Riotous Littleport

June 20, 2004 7:48 AM

Riotous Littleport. The deportation of an English village to Australia. BBC article with links to other interesting articles on immigration and emigration on the page.
posted by plep (5 comments total)

Wow, what a great site. I'm just reading article after article and it's fascinating stuff. Much love fo' my brothas and sistas in the beeb.
posted by kavasa at 9:54 AM on June 20, 2004

Cool.
posted by spazzm at 10:32 AM on June 20, 2004

In the early 18th Century however they had a practical solution for dealing with excess numbers of prisoners; they were forcibly shipped off to British penal colonies in America. This solution continued successfully, for the government at least, until the American Civil War in 1860 brought it to an abrupt end.

Uh, what? Try 'American War of Independence' and '1776'. Which is why the penal colony of New South Wales was founded in 1788, as any Aussie can tell you.

An error of this magnitude on the first page isn't very encouraging.
posted by rory at 1:54 AM on June 21, 2004

Thanks, plep, this is a brilliant story.

They discussed the plight of their community as a whole, which had been enraged by the news that three fellow labourers had been sacked by local farmer and landowner Henry Martin. Martin was thought to have been wealthy enough to keep them employed, as he maintained a conspicuously affluent lifestyle, regularly spending more than the combined wages of his three employees.

Rich pain-in-the-ass landowners seemed to be quite a problem back then. I'm thinking of the agrarian unrest in Ireland that led up to the Levellers and other predecessors of the IRA.

I love stories of old Australia and its roots. Charles Bateson's book "The Convict Ships 1787-1868" is on my reading list now. I think I need to give Illywhacker by Peter Carey another read, too ;-)
posted by Shane at 7:38 AM on June 21, 2004

I love you, Plep. Thanks for posting this.
posted by anastasiav at 7:39 AM on June 21, 2004