Annual emigration from the British Isles. 1815-1860.
(Arrivals at Quebec in 1832 and 1847 by country of origin.) The first chart is based on figures taken from head counts by British customs or emigration officials. Not all vessels cleared customs in a regular way; some sailed from remote ports where there were no officials; and even in the major ports there were too few officials to ensure that the departure of every emigrant was recorded. The statistical results are obviously imperfect, but they do indicate the rise and fall of emigration from year to year.
Four principal peaks are apparent: 1819, 1832, 1843 and 1852. Each was greater than its predecessor; each coincided with or followed a year of crisis. 1819 witnessed the Peterloo Massacre and the "Six Acts" brought forward by a repressive Tory government. 1832 saw the passage of the Reform Bill and followed an autumn of widespread rioting. The winter of 1841-42 was one of exceptional unemployment and hardship; and subsequent failures of the Irish potato crop in 1846 and 1847 produced a decade of massive emigration from Ireland.
1819, 1832 and 1843 were peak years not only in the total number of British emigrants, but also in the number of British emigrants destined for British North America. After 1847, however, while total emigration climbed, the movement to British North America fell off. More immigrants had arrived that year than the colonies could absorb or than the authorities at Halifax, Saint John, Quebec, and Montreal could look after. To divert immigration, the Canadian government increased the head tax that immigrants paid on disembarkation, but many Irish had already been discouraged from going to British North America by the experiences of those who landed there in 1847.
The second chart shows the numbers of English, Irish, and Scots arriving at Quebec in 1832 and 1847, the two years of greatest immigration to British North America. The proportions that existed in those years are roughly representative of the whole period from 1815 to 1860. However, the composition of the Irish immigration did change. In the early years it was largely Protestant. After the 1820's it was overwhelmingly Catholic.
