Gentlemen Emigrants

"Gentlemen Emigrants" - From the British Public Schools to the Canadian Frontier.
By P.A. Dunae.

Published by Douglas & McIntyre of Vancouver.

--- public schoolboys who were planning to emigrate had to look for alternative facilities. Fortunately, such facilities were close at hand, for in 1887 Robert Johnson had opened the Colonial College at Hollesley Bay, near Woodbridge in Suffolk.

Robert Johnson was a remarkable man in an age of remarkable men. He is principally remembered as a prison reformer, as an advocate for leniency for first offenders, and as the founder of the Discharged Prisoners Aid Society. A devout churchman, whose long white beard gave him a distinctly patriarchal appearance. Johnson was also instrumental in establishing savings banks for agricultural labourers, rural sick benefit societies, medical clubs, and many other benevolent associations. Urban planning, civic architecture and graphic arts were among his other interests. In each of these interests Johnson invested a great deal of time, energy and money. The training school for gentlemen emigrants he conducted with the same magnanimity and zeal.

As far as we know Johnson never visited any of the settlement colonies: however he had many colonial friends, and from them he learned of the problems faced by inexperienced British public school emigrants. A Canadian friend told him that " --- most of the young men who are sent out from the Mother Country are miserably unfitted to grapple with the difficulties of a settlers life": a South African correspondent told him of naive young emigrants who, lacking friends and experience in colonial matters, became "idle and reckless". From another friend, a long-time resident of Australia, Johnson learned of "the disastrous and cruel consequences of the too common practice of wrenching a young man suddenly from the comforts of home, and throwing him into a new country to make his way without preparation and training". Johnson learned of these upsetting reports though they did not shake his belief in the efficacy of emigration. Rather, they convinced him that British public school boys, whom he regarded highly, needed special training, guidance and encouragement before they ventured to the Empire overseas. To provide for these youths Johnson established the Colonial College which, in its day, was the largest and best-equipped agricultural academy in Britain.

In many ways, the college resembled a first-class public school and it was often referred to as the Public Schools Colonial Training College. The main buildings were of imposing design, and students were provided with most of the extra-curricular activities normally found at the larger public schools. The college was not, in fact, formally affiliated with any of the schools, though public school headmasters fully endorsed its programmes and most of the young men who attended the College were former public school boys.

Fees at Hollesley Bay were expensive: £108 for the first year and £126 for the second. But the Hollesley Bay Curriculum was exceptional, for it included courses on veterinary science, soil chemistry, minor surgery and medicine, geology, silviculture and surveying. Facilities were also exceptional since Johnsons 1800-acre estate supported an orchard, a fully equipped dairy, a market garden, and an experimental farm which was given over to various types of colonial-grown cereals.

Major General Fielding approved the college, especially as it offered courses in riding and shooting. William Stamer would have approved too, since the resident staff included not only academics but also blacksmiths, wheelwrights, harness makers and carpenters. The British press was certainly enthusiastic, and the college was the subject of feature articles in journals from the "Daily Graphic" and the "Educator" to the "Boys Own Paper" and the "Captain". Each of the journals referred to the colleges "unique character", and indeed it was a unique institution. But it was the institutes ambience, as much as the instruction it offered, that made it so. Johnson intended the college to become "a depository of colonial lore", its very atmosphere, he hoped, would make it "redolent of colonial life". He succeeded admirably in creating and maintaining that atmosphere. Colonial flags, provincial coats-of-arms, wheat-sheaves, sheepskins and cowhides from Canada and other dominions graced the college halls. Colonial politicians and immigration officials spoke regularly at college functions, and a long line of successful ranchers, farmers and backwoodsmen came to the college as guest lecturers. A colonial atmosphere was even evident in the Hollesley Bay stables. The college was renowned for breeding Suffolk Punches - heavy, strong, docile work horses. It was rather appropriate that such horses were raised at an institute devoted to transforming public school boys (whom "The Times" had likened to high spirited, thoroughbred racers) into conscientious, hard-working homesteaders. In any event, the mares that were foaled at Johnsons stables were named so as to underscore the colleges devotion to the colonies. Hence such prize winners as "Tasmania", "Winnipeg", "Alberta", "Rhodesia" and "Calgary".

The institutes character was also reflected in the college song, a rousing, light-hearted number which reflected the interests, the confidence and the good-natured humour of Johnsons students.

Chorus:
They can all of them dig, they can all of them plough,
They can all of them wheedle the milk from a cow;
They can all of them sow, they can all of them reap,
They can all of them borrow the fleece from a sheep.

Between 1387 and 1900, over 700 young men passed through the Colonial College, and, as the song promised, they made their way to all parts of the Empire. But while Old Colonials (as ex-collegians were termed) were drawn to the lands of the springbok, kiwi and kangaroo, the majority settled in western Canada. They grew wheat in Manitoba and Assiniboia; they became dairy farmers and fruit growers in British Columbia. One Old Colonial acquired the whole of Sidney Island, near Victoria, for a sheep run. It was cattle ranching though, that most appealed to the Hollesley Bay alumni, for the directories published in "Colonia", the college magazine, indicate that a large number of Old Colonials were settled in the ranching districts of southern Alberta ---

---- The programme at Hollesley Bay was described by the "Army & Navy Gazette" as being "pre-eminently good". "The Field" declared that "it is difficult to put too high a value on the training boys receive at the Colonial College". The commendations were well deserved, and at the turn of the century there was every indication that the Colonial College would enjoy many more years of success. Such was not the case. Johnson died at the age of sixty-five in 1901, and soon after, the college began to flounder. The board of governors, made up of Johnsons relatives and friends, lacked the founders energy, vision and financial skills, and in 1905 the college was forced to close. The following year the estate was put up for auction and the Central Body for London acquired it at a reported cost of £36,000. Renamed the Hollesley Bay Farm Colony, it was used to accommodate and retain hundreds of destitute London working men who, after being introduced to rural industries, were resettled with their families on farms in East Anglia.

Pro Patria.
---- The supernumerary gentlemen from the public schools were particularly suited for the imperial crusade. They had been raised by imperially minded masters like J.E.C.Welldon of Harrow, and H.W.Moss of Shrewsbury: they had been taught that they were "citizens of the greatest empire under heaven", they had been inspired "with faith in the divinely ordered mission of their country and race". They had been taught to appreciate tradition, to endure physical discomfort and to value team work and fair play. They had, in short, been imbued with the "public school spirit", a spirit, one historian has noted became one of the most potent of the imperial elixirs".

Major General Fielding had drunk of this elixir, and he was among the first to inspire young gentlemen emigrants with the idea of empire building. Fielding even regarded elite settlements like Cannington Manor as vital strands in the strong but silken cord that united the far-flung provinces of Greater Britain. Robert Johnson, the founder of the Hollesley Bay Colonial College, shared some of Fieldings ideas and enthusiasms. "The mission of Old Colonials," he said, was "to carry forward the flag of the great mother of Nations, to sustain her good name the world over, to open up new lands, to open new markets, to create new industries &. ". But Johnson was also a keen advocate of imperial federation: like Cecil Rhodes, he dreamed of a federation of Anglo-Saxon peoples which would include not only Great Britain, British India, and the white settlement colonies but also the United States of America. Johnsons dream found expression in the Colonial College flag, a curious, crowded, multi-coloured banner which incorporated the Stars and Stripes as well as the armorial bearings of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and the Cape Colony. His dream of an alliance of English-speaking peoples was expressed in the lectures and addresses he gave to the young men at Hollesley Bay, "Students of the Colonial College. Colonials", he exhorted on one occasion,

Johnson hoped that the young men who were bound for Canadian ranches, South African mines and Australian sheep stations would help implant this dream on the frontiers of the Empire. He hoped, too, that once the young men had established themselves successfully in their new careers, they would promote the idea of federation in the chambers of colonial legislatures around the world.