VALERIE GREEN
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Contact

Val's Blog

ALL THINGS HISTORICAL

Here Come the Brides: Bride Ships to Victoria, BC

7/25/2018

4 Comments

 
Bride Ships
The SS Tynemouth, a W.S. Lindsay ship, sailed from Gravesend on 9th June, 1862, carrying 300 passengers plus 60 potential "brides." Photo: Robert Cutts' in "Rob's Talks."

Due to a shortage of females in British Columbia, Canada, in the 1860s four ships were sent out from England to Victoria carrying, among other things, a cargo of young women. 
 
The four ships (the Tynemouth, Robert Lowe, Marcella, and Alpha) became known as “the bride ships” and arrived as a result of the Columbia's Emigration Society’s initiative to send women to help populate the colonies with British citizens.
 
The most well-known of these ships was the S.S. Tynemouth, which arrived in September of 1862, a year of great change in Victoria. Included in her cargo were 60 women aged between 14 and 20 who traveled to the new world in unimaginable, horrific conditions in steerage.
 
Throughout the mining camps, there was a surplus of men anxious for female companionship! The hope was that these women would marry and settle north of the 49th parallel.  But their journey to the west coast was horrendous.

Only half of the 60 young women aboard the Tynemouth have been officially traced. After all, these were the frontier days of British Columbia and few records of their whereabouts were kept.
PictureFrederick Whymper
However, Frederick Whymper, an artist, wood engraver and travel writer, traveled aboard the S.S. Tynemouth and kept a journal of the events that took place. Today a mountain on Vancouver Island is named for Whymper.

​Many of the women aboard the Tynemouth  did eventually marry and have families, and we have learned their names and future whereabouts from the passenger list.
 
For instance, Mary Macdonald, a musician, later married Peter Leech, a one-time gold miner and then Victoria’s city engineer; Jane Saunders married extremely well and helped turn her late husband James Nesbitt’s biscuit company into something of an empire; and Isabel Curtis married at fifteen and went to live in what is today the town of Chemainus on Vancouver Island.

On the other hand, some of the women ended up in the mining camps along the Fraser River and made a living as prostitutes. But some did work at other things and became midwives, governesses, and teachers, thereby bettering themselves and the lives they had left behind them in the old country.
 
The emigration of young women was taken over by the Salvation Army in the late 1800s and after that by the YWCA. The sponsoring of British women to the west coast of Canada did not, in fact, end until just before World War II.
Picture
Although many of the so-called “brides” did well for themselves, there remained something of a stigma attached to the women sent out aboard these ships. This may have been simply because their origins were often unknown, ranging from orphans and the working poor to prostitutes.

Peter Johnson’s book Voyages of Hope, tells the story of these bride ships. It is well worth a read.

In my soon-to-be-released novel Providence, I have placed my heroine among these women. I think you will enjoy her fictitious story as she journeyed to the new world in search of a better life.
4 Comments
Austina Parsons
7/25/2018 10:45:50 am

sign me up please

Reply
Valerie
7/25/2018 08:54:36 pm

I sent you an email explaining how to do it. Hope you received it and look forward to having you on my mailing list. Thank you.

Reply
Kathryn Askew
11/23/2020 04:09:12 pm

Are you still exploring this topic, Valerie? I'm a Tynemouth descendant and am writing my ancestor's story as well!

Reply
Valerie Green
11/25/2020 04:46:14 pm

Please contact me via my email above.
I would like to hear more about your ancestor and the connection to the Tynemouth. I did a great deal of research on the bride ships for my novel but my character who sailed aboard the Tynemouth was fictional.
Look forward to hearing from you Kathryn.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Poker Alice
    FREE Mini E-book
    Read about the cigar-chomping, gun-toting gambler Alice Ivers Tubbs, more commonly known as Poker Alice.

    Popular Posts

    King of the Bootleggers
    A Century of Fashion
    Hats Are Back!


    Categories

    All
    Fashion
    Grief
    Historical Fiction
    Historical Figures
    History
    Just For Fun
    Royalty
    Victorian Era
    Writing


    Archives

    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017


    RSS Feed

POPULAR BLOG POSTS
"A Century of Fashion"
Hats Are Back!

Get your free mini e-book "Poker Alice"
CONTACT VALERIE
She'd love to hear from you!
COPYRIGHT © 2020. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Contact