Rosa Fell - to Melbourne

 

At twenty-one, why did Rosa decide to leave London for Victoria? Like so many others including her future husband, Rosa followed other family members to Australia. Was she influenced also by immigrant agents who spruiked the wonderful opportunities that the colonies afforded in lectures and articles in newsprint? Was she looking for a husband? Did she accompany a family as their nursemaid as was spoken of in our family?

This article was one that was reprinted in many newspapers across Britain at the time:

Click on image to enlarge

As an assisted emigrant, she travelled north to Liverpool probably taking advantage of the cheaper rail fares. It was quite common for potential emigrants to register with an emigration agent at one point and yet embark from what seems to be a distant port as shipping transport became available.

 More than likely, she would have spent at least a few days at the Emigration Depot at Birkenhead before boarding ship in August. 

Birkenhead Emigration Depot -Illustrated London News 26 June 1852

Here accommodation was provided dormitory style for single men, women and families. The government controlled, but privately owned depot at Birkenhead was established in 1852 from two converted warehouses near Carthart Street with direct access to the railway and an open yard onto the wharf. Gas and water was laid on and whole made “ship shape”. Dining was on a lower level, stairs leading to the dormitories above. Good cooking and washing facilities and rigid medical inspection maintained a good health record. - All designed of course to cut down any medical problems at sea! The base was run just as the emigrants would find conditions on board, so that by the time they sailed friendships were made and they were well established in their daily routines of cooking cleaning etc. Even a store was on site so that emigrants could stock up on their required supplies of clothing before they sailed. For some the food and conditions would have been far superior to those at home!

The clipper ship Shalimar of the White Star line had been built primary as an immigrant ship so had been fitted out with some degree of comfort in mind. She left Liverpool on the 16th August 1857 with about 446 other assisted emigrants (mostly women) bound for Port Phillip. One of the fastest ships afloat at the time she made Geelong by the 11^th of November, on what must have been one of her slower voyages.

The Melbourne of 1857 was a far different place from that of only a few years previously. Gold discovery had initially created an almost tent city spread over the earlier well planned thorough fares but time and money were making great changes. Certainly not London but already scenes of hustle and bustle and major building works, a city in its early days of creation.

 William ALBERT, her mother’s younger brother met Rosa. William was only a couple of years older than Rosa and well known to her. How happy she would have been to see a familiar face!