travel

Seven Weeks at Sea

Gwen Harris Fleming Lives, travel , , , ,

“We set sail probably on the second or third of May 1843 from Greenock, the port of Glasgow”– wrote William Fleming in his recollections of crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Quebec with his parents and seven siblings. William was six years old at the time. “It was a three-masted vessel,” he remembered and, “The ship had a general cargo of merchandise, the crew and passengers numbered some fifty to sixty.”

All who read William’s emigration story wish his account had been longer. What was it like to travel in steerage, what were the conditions, what did they have in provisions? We can can get a sense from a superb reproduction of an 1840s emigrant vessel, The Dunbrody, that is moored in New Ross, Co. Wexford, Ireland. Built in Quebec in 1845 the Dunbrody was a three-masted ship with a registered tonnage of 485.  Lloyd’s Register tells us that it was made of oak, elm, and “hamkmatack” – tamarack. Lloyd’s assessed the ship as A1. (1) In 1849, when it sailed for New York, it carried 176 passengers.

Dunbrody Irish emigrant ship at New Ross, Co. Wexford, Ireland - authentic reproduction of the ships in use in 1840s and 1850s.
Dunbrody, Irish emigrant ship, New Ross, Co. Wexford. 1845

The Flemings sailed on the Jeanie Deans out of Glasgow – a three-masted barque in May 1843. It was 319 tons – a bit smaller than the Dunwoody, built in 1841, also in Quebec, and was “sheathed with yellow metal.” According to Lloyd’s Register, the ship was made from black birch, oak, and tamarack and graded as A1. (1) The Jeanie Deans carried 65 passengers and 10 crew on that voyage. (2)

Typically (as we learn from Cian T. McMahon’s book, The Coffin Ship), emigrant ships had a forecastle deck at the front, the main deck in the middle, and the poop at the rear. The poop deck was reserved for officers and ”cabin” passengers. Below the poop deck there might be a hospital and the ship’s galley. Steerage travellers were allowed on the main deck at designated times to cook their meals on an open-fire grate. For most of the day they were confined below the main deck – or ‘tween deck” – in a long room accessed through hatches from the deck. When the seas were rough, the hatches were nailed shut to prevent flooding, but this also closed off air and heightened the misery below deck. Sleeping and living arrangements were cramped.

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A Trip of a Lifetime

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Canadian News Editors Party at Entrance to Westminster Hall, June 1924. Photo from Pilgrims of the Press.
Canadian News Editors at Entrance to Westminster Hall, June 1924. Photo from Pilgrims of the Press.

At long last, Christopher Alexander (C.A.) Fleming, educator and publisher in Owen Sound,  Ontario, was embarking on a voyage to the United Kingdom. The year was 1924 when Europe was rebuilding after the war of 1914-18.  Roy Fleming, his cousin, had emphatically recommended such a trip after his own in 1903.

C.A. – you know you are rich – you might cease from your labors for two months and take a trip to the Old Country and see these places – see that land of true beauty and sweet traditions – the land of your fathers,  which age will never dim. [Letter  dated  14 October 1903]

Arranged by the Canadian Weekly Press Association for editors of weekly newspapers, the tour covered Belgium, Paris, and the major cities in the United Kingdom.  There were 171 individuals in the party, of whom 101 were associated with some 100 weekly Canadian newspapers. Of these editors, 83 were men and 18 women. Seventy family members travelled with them. Many of the editors were from Ontario, and smaller numbers from the Atlantic provinces and the West. [Davies, “Who’s Who”]  

C.A. owned  the Daily Sun-Times and the weekly Cornwall Freeholder. His eldest daughter, Lillian, who was 37 and a kindergarten teacher, accompanied him on a trip that became the highlight of her life – especially the garden party at Buckingham Palace.

Over the eight weeks, C.A. mailed letters to the Daily Sun-Times with reports on the social events and the places – the streets, the people, the exhibits and tours. These were dense with descriptions of the farmlands and industrial sites and attentive to points that his Grey County readers would appreciate. He later published his reports as a collection in  Letters from Europe.

W. Rupert Davies, of The Renfrew Mercury in Renfrew, Ontario, and former president of the Association, organized the itinerary and meetings with dignitaries and press associations. He published his account in Pilgrims of the Press, in which he explained that this endeavor was to be  “an educational tour with the idea, not only of establishing a closer relationship between the weekly editors of Canada and the newspaper fraternity of the Old Land, but in order that we should all get first-hand knowledge of the Mother Country and some of its problems.” [Davies, p. 3] (Davies, who many years later was appointed to the Canadian Senate, brought his wife Florence  McKay and their son Robertson – the Robertson Davies who grew up to be a journalist and acclaimed novelist.)

The idea for conducting such an ambitious tour was rooted in a strong sentiment for the British Empire. The elite of the Empire Press Union and the Newspaper Society in England provided full support and likely direction. We might surmise that their motives were to strengthen diplomatic and economic bonds between Canada and Britain. Notwithstanding that Canada had just fought for “King and Country,” Canadians were pressing instead for autonomy and independence from imperial requests.

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1903 Travel Diaries

Gwen Harris Announcements, travel , , ,

We are pleased to announce that the  Rural Diary Archive of the University of Guelph Library  has added to its collection transcripts of the diaries Jennie Fleming and her nephew Roy Fleming kept of their trip to Scotland and England in 1903.

Page from Roy's 1903 travel diary showing the menu on the R.M.S. Tunisian
Page from Roy’s 1903 travel diary showing the menu on the R.M.S. Tunisian

The diaries are in the University of Guelph Library Guelph McLaughlin Archives–Scottish Collection (XS1 MS A337 ) and can be located through a search of Primo.

We hope to donate in 2019 Roy’s second book concerning their 1903 itinerary in Europe.

We had previously posted a blog entry about Jennie’s travel diary of 1869 and Roy’s childhood diary of 1891 being added to the Rural Diary Archive as well as a short description of Jennie’s 1869 travel diary.  Those two diaries are held at Grey Roots Museum and Archives in the Ruth Larmour Fonds PF114.

Home to Perthshire: July 11 – July 23, 1903

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After a long day’s journey across Scotland, Roy Fleming, his Aunt Jennie, his Uncle James and his cousin Minnie arrived in Dunkeld, Perthshire, 11 July 1903.

We land at Dunkeld 8:10+. Bella and Jeannie Smith are there to meet us. Send our grips down to Mrs. Duff’s with Mr. Fisher, and we six walk down and call at Smith’s house where we are welcomed. [From Roy’s Journal]

The Smiths were relatives on the Stewart side – Roy’s father’s mother. Jean Stewart’s sister Margaret married Alexander Robertson, and their daughter Elizabeth married Hugh Smith. Roy said of Elizabeth – “Mrs Smith is very much like Aunt Jessie [Jessie Agnew]– inclined perhaps to be a little more jokey.” Bella and Jeannie, delightful young women of 26 and 24 years, were Mrs. Smith’s (Elizabeth’s) daughters – Jeannie was a bookkeeper and Bella “a 1st assistant in P.O and a telegraph operator”. Roy later praised Bella to his cousin C.A. Fleming in Owen Sound as “handsome, clever and bright” and “the most genteel person” he met in Scotland. (Perhaps Roy was smitten.)(1)  Tom and Andrew, who are often mentioned in the journal, were young men of 25 and 21 years, both employed as blacksmiths. (There were three other daughters: Margaret, Jessie, and Elizabeth). (2)

The next day, the Flemings joined the Smith family at the Sunday service in the Dunkeld Cathedral, and repaired to the Smiths afterwards. They would spend the next ten days, until July 23, touring old family haunts, visiting relatives and friends, walking the hills of Perthshire, and absorbing every moment.

Dunkeld Bridge, July 1903, photo taken by Roy Fleming
Dunkeld Bridge over the Tay River, photo taken by Roy Fleming, July 1903 (Fleming Family Papers)

They were staying at Mrs. Duff’s on Atholl Street in Dunkeld. During their stay, James told the story that when he was a schoolboy he had been egged on to fight Duff – he refused until Duff called him a coward. Later Mrs. Duff, rather than scolding James, gave him “a piece of head cheese and oat bannock and asked him not to hurt her boy anymore.” Might this family have been related to the “young Duff” James had known?

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Touring Robbie Burns’ Country

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Previous blog postings introduced The Trip of a Lifetime that the Flemings took in 1903 to the British Isles and Europe and described their ocean voyage on the R.M.S. Tunisian. In this posting, we follow them in their pilgrimage to Ayrshire, land of Robbie Burns; a quick trip to Belfast; and a tour through Loch Lomand and the Trossachs. Many thrills lay ahead for Roy, his cousin Minnie, their Aunt Jennie, and James (Minnie’s father, Jennie’s brother), as they visited places they had read about in literature and Scottish histories.

They travelled at a pace so dauntingly fast it would challenge young people today, let alone more senior-aged travellers like Jennie and James. On arrival in Liverpool, July 6, 1903, the Flemings moved quickly, taking a cab to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Station on Lime Street in the centre of town. Not a moment to waste, they visited St George’s Hall and Walker’s Art Gallery (where they noted the statues of Michelangelo and Raphael at the entrance), before boarding the London and North Western Railway to head north to Robbie Burns’ country. With their luggage – we hope they were travelling light – they changed trains in Carlisle to the Glasgow, Dumfries and Carlisle Railway, which passed through Gretna Green (famous for “runaway marriages”), and arrived in Dumfries at 7 pm that evening. After finding their hotel – the Palmer’s Temperance Hotel – and seemingly energized, they went for a walk around town – for Dumfries was where Robert Burns had lived his last three years.

Palmer's Temperance Hotel, Dumfries
Palmer’s Temperance Hotel, Dumfries

Jennie found Dumfries a “beautiful clean city – streets so pretty and clean and situated on the Nigh River.” They came upon the Globe Inn where Burns used to drink. Jennie did not dare to enter, but Roy and James did and James, sitting in Burn’s chair, sang a stanza of “Willie brewed a peck o’ malt”. They made their way through narrow, crooked streets to 16 Burns Street where Mrs. Brown, Burns’s granddaughter, showed them the house in which he had died in 1796.

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