The English - Home Away From 'Home'
The English — Where from?
Regional origins of English immigrants
Jock Phillips
 |
London |
South-east |
South-west |
Lancashire |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
UK Census 1871 |
15.5% |
10.6% |
8.3% |
12.4% |
|
1840–52 |
14.9% |
21.1% |
23% |
5.3% |
|
New Zealand Company 1839–50 |
25.9% |
20.8% |
26.4% |
3.4% |
|
Auckland 1840–52 |
20.1% |
17.2% |
21.8% |
|
|
1853–70 |
17.3% |
12.7% |
16.2% |
8.6% |
|
Miners – Otago 1853–70 |
7.8% |
8.5% |
36.8% |
9.4% |
|
1871–80 |
15.8% |
15.1% |
18.7% |
4.7% |
|
1881–1914 |
18.8% |
12.9% |
12.2% |
11.6% |
The table and graph suggest:
- London was an important birth-place for immigrants to New Zealand, but no more than its representation in England as a whole.
- The 'home counties' of the South-east sent a large number of people to New Zealand, especially in the 1840s. Kent appears to have been a strongly 'New Zealand-prone' county.
- The counties of the South-west, especially Cornwall, were strongly over-represented among the immigrants. There was a spectacular inflow of people from this area among the miners reflecting the strong tradition of tin-mining in Cornwall and the decline of that industry from the 1840s. But the numbers from the South-west were consistently high until 1880 with over twice as many likely to migrate to New Zealand as their proportion of the population in England.
- The more industrial areas of the North-west, including Lancashire, were not well represented among immigrants to New Zealand until the end of the 19th century.
- If we add the Cornish immigrants to those from Ireland and Scotland, it is evident that the Celtic fringe of Great Britain in fact comprised a majority of New Zealand's founding British immigrants.
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