Great Expectations: Emigrant Governesses in Colonial Australia

- Blurb -

Teach your protegees to emigrate; send them wherethe men want wives, the mothers want governessesFor educated middle-class women in nineteenth-century Britain, optionswere limited. Marry and bear children, accept the drudgery of keeping house forrelatives or friends, or attempt to find a position in one of the very fewindustries that would employ women. This is the story of a group of intrepidladies who found a different solution on the other side of the world. Wanted, a Governess competentto teach music, dancing, and the usual branches of education. Respectablereferences required. The Female Middle Class Emigration Society scheme helped governesses andwould-be governesses emigrate to the colonies from 1861 to 1886. The women whoparticipated were encouraged to write back to the society, and it is theirletters-sometimes plaintive, sometimes upbeat-that form the heart of this book. Written by women who were often fluent in multiple foreign languages, skilledartists and musicians, able to teach the liberal arts, as well as algebra andgeometry, the letters describe wildly different experiences and stories ofculture clash abound. In my new home I shall makeacquaintance with a new class of people-the nouveaux riches, but I may considermyself now colonizedSome women gained employment with well-established families even beforetheir ships had docked, formed close relationships with their employers orfound husbands. Dublin-born Mary Bayly had a heavy workload teaching the six Hillschildren of Cooks River, New South Wales, English, French, German, Latin, musicand singing, but her employers were ' very kind' , she found the Australianscenery beautiful-' As to the Harbour and the views over the sea, they can neverto me lose their charming freshness and attractiveness' -and she eventuallymarried an Australian-born teacher who would rise to the position ofheadmaster, thereby retaining her middle-class status. Be sensible, undergo a littledomestic training and come out here to take your chanceSome women battled extreme loneliness, wild colonial boys and girls,unsupportive employers, poverty and disillusionment. Rosa Phayne, daughter ofan accountant, considered her fellow ship passengers ' so very low and horrid aset' , described Melbourne as ' beyond anything abominable in every respect' and,despite finding a position on a sheep station in the Victorian Wimmera, wrotethat her employer had ' not one feeling like a lady, although one ostensibly' and declared life in Australia for a governess one of ' intense loneliness andunprotectedness, utter friendlessness' . I am very glad I came toAustralia, but I cannot say I like it very much, it is such an out-of-the-worldplace and so monotonousOthers were great observers of the Australian character. According toGertrude Gooch, ' All Australians ride like Arabs, love luxury and money. Theylive very much out of doors and eat great quantities of fruit' . The women ' arecertainly very indolent and untidy' , which explained their offspring: ' Australianchildren are just like the vegetation here for neither appear to submit to muchcontrol. Pineapples, peaches and the finest fruit grow in open air without careand the children are equally wild and impetuous' . Great Expectations tells of the colonial experiences of a particular group of emigrantwomen, but it also tells a broader story, of emigration, education, classprejudice and the development of Australian society.