Emigration of coal miners and iron and steel workers (General)

by rookancestrybest , United Kingdom, Thursday, May 20, 2010, 22:41 (5378 days ago) @ alison2

My Forest of Dean family worked in ironworks, steelworks, the tin industry and coal mines and there was movement to the USA, SOuth Yorkshire, South Wales (e.g. Swansea, Rhonda etc) and other places for many of them. Some who went to the USA were blacksmiths here and blacksmiths there. As stated many times before, on this website, my blacksmith ancestor moved to South Yorkshire because his employer transferred him along with five others to Yorkshire to work in a steelworks because they were regarded as his most skilled workers. I think they were made to think it was an honour to be chosen but I do not know whether ultimately it was better for the family, in fact it may well have made them worse off, financially I doubt they were any better off and they were completely separated from their social network, relatives etc. His cousin also moved to South Yorkshire but to work in the coal industry, I should imagine a deep mine in South Yorkshire would not be an improvement but the move might have been to avoid unemployment. The Industrial Revolution (1760-1820) led to many people moving from the countryside to the mechanised industries in the growing cities, - the history of Manchester is a particularly good example of this. However in the middle of the Victorian era too people continued to move into cities to work and to emigrate to the "New World". The New Poor Law was draconian so if someone faced unemployment the option of moving somewhere to work was preferable to the Workhouse or Parish relief. There is a theory (one historian whose name escapes me put much down to the introduction of the railways) that the railways were also instrumental in the mass movements of people around Britain but also around the world. People also moved into cities to work in service and those working in some industries (e.g. for particular coal owners or landowners) could be moved from the employer's factory or estate in one part of Britain to another. People might not have realised at the time but they were used as commodities to serve industry without any regard for their feelings, needs and wants.
A relative of mine moved to Australia (he was not from the Forest of Dean but married someone who was) - he was a highly skilled person in England (a silversmith) but became a labourer building railways in Australia. I went to Australia to research it and was told by the Sydney Records Office that to get an assisted passage many skilled people had to emigrate as labourers as this was the only way of getting an assisted passage with a guaranteed job. This particular relative came back to England after his first wife died.
The railways were being built all over the world by the end of the 19th Cent. and working on them led to many British people ending up in unexpected places like Argentina or France, (as is the case in my family where one person was a vicar in Argentina administering to large numbes of the English speaking railway workers and their widows and orphaned children living there, and another was born in Paris while her father was a railway engineer while its railway was being built).

The intention, as with all immigrants (including those of today) was that once money had been made they could return but the reality for many was that they could not afford to do so or their circumstances made the possibility of return too difficult.
Others may have moved for other reasons e.g. religious reasons e.g. Mormon Emigration to the USA became so large the Queen Victoria's government commissioned Charles Dickens to research why so many people were converting to this religion and leaving for the USA.