The Do It Yourself Guide to Emigrating to Canada in 1871

I doubt that many people have heard of the Cow Cross Mission.

It was a temperance mission hall in White Horse Alley which ran off  Cow Cross Street.

The alley has long gone but it is possible to walk along Cow Cross Street which is just outside the old City of London.  It is a narrow twisty thoroughfare and back in 1871 was flanked by Farringdon Railway Station, the Metropolitan Meat and Poultry Market and a warren of small streets and lanes.  Just the sort of place you would find a mission hall and a temperance one at that.

Maureen Vollum  found the reference to the mission and posted it in Families of British Home Children/British Child Migrants.  Now I love a detective search and having downloaded the book published by the Mission I set to reading it http://archive.org/stream/cihm_05871/cihm_05871_djvu.txt and what a find it is.

The mission organised the emigration of people to Canada, and the 1871 report contains a wealth of detail.  Here are a list of the occupations of the men who went, the ships they travelled out on and vast amount of useful information about “routes, distances, and rates of passage from Quebec” onward across Canada and the US, “with names and addresses of working men in 320 cities and towns,” as well as “Hints on Economic House Building.”  It was a must then and I rather think it will be a wonderful source to trawl through, which I will set myself to do over the coming days.

Picture; cover of the 1871 report