The Petworth Emigration Project is a case study in emigration from England to Upper Canada (Ontario) during the 1830s. Although carried out on an usually large scale, the Petworth emigrations were part of a more general initiative on the part of English parishes and landlords to send "surplus" workers to Canada. The project is sponsored by the Reverend Edward Jackman and supported by the Jackman Foundation of Toronto.

Between 1832 and 1837, some 1800 men, women, and children came to Upper Canada (Ontario) on ships chartered as part of the Petworth emigration scheme. Our attempt to bring together surnames of individuals and heads of households in reconstructed passenger lists for the Petworth ships can be found at a website created by Marj Kohli and Sue Swiggum: TheShipsList.

This emigration scheme was based in Petworth, West Sussex and had the patronage of George O'Brien Wyndham, the third Earl of Egremont. Thomas Sockett, the rector of Petworth, planned and organized the emigrations, hiring superintendents to conduct the emigrants as far as Toronto. Financial aid for individual emigrants came from over 100 parishes in Sussex and neighbouring counties, from Lord Egremont, and from lesser landlords and sponsors. The Petworth project has mapped areas in southeast England which sent Petworth emigrants. [click on "related links" below for the URL to The Petworth Emigration Project: Map 2]

In Toronto, the local government provided additional funding to help immigrants in travelling onwards. With or without assistance, many Petworth immigrants found their way to Ontario communities west of Toronto, notably to the area around Hamilton, to the Grand River valley, and to townships reached through Port Stanley on Lake Erie. Some Petworth immigrant families joined two government-assisted settlements in Adelaide Township near London and in Woodstock. As experienced agricultural workers and rural tradesmen, many of the Petworth immigrants found jobs in rural areas and emerging villages. The project has also mapped townships where first-generation immigrants settled on, or soon after, arriving in south-central Ontario.

The website for the Petworth project has maps, descriptions of the books, a report on the exhibition, a section for the gift to the University of Waterloo, and brief biographies of the participants in the Petworth project which include the services offered by our genealogists.

About The Author: Wendy Cameron
I am the lead investigator for the Petworth Emigration Project. I have been learning about genealogy through this project, but Brenda Dougall Merriman in Canada and Sheila Haines and Leigh Lawson in England have carried out the extensive genealogical research on individual Petworth emigrants. In addition to a continuing interest in the Petworth emigrations, my future plans include working on the immigrant departments of Upper Canada and Canada West and investigating the reception of Irish famine immigrants in Ontario in 1847.