AFFHO Day 1 - Some of the talks

Here are a few thoughts about the talks I attended on the first day of the AFFHO congress in Canberra.

The first talk I attended (after the morning's keynote) was by Simon Fowler, whose talk was entitled Shovelling out Paupers: Researching assisted emigration in English archives.  I was most remiss and didn't take a photo of Simon, as I was too busy taking notes based on the talk.

Simon's talk was predominantly about some of the non-official schemes that assisted or paid for emigration from the UK. Sadly, some recurring themes were that it was "difficult" and there "weren't many records", so people who were looking for a list of online sites to check were disappointed.

Nonetheless, I found it very interesting and also useful, in that it mentioned many charitable and other non-official schemes to assist people to emigrate from the UK.  The other value to me was that he mentioned lots of schemes that went to places other than Australia and New Zealand, reminding me that there were other places where assisted emigrants were sent.

Another talk I attended was Paul Milner's Buried Treasure: what's in the English Parish Chest.  This didn't really cover any ground that was new to me, but I enjoyed seeing the examples he showed.  His talk was restricted to the records found in the parish of Leeds in Kent (not the one in Yorkshire), which was a good way to approach the subject.

Paul Milner

The final talk I attended was Helen Smith's In the Workhouse: Caring for the Poor.  Helen started with an overview of the background to the provision of poor relief since the Dissolution of the monasteries and the introduction of the New Poor Law Act of 1834.  She then focused on the outcomes of that act, such as the establishment of the Poor Law Unions and the construction of the workhouses.

Helen Smith

She then went on to describe the workhouse system, what life was like in the workhouses and then how to identify and find people who had (or may have) been in a workhouse. Finally she talked about where to find any records that may survive relating to a workhouse.

In contrast to the of the day by Roger Kershaw (see here), Helen did not read out her talk, but spoke to the slides.  Her slides effectively illustrated what she was talking about, and she was animated and interesting - all in all a talk that was well worth attending.