Where will I find information about emigration societies and other bodies which assisted emigrants?

Very few records of emigration societies survive. However, it is possible to compile information about the activities of emigration societies and other similar bodies through a variety of sources.

Glasgow City Archives hold the records of Glasgow Parish Council, which collected the reports of charitable and other bodies, including emigration societies. There are more than 30 volumes of these collected miscellaneous reports (reference T-PAR1) on open access in the search room, and the contents of each volume are worth checking. They include examples of the Emigrants Information Office circulars, a pamphlet of 1906 giving the text of a lecture by General Booth on Emigration and the Salvation Army. The emigration to Canada of poor law children is addressed in a pamphlet produced by the State Children’s Association. A report on the Child Emigration Society includes details of farm schools in Australia. Further sources of information can be found by searching under the word ‘emigration’ in the Archives’ card-file index and on the computer index. The History and Glasgow Room (the local studies library for Glasgow, in the same building as Glasgow City Archives) holds copies of handbooks for emigrants and a copy of Robert Lamond, A Narrative of the Rise and Progress of Emigration from the Counties of Lanark and Renfrew to new settlements in Upper Canada on Government Grant (Glasgow, 1821).

National Records of Scotland hold the records of the Highland and Island Emigration Society (HD4/5) and these are available on the ScotlandsPeople website <www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk> [accessed 24 April 2024]. The records include a list of nearly 5,000 emigrants to Australia who were sponsored by the between the years 1852 and 1857. The NRS online catalogue can be searched for material in privately deposited records using the terms ‘emigration’, ‘emigrant’, ‘emigrants’ and other terms you think relevant. Details of a state-aided scheme to encourage emigration from Lewis and Harris to Manitoba in the period 1888-1889, survive in the records of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department records (AF51).

Local newspapers contain adverts placed by some emigration societies and other bodies assisting emigration. These can be searched through the British Newspaper Archive (available free of charge in the National Library of Scotland or with a subscription elsewhere) <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/> [accessed 24 April 2024]. Local archives or libraries may have collections of other local newspapers.