How Shetland's women became the toast of Tasmania

The Herald Scotland

14-06-2025

The potato blight had left Shetland communities on their knees. With many of the islands' menfolk away at sea, women far outnumbered the remaining men.
Where on earth could a young woman go to find a future?
Enter the formidable Lady Jane Franklin. Well-educated and, crucially, well-travelled, her arrival in Lerwick in 1849 could scarcely have been under less dramatic circumstances.
And thanks to her, Shetland's single ladies and young widows were to become the most prized women of them all...
Bereft after the disappearance of her famous explorer husband Sir John Franklin as he led a doomed search for a Northwest passage, Lady Jane had originally set foot in Shetland hoping to quiz the seafaring communities of the northernmost islands of the British Isles for clues to help find him.
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But once there, she encountered a generation of young women with remarkable qualities. Hardworking, resilient, church-going and English-speaking: ideal, she realised, for a new life as far away as possible from the windswept and bleak futures stretching before them in Shetland.
Before long, Lady Jane and her companions were at the helm of an extraordinary female emigration scheme that aimed to deliver up to 500 young Shetland women to another island almost 12,000 miles away, Tasmania.
For the Shetland women who dared to leave, the hope of a new and better life came at an enormous price: they would almost certainly never see their families or homeland again.
But for those who eagerly awaited their arrival in Tasmania, there was a particular promise: Shetland women, they were told, were a cut above all the rest, they were 'moral, industrious and …infinitely superior to the usual run of female emigrant…'
Lady Jane Franklin by Thomas Bock, 1838 (Image: Public domain)
As it happened, the bold emigration scheme would not quite succeed as planned – far from delivering 500, the number of young Shetland women who made the demanding sea journey to new lives in Australia barely reached 50.
And despite its high-profile figurehead, a backdrop of desperation and poverty set against the incredible leap of faith of those who dared make the arduous journey to the ends of earth, the Shetland female emigration scheme would go on to be largely forgotten.
Meanwhile, those intrepid young Shetland women who did forge new lives in Tasmania - among them the Thomas sisters and the 18-year-old Anne Beattie and Barbara Hughson - little trace would remain and there would be few clues as to what happened next.
The Shetland Female Emigration Society and the women it delivered to Tasmania may have remained lost in time but for a French-based university professor, Véronique Molinari.
Having uncovered details of the scheme by chance, she now hopes to discover what may have become of the young women who gambled on a new life on the other side of the globe.
That means scouring Australian archives for clues as to what became of them there, and the hope that back in Shetland, there may be some descendants.
'Finding out what happened to the young women who emigrated thanks to Shetland Female Emigration Fund still remains to be done, but is difficult to find out,' she says.
'It was not uncommon for single men to emigrate and then to go back home – up to a third of Scots single men who went to Australia eventually came back.
'But women didn't tend to ever go back.'
She was looking into how the potato famine in Ireland had led to thousands of Irish female orphans being uprooted and sent to new lives in Australia, when she came across newspaper articles referring to hundreds of Shetland women also destined for Tasmania.
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What particularly struck her was the glowing references to the Shetland women's qualities: hailed for their looks, their skills, ability to adapt to harsh countryside and undaunted by remote landscapes - and English speaking - they were clearly considered to be a better class of emigrant.
But despite being eagerly awaited in Tasmania between 1853 and 1856, and with thousands of pounds raised to help facilitate their passage, only a handful actually made the journey.
That left the puzzle: why did so few make the journey, what made Shetland women so prized and what was life like for those who travelled?
'This particular research about the Shetland Female Emigration Society almost drove me mad,' says Véronique, Professor of British Studies at Grenoble Alpes University in France.
'The Australian press and archives I had access to regularly referred to those single females from the Shetland Islands who were eagerly awaited by the colonists in Tasmania, yet I found no trace of them having ever left or arrived.
'It took me about two years to understand what had happened.'
Lerwick, Shetland (Image: NQ)
The mid-19th century potato blight brought death and misery to communities stretching from Ireland, across the Highlands and Islands and to the tip of the British Isles, in Shetland.
At the same time, demand was soaring from colonies such as Australia for fit and healthy men and women to help build the country and who wanted to make new lives for themselves.
Shetland women were particularly suited – at least, it seems, to Lady Jane Franklin, a founder of the British Ladies' Female Emigrant Society and who had personal experience of life Down Under.
She arrived in Lerwick having spent several years by her husband's side in his role as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land (the colonial name of Tasmania).
With the race on to map a Northwest passage, Sir John was appointed to lead what would be the doomed Franklin Expedition, with 24 officers and 110 men on board the ill-fated HMS Terror and HMS Erabus bound for the Arctic.
With both vessels missing - later horror stories would emerge of the ships becoming ice-bound, supplies running out and crews resorting to cannibalism - Lady Jane embarked on a determined search, leading her to Shetland and its seafarers.
On the same boat to Shetland was John Dunmore Lang, a Church of Scotland minister who had become well-known in his adopted Australia and who, as it happened, was in the midst of a tour of Scotland aimed at attracting new blood to the colony.
The unmarried and widowed young women in Shetland appeared to both of them as ideal candidates for emigration.
It seems they were knocking at an open door: Lady Jane was soon receiving attention from young Shetland women eager to find out if they might be suitable candidates for emigration.
As well as poverty and famine, a key problem for Shetland women, found Veronique, was a gaping gender imbalance: the hazardous nature of the islands' men's work – often sailors or fishermen – meant the number of single women and young widows far exceeded the men.
Cradle mountain, Tasmania (Image: Public domain - www.goodfreephotos.com)
With confidence growing that there was no shortage of Shetland women willing to make the bold move, a philanthropic fund was launched to attract donations from around the country to pay for their passage to Tasmania.
A Lerwick committee selected 21 for the first voyage to Tasmania on board the Joseph Soames, leaving from London in mid-August 1850.
All but just two – knitter Anne and another woman, Elizabeth Smith, 20, who gave her job as housemaid – were listed as farm servants. They ranged from just 18 years old to the oldest, Henderson Jamieson, aged 31.
Some appear to have been related: Helen and Jane Ninianson, aged 21 and 26, Elizabeth and Catherine Smith, 21 and 22, and Catherine and Elizabeth Tait, 28 and 22 seem almost certain to have been sisters.
The journey south was long and hard but horror tales of dreadful conditions, violence and even on board rape meant that unlike many other emigrants, the Shetland women were given support of a matron and access to learning materials on board to make the journey more bearable.
Their ship arrived at Port Adelaide on 23 November, with all 21 engaged to work with families with 24 hours of their arrival.
According to one record, they arrived 'in the highest terms of their fitness, as far as could be ascertained, for the life they are to lead, of their pleasing and gentle manners, their good temper, their gratitude for the attention shown them, and their anxiety to employ themselves usefully.'
While the ship's captain, Robert Craigie praised them as 'moral, very industrious, cleanly in their habits, accustomed to work in the fields, and when not so engaged to manufacture hosiery.
'They are religious, simple in their tastes, they speak English, and the appearance of most of them is pleasing.
'Indeed, I need not say they are infinitely superior to the usual run of female emigrants you are accustomed to see landed on your shores.'
The Australian press and emigration societies could scarcely contain their excitement. Whereas Irish orphan emigrants were often sneered at and met with disparaging comments about their ability to work and look after their personal hygiene, the Shetland women were praised as Scandinavian in looks, and 'well adapted for country work', for their moral character and interest in religious worship.
Shetland women were considered to be 'Presbyterian wives' used to isolation and skilled in the essentials for life in the bush such as 'baking, brewing, candle-making, carding, spinning, dairying, tending of cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry, caring of meat for winter stores, planting, hoeing, and clearing the garden and fields'.
Their resilient nature – largely honed by the absence of men on the islands – and use of English and not Gaelic like their Hebridean counterparts, was also seen as a major benefit for teaching reading and writing.
Hopes were high that 300 and even up to 500 Shetland women would make the journey.
There would be disappointment, however. The next ship carried only 25, among them 17-year-old Martha Halcron accompanied by, presumably, her 19-year-old sister, Janet, and it would be the last.
Despite having appeared eager to emigrate, when push came to shove the close-knit Shetland family structure meant even those with few prospects and a bleak future found leaving home for Tasmania a step too far.
Although £5,500 had been sent from Australian colonists to pay specifically for the Shetland women's passage to Tasmania, the funds were diverted by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission to pay for emigrants from England, Ireland and the Highlands to other locations.
Much to Tasmanian despair, not another Shetland woman would make the journey.
According to Veronique, whose research article has been published on Edinburgh University Press, the episode sheds interesting light on how Shetland women were regarded compared to other emigrants, and upends the notion that women were reluctant emigrants, forced into leaving their homes for new life abroad.
'The contrast between the image of these fair-haired, blue-eyed, hard-working and religious Shetlanders, was simply astonishing when compared to how other female emigrants had been perceived,' she says.
'This research has mostly affected the view I had of women emigrants as victims.
"I was amazed to find how the women in Shetland showed up to enquire about emigrating. Obviously, with so few men around, there was not much in Shetland left for them.
"What made it more reassuring for them was new emigration societies being created by women like Lady Jane Franklin, and that they would be taken care of.
'The extent of the gender imbalance in Shetland and Orkney - the highest in the UK - (meant) emigrating to the other end of the world was a choice, and an act of immense courage.'