Last update July  2009   Created by Tony Maple:  imlac2005@grapevine.com.au
“Pull factors” in emigration
Emigration to Australia was also beginning to become a major movement in the 1840s.  The pro-immigration movement led by Caroline Chisholm in New South Wales and the creation of the colony of South Australia - “a paradise for dissent” (i.e. for those people who were not inclined to the views of the established Church of England) – created opportunities for poor people to migrate to Australia.  When gold was discovered in Victoria in 1852 a huge gold rush followed. This added to the attractions of emigration and created a demand for labour.
By that time the processes of immigration were regulated by the British Government. The Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners were established to recruit large numbers of suitable immigrants, mostly experienced farm labourers with families and children, and to organise their transport to the colonies. The cost of their passage was subsidised by government.
Colonization Circulars such as that on the right described the details of the process, the costs of the passage, the price of labour, what to expect in the colonies, what equipment and clothing to bring and many other aspects.  Newspapers such as the London Illustrated News also carried reports of the immigrants’ experiences and the gold rushes.
It is fair to say that there is nothing to distinguish Thomas and Elizabeth Maple from the rest of the Kentish farm labouring class of the 1850s, They were very probably typical examples of poor people facing unemployment and, possibly, starvation.
Immigration to SA would have provided an escape from that bleak prospect and offered the chance earning good money, of owning land and, perhaps, of building some little prosperity for themselves and their children.
It turned out to be a good decision. An air letter of 1951 shows that Thomas’s brother, Stephen, who remained in England, had few children and his line declined markedly.