all emigrants were sent to Quebec unless they could prove that they had friends in the United States who would provide them with food and shelter. Another change was that the steamers now called at Blacksod Bay in County Mayo, greatly facilitating the emigration of people from one of the poorest unions in the West.

With the success of two years’ operation, in July 1883, Tuke made application to the British Government for additional money, and the Government obliged with an additional £100,000 under the Tramways and Public Companies (Ireland) bill. Even the Roman Catholic Church came on board and noted the success of the scheme. Unfortunately, that support did not last.

In the spring of 1884, the number of emigrants decreased substantially. Causes for this decrease were a depression in the labor market in the United States and increased employment in Ireland and England. There was also opposition from political and religious organizations. Poor Law guardians who had initially supported emigration, now withheld promised funds. Bishop McCormack of Ballaghadereen, Galway in his Easter pastoral letter denounced emigration. With so many emigrating, shopkeepers were losing clientele, and traders posted notices in the marketplace denouncing emigration and Tuke’s Fund.

With declining support, a decrease in funding, and fewer people emigrating, in June 1884, the Committee ceased operations while keeping in place the framework of the scheme in the event of a future emergency.

According to the Committee’s own statistics, in the three years of its operations, “9,482 emigrants were sent out, consisting of 1,500 families and the rest single persons. Of these emigrants, about 70 per cent went to ninety districts of the United States; 221 to Australia, and the rest to Ontario and the North-West Territory of Canada… The operations were chiefly confined to the Unions of Clifden and Oughterard, Galway and Bellmullet and Newport, Mayo.”

Those Left Behind:

Although Tuke’s Emigration Scheme helped nearly ten thousand people to flee Ireland’s extreme poverty, by the time of its implementation, emigration was already an entrenched part of the Irish experience. It began in earnest during the 1830s and accelerated during the Famine and post-Famine years of the 1840s and 1850s, a trend that continued well into the twentieth century. Jane Barlow in her 1909 book, Irish Ways, provided a vivid description of the realities behind this phenomenon:

“Time hangs heavily in and about the small whitewashed dwellings, slated farm-house or thatched cabin. Events seem to have ceased happening, nor are there any at all definitely in prospect. This is a state of things against which the young people in particular impatiently rebel, as forecasting a future which promises them little. In the endless, empty-handed winter evenings…when the lamp screening the window, and the fire flushing the walls, seem no longer to light any purpose of profit or pleasure, the hours must lag leadenly indeed. It appears quite possible that we have herein one reason for the exodus of our youth so steadily proceeding from the country, if we may conjecture some of the emigrants to be scared from their father's door, not so much by dread of the grinning wolf poverty, as by disgust at the crawling slug dullness…

“And the worst of it was that no disinterested observer could wish, even less counsel them to remain. The place is terrible backward; there does be no earnin’ in it, and ne'er a chance for the young people. On the fishing they cannot count, nor on the harvest, for ‘you couldn’t tell the day or the minute when the blight may be blowin’ in on a wet wind from the sea, and witherin’ up the pitaties as ye look at them,” while an oat-field gone to hopeless wrack is at least no rarer spectacle than one safely lined with stooks [oat ricks]. So the boys and girls say to themselves that only the width of the water after all will lie between, and over it they go, hardly realising, maybe, what a chasm they are crossing. Their departure leaves parents forlornly lonesome and brethren restlessly discontented. The money-orders that come over by mail—emigrants call a remittanceless letter a ‘dry’ one and send it apologetically—are useful, no doubt, but cannot fill up the blank made by the absence of Paddy or Rose, and waken in the minds of Kitty and Jack a perilous eagerness to be off in quest of dollars for themselves. Moreover, the circumstance of the most capable and energetic being usually among the first to go, has naturally begun to create an impression that the mere fact of keeping at home does imply homely wits, and this of course adds the prick of pride to the many other urgent motives for setting  out ‘and no talk of coming back.’”

Minooka families benefiting from Tuke’s Emigration Scheme:

Michael and Bridgit Mulkerin Lacey

Their children: Mary (Faherty), Owen, Bridgit (King), and Patrick

Michael Faherty

Michael and Nora Mulkerin Walsh

Their children: Mary (Coleman), Nora (Kingdom), Mike, Martin, Ellen, John, Patrick and Bea (Holleran)