Publications
Petworth Emigration Committee: Lord Egremont's Assisted Emigrations from Sussex to Upper Canada 1832-1837, by Wendy Cameron, published 1973 accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 5300] & The Keep [LIB/503548]
Petworth Emigrants: an update, by Wendy Cameron and Mary McDougall Maude, published 1991 (article) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 11169]
English Immigrant Voices: Labourers' Letters from Upper Canada in the 1830s, by Wendy Cameron, Sheila Haines and Mary McDougall Maude, published May 2000 (696 pp., McGill-Queen's University Press, ISBN-10: 077352035X & ISBN-13: 9780773520356) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries
Abstract:Collected from published, archival, and private sources, these letters place the Petworth immigrants in the context of their times and challenge the image of English immigrants to 1830s Upper Canada as officers and gentlewomen. Wendy Cameron, Sheila Haines, and Mary McDougall Maude have carefully annotated the letters to sketch the stories of individual writers, link letters by the same author or members of the same family, and explore the connections between writers. What eventually happened to some of the writers is also revealed in this engaging collection. English Immigrant Voices provides a valuable insight into the rural poor and their experiences in emigrating to a new land.
Assisting Emigration to Upper Canada: The Petworth Project, 1832-1837, by Wendy Cameron and Mary McDougall Maude, published May 2000 (568 pp., McGill-Queen's University Press, ISBN-10: 0773520341 & ISBN-13: 9780773520349) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 14312] & West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries
Abstract:Using a rich collection of contemporary sources, this study focuses on one group of English immigrants sent to Upper Canada from Sussex and other southern counties with the aid of parishes and landlords. In Part One, Wendy Cameron follows the work of the Petworth Emigration Committee over six years and trace how the immigrants were received in each of these years. In Part Two, Mary McDougall Maude presents a complete list of emigrants on Petworth ships from 1832 to 1837, including details of their background, family reconstructions, and additional information drawn from Canadian sources. Paternalism strong enough to slow the wheels of change is embodied here in Thomas Sockett, the organizer of the Petworth emigrations, and his patron, the Earl of Egremont, and in Lieutenant Governor Sir John Colborne in Upper Canada. The friction created as these men sought to sustain older values in the relationship between rich and poor highlights the shift in British emigration policy. In these years of transition immigrants sent by the Petworth Emigration Committee could accept assistance and the government direction that went with it, or they could rely on their own resources and find work for themselves. Once the transition was complete, the market-driven model took over and immigrants had to make their own best bargain for their labour.
English immigrants in 1830s Upper Canada: the Petworth Emigration Scheme, by Wendy Cameron, published 2004 in Canadian Migration Patterns from Britain and North America (edited by Barbara Jane Messamore, pp.91-100, University of Ottawa Press, ISBN-10: 0776605437 & ISBN-13: 9780776605432)