Gleeful and noisy celebrations greeted several dozen nervous young women when, after 99 tumultuous days at sea aboard the Tynemouth, they stepped ashore in Victoria in September 1862. Immediately they were faced with an ordeal of a different kind -- walking in single file up the ceremonial pathway through a jostling crowd of boisterous, eager men. One astonished young woman, proposed to on the spot, accepted her suitor to the delighted cheers of the throng and married him the next day. However, it took most of the bride-ship women longer to find their new destinies. Why did these women leave everything behind in England and come to the west coast of Canada? The answers lie in the atrocious disruptions of industrial Britain, the conflicting aims of earnest Christians and early feminists, and the lusty turmoil of a gold-rush frontier. All three elements shaped this complex and intriguing true story. The hardships and happiness of Louisa and Charlotte Townsend, Isabel Curtis, Jane Saunders, Emma Tammadge, Minnie Gillan and others who left no records are brought to life in this book.
Introduction: The bride-ships and the Filles du Roi -- Liberalism and squalor: London in Queen Victoria's heyday -- Violence in the black canyons: the moil for gold -- Prophets and pilgrims: missionaries in the goldfields -- False starts and faint hope -- The voyage from hell: the Tynemouth -- The Robert Lowe -- The wife experiment reconsidered -- Diffusion: ice crystals on glass.
Book
