THE BEST RECRUITING AGENTS

In 1849 a servant girl wrote home to her brother from Port Adelaide, South Australia: “I have accepted a situation at £20 per annum, so you can tell the servants in your neighbourhood not to stay in England for such wages as from £4 to £8 a year, but come here.” Letters such as these, which were circulated from kitchen to kitchen and from attic to attic in English homes, were the best recruiting agents for the colonies, which were then so desperately in need of young women to serve the pioneers who were trying to create a new life for themselves in their chosen countries. Other girls read about the much better prospects overseas in newspapers and magazines, which also published advertisements giving details of free or assisted passages,.