Irish Migration to the West Coast, 1864-1900 - New Zealand Journal ...

LYNDON FRASER
the eastern Australian colonies or the three main South Island provinces. Typical
in this regard was Limerick-born Patrick Bourke and his younger sister,
Catherine, who obtained assisted passages to Port Chalmers aboard the Timaru
in 1882. Also on the voyage was Margaret McGirr, an eighteen-year-old from
County Tyrone, whom Bourke later married at St Patrick's Church in Greymouth
on 19 November 1887 (see Plate 2). 31 Like many other government-assisted
passengers arriving on the West Coast, all three resided for several years at
their original point of destination before leaving to re-join kinsfolk and friends.
In each of these cases administrative decisions taken elsewhere contributed
towards further immigration into the region by Irish settlers and ensured that
some of the preferences of colonial selecting agencies found expression in the
distinctive make-up of the local population.
Despite these differences in timing and composition, there were striking
similarities between the respective profiles of Irish migration to the West Coast
and the eastern colonies of Australia. Nowhere was this more apparent than in
the strong presence of expatriates in each of these places. Census figures show
that the Irish component of the West Coast's foreign-born population was about
one-quarter for the years 1864-1900, a proportion that closely matched the
comparative percentages recorded in 1901 for New South Wales (22.0%),
Victoria (24.2%), and Queensland (21,9%). 32 The Irish-born contingent reached
its peak at the height of the gold rushes and declined thereafter both in absolute
terms and as a percentage of the entire population. Newcomers maintained a
rough parity with their English-born counterparts until late in the century, and
consistently outnumbered continental European and Scottish-born migrants by
more than two-to-one (see Table 1). Generally speaking, Irish men showed a
greater propensity to settle on the goldfields or in newly opened agricultural
Table 1: Breakdown of West Coast's Foreign-Born Population, 1867-1906
1867 1878 1886 1896 1906
Country of Birth % N % N % N % N %
Ireland 32.6 4866 28.0 3993 26.6 3257 25.9 2501 21.2
(18.8) (14.6) (11.0) (7.5)
England 34.0 4777 27.5 4272 28.4 3682 29.3 3330 28.2
(18.4) (15.7) (12.5) (9.9)
Scotland 14.3 2196 12.6 2126 14.2 1793 14.3 1633 13.8
(8.5) (7.8) (6.1) (4.9)
Australia ? 2174 12.5 1599 10.6 1384 11.0 2640 22.4
(8.4) (5.9) (4.7) (7.9)
China ? 966 5.6 1288 8.6 1063 8.5 482 4.1
(3.7) (4.7) (3.6) (1.4)
Cont/Europe ? 1754 10.1 1239 8.3 "" 927 7.4 819 6.9
(6.8) (4.5) (3.1) (2.4)
Other 9 653 3.8 501 3.3 446 3.6 388 3.3
(2.5) (1.8) (1.5) (1.2)
TOTALS
Foreign Born ? 17,386 15,018 12,552 11,793
NZ-Bom 8.514 12.279 16.940 21.715
25,900 27,297 29,492 33.508
1. Sources: Census of New Zealand, 1878-1906. The figures for 1867 have been extracted form Murray McCaskill, 'The
Historical Geography of Westland before 1914', PhD thesis. University of Canterbury, 1960, pp.6/17, 7/17, 6/18 and 6/21.
McCaskill's estimates are based on a sample of 1600 people whose birthplaces were recorded in the annual reports of the
Hokitika, GreyRiver and Reefton Hospitals between the years 1866-1874.
2. The percentages displayed with brackets record the respective proportions of the foreign-bom components in relation to the
entire West Coast population.