I found this great article in the 1910 Western Mail – and “Interview” with James Clarke. Some of his opinions are quite quaint!! Kumminin would have been so different to Rugby England!!

If any of you have family stories that you would like to add to this please let me know. I am slowly writing a book and would be great to have stories amongst all the facts…

SOME NEW IMMIGRANTS

THE ENGLISH YEOMAN IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

(By “Wurrym.”)

(See Illustrations.)

The value to Western Australia of Sir Newton Moore’s visit to England is amply illustrated by the type of immigrant now coming to these shores. That the Premier used to the best advantage that persuasive eloquence with which he is gifted is testified to by a party of Britons who have followed closely on the heels of their mentor with their wives and their sons, their nephews, and their nieces, their oxen, and their asses, and everything that is theirs even to their household gear. To be strictly correct, the livestock include Shire stallions and mares to the value of some thousand pounds.

The patriarch of this party is one James Clarke, who for-a full quarter century has farmed Avon Farm, Long Lawford, near Rugby. Sturdy, ruddy, and clear-eyed, he typifies the John Bull who has tilled his fields, bred his stock, as sturdy as himself, and when occasion has arisen has given bis own blood and the blood of those dearest to him to uphold the glorious fight for liberty that the Briton has fought through the centuries. “British yeoman” is written all over James Clarke. Stubborn pertinacity that compels success in all surroundings, shows in every action. Honesty and kindliness beam in every glance, and overall is an adaptability to his surroundings that will stand him in good stead in a country where conditions are so much cruder and methods so different to those with which he has for a lifetime been surrounded.

With him are a party of sixteen others, sons, daughters, other relatives and friends, all imbued with the same spirit as “Dad”-the affectionate cognomen with which they have endowed him. Among these associates are Mr. G. N. Veitch, another typical gentleman farmer, skilled in breeding and agronomic economy, and Mr. T. H. Powell, an up-to-date technically as well as practically educated agriculturalist. The party also includes such trades-men as are expert hedge layers among other things; men of bright intelligence and adaptability that will enable them to become just as expert in erecting a dog-proof fence under the bright sun of Western Australia as they are in training and trimming a quick-set that may shower its snowy petals in a quiet shady lane in the “Shires.”

I have had the privilege of several conversations with the members of this party of yeomen, and their bright hopefulness and determination to succeed, their intelligence and wide experience, impress me. If their like will continue to flow into this State, then shall Sir Newton Moore’s name be thrice blessed, and then shall the community be the richer-not merely by sordid cash, but by bone and sinew and moral worth that go to the making of a nation.

“I always said I would come to Australia or New Zealand when my youngest had finished her education,” said the patriarch by way of introduction. Cold type cannot be made to reproduce the soft lingering inflexion of the Midlands as it flows from his tongue. Not the broad accent of the yokel, mark you, but the language of the educated man tinged with the caressing drawl on the la-it syllable and a slight broadening of the vowels. “Well, she has finished her education, and here’ we all are.” And “we all” are a fine, noisy, sturdy group. “Well, no, not all,” continued “Dad,” ‘there’s a son arriving in ‘Albany this week with six Shire horses and a couple of mares.”

“And how come you to make up your mind that Western Australia was the Land of Promise?”

“Well, we went to hear Colonel Moore give an address on Western Australia, and he told us- we. could get first-class land at ten shillings an acre…

“Pardon me interrupting. First-class land at not less than ten shillings an acre, was it not?”

“Nay, lad, Colonel Moot told us we could get the best for ten shillings, and all we had to do was to put in our applications the day we landed, and we would be given all the land we needed at once.”

“That’s so,” interjected Mr. Veitch. “And the Premier was not the only official who told us that. Mr. Ranford is travelling about the country telling people the same thing, and when we arrive here we find that the price of the best land is anything up to a couple of pounds an acre, and that instead of being able to get it at once we are told by the officials in the Lands Department that we must wait till land is thrown open and then take our chance.”

“It is well to remember that there are hundreds as well as yourselves applying for the land, and the policy of the department is to grant to those who will make the best settlers; men with families; men with experience; men with grit.”

“We are not asking for any preference over others,” said Mr. Powell. “But we do think when the representatives of Western Australia make statements and promises whereby we are induced to give up our occupations in the old country, break up our homes, and bring our belongings to this -well it is not unnatural for us to expect those promises to be kept.”

“As for the families, ‘ said Mr. Clarke, “we’ve got them. As for the experience, well we shouldn’t be here if we hadn’t got that, and as for the grit- “We’ve only got to look at you to see that you’ve got that, too.”

“Don’t think we are growlers. We’re not! We’ve been kindly treated by everyone we’ve met, official or otherwise. You Australians are the kindest people we have ever met.” Thus “Dad Clarke.

“Now look ye. T’other day I was standing on the steps of the Post Office. I said to a man who was also standing there, ‘Where did you people get all the money to put up all the fine buildings in this town in such a short while?’ He told me of all the gold and the wool and the mutton and the timber and wheat that you are sending away, and the foreign money you are getting in return, and then asked me if he could show me something of the city. Then he took some of us round, and later on we went with him to pleasure on the river and we have made a friend for life. Now if I had spoken to a stranger like that in Rugby, more than likely he would have gone looking for a constable. Everyone we have met is the same, kind and friendly.”
“Have you. done any exploration in the country?”

“Aye. We have been down in your Bridgetown district, and surely it is a fine country. But lad, your methods of farming seem terribly crude to us. You don’t mind a-what do you call us? New chums, isn’t it? Aye’, well you don’t mind a new chum passing remarks do you?”

“Speaking as an average Australian, I think we can stand honest criticism pretty well.”

“Well, we were, for one thing, much impressed with the fine physique and mental vigour of those we met.”

“And with the universally warm-hearted welcome we received wherever we went,” interjected. another member of the party.

“We were fortunate during our visit to Bridgetown in meeting most of the leading growers whose orchards we visited,” continued Mr. Powell. “These orchards are well cultivated, the trees carefully pruned, and insect and fungoid pests thoroughly combated. We were glad to learn that systematic grading of fruit for export was practised. That unique position held by Columbian fruit in the British market is largely due to careful grading. There is little fear of the orcharding business in this country being overdone, for Britain will take all your surplus for years to come.”

“Have you visited any of the sheep and wheat areas?”

“Yes. ‘ Following our trip to Bridgetown we made a journey to inspect Kumminin, for a large slice of which we have put in a collective application,” said Mr. Veitch.

“The soil in the “eastern districts is not of that tenacious nature that we in England associate with wheat growing, but the appearance of the growing crops justified us in believing that we have done right in seeking land at Kumminin. The soil bears out all that Sir Newton Moore and other representatives told us of it, and if all the other promises they made us as to prompt supply of our demands for land are, kept we shall bless the day that we came to this country.”

“And your opinion of the land, Mr. -Clarke?”

“Oh, I left all that to my friends here. I had to go away to Albany to meet my son, who has come out in charge of my Shire horses, all pedigreed stock, and all registered in the British Stud Book. I’ve the copies of their registrations here.”.

And what do you propose to do next?”

I wait patiently till, the Kumminin Land Board has dealt with our claims, in the full belief that the Premier will see that the promises that were – made to induce us to come here are kept.”

Faith like this compells respect.

Following are the names of the immigrants appearing in the group in this Issue:-

Standing-Messrs. Powell, H. B. Jennings, Veitch, Smeaton, G.P. Jennings, Weston, Clarke

Seated-Mrs Margrave, Mrs. Veitch, Miss Maggie Clarke, Miss Rosina Clarke, Miss Clarke. Mrs. Clarke, Masters Archie Veitch, Cyril Veitch, Hubert Veitch.

Included in this party of land-seekers, but absent from the photograph, are Messrs. Clarke and Thompson, son and nephew, respectively, of Mr. Clarke, who are at Albany in charge of eight imported Shire horses just landed.

Mrs. Powell and family are at present in England, awaiting the establishment of the home.

---

I did a bit more research and found this article in the Rugby Advertiser in October 1910.

Just goes to show you can never trust what governments tell you!! lol I do remember my Mum saying that James Clarke was trying to sue the government when he died – I presume about broken promises. Has anyone else heard this?

Rugby Advertiser – 22 October 1910

Land for All in Australia -How Mr James Clarke has Fared

A strong effort is being made just now to attract colonists of the well-to-do variety to Western Australia, and one of the newspapers out there has established a “free information” bureau, for the purpose of supplying without cost reliable information concerning that country. We have not had an opportunity of testing the value of information thus obtained, but we have just received a copy of the ‘Western Mail’ published at Perth, Western Australia, in which we find an interview with Mr James Clarke, late of Long Lawford, who went out there a short time ago with his family.

Mr Clarkes experience gives a set back to the statements and promises made up and down the country by representatives of Australia, to induce farmers and others to emigrate to this land of promise. As will be seen from the article we print below, Mr Clarke, instead of getting first class land straight off the reel at 10s per acre directly he landed, as he supposed he would, has got to wait and take his chance of getting it at anything up to £2 an acre. This must be very annoying and disappointing to men of Mr Clarkes energetic temperament, but we have no doubt he will stir the government people up pretty briskly, and in the meantime our readers who feel interested in the subject will be doing good service if they will confront any agents from Australia they may come across with the facts mentioned by Mr Clarke. He still has faith that the promises made to induce him to go out there will be kept, and that all will be well in the long run. We hope it will be so.

The article then repeats the Western Mail article – The New Immigrants

This article gives me such a wide range of emotions when I read it. I cant imagine what it would be like – even in the early 1900’s how daunting it must have been to give up a comfortable life in England to emigrate to the other side of the world. So many high hopes and dreams and many of the people in this photo did not live a good life here in Australia. In later posts I will explore the lives of these ‘New Immigrants’.

Footnote: The son of James Clarke who is mentioned in this article as bringing the horses from England is Richard James Potter Clarke whose story I told in the blog before this one. He certainly did not live the life that was promised to him!