From Rose to Wattle

Rose to Wattle

Chris Broom, our Chairman, gave a wonderful talk based on letters sent from Suffolk to family who had gone to Australia to live. Twenty-five members and visitors heard it in person at the Fromus Centre in Saxmundham, plus another twenty joined in on Zoom.  Chris was surprised by how many people attended, considering there was an England World Cup Football match on at the time, and Saxmundham had big roadworks closures.

Chris’s talk was based on letters sent from a Suffolk family to those who had taken the journey to Australia.  The name "From Rose [England] to Wattle" [Australia] is the title of a book printed in 1988 which contains transcriptions and copies of original letters sent from the RAYNER family in England to relations in Australia.  Chris looked at lists and dates of events in Suffolk, in England and in the wider world and then saw how they could have affected people and families to the extent that they had to find another way of life.  The Enclosures, the Corn Laws, and the tax system, the development of mechanisation and the Swing Riots all had a devastating effect on the poor.  They moved away from living in the country and working on the land to slums in towns, looking for work; most lived in dire poverty.  Some turned to crime as did Samuel Rayner (1792-1869) — he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death at Bury St Edmunds, but was transported to Australia on the ship “Larkin”.  The ship left England on 20th July 1817 and arrived at Port Jackson (now Sydney) on 22nd November 1817.  In 1837, his brother and other members of the family joined him as free settlers, their assisted passage paid for by their parish.

Chris has obviously been on a long journey which has led to him searching many records in varying places, and like us all, being distracted by his discoveries. He was searching a parish register for Little Livermere, and read to the end where he found a list of names and addresses of villagers who were given blankets, dated 13th January 1823. He went on to use maps to pinpoint the locations. Chris’s quote “Family history never ceases to surprise …. and/or take you off on a tangent” is something we all experience. 

Images by members Maggie Strutt (above) and (below) Mandy Geary

Chris recommended a book ‘The Fatal Shore’ by Robert Hughes, which documents the brutal transportation of men, women and children out of Georgian Britain into a horrific penal system.  For some it was from poverty to hard debilitating labour.  Even so, members of the Rayner family seem to have done quite well. Mechanisation and long distance train connections came early to parts of Australia, which brought some employment possibilities.  

A member at the Fromus Centre live presentation commented how literate the letter writers were and how aware they were of world events.

It has been estimated that there have been as many as 4,000 descendants of the Rayner family, and there were 1,400 at a recent reunion in Australia. 

Janet Huckle

40 years of Family Letters to/from Australia
—

A thought-provoking account, by our own Chris Broom, of the impact of global events on a rural community, as revealed by a remarkable collection of letters spanning 40 years, exchanged between a family of free settlers in New South Wales and those who remained in England.  The talk will invite attendees to test their own knowledge of history, and highlight uncanny parallels between current world events and the constant struggle to survive in 19th century Suffolk.

This will be only our second "hybrid" talk — so over Zoom AND physical — at our new venue, Saxmundham's Fromus Centre, behind the Library.  Attendees over Zoom should book in the normal way, but please before 5:00pm on Friday, 18th November, free to Members and at £3.00 for visitors — acknowledgement includes outline instructions, with information on how to connect 'on the day' emailed to you around an hour before the talk.  In-person attendees can just turn up — at £1.00 for Members, £3.00 for visitors, and with free tea/biscuits.

☞ For those of you who intend to come in person, you may have heard that Sax High Street is and will be closed, from the main traffic lights to the Market Place, although the Market Place itself is open, as is Street Farm Road where the Fromus Centre and Library are.  The whole area is manic and best avoided.  For those coming from Leiston, we suggest you come down ClayHills Road and approach Sax from the north (Yoxford) direction, turning left into Street Farm Road immediately after the railway bridge.  Allow plenty of time!