"Thet did alright, didn't they?"
So I was asked by an anxious John MacDonald at the Clan Donald Centre on Skye, in 1990. I had told him of my ancestors, a family group of MacDonalds who had left Coll in 1839 to seek their fortune in New South Wales. The pain of the memory of the exodus, often forced, of Scottish families during the 18th. and 19th. centuries, was in his eyes as he wished to be assured that some good had come out of it.
No doubt, economically, the migrating families were eventually better off, but we can only guess at the heartache of leaving the homeland for ever and living in a new environment where Gaelic was considered strange.
Betty MacDougall has told me that John and Isabell MacDonald and their family were probably invited to migrate with free passage, as Ministers of the Church of Scotland were asked to select families that they considered would make good settlers in Australia. Coming from a farming background was a great advantage and so John and Isabell, their son Hugh, his wife Flora Cameron of Coll and two of their children John and Donald; 2nd son Roderick and wife Isabella Ferguson of Coll; 3rd son James, daughters Jean, Sibella, Catherine and grand-daughter Isabella aged 12 years, daughter of their deceased eldest daughter Janet, sailed on the George Fife from Tobermory, Mull on 16th. September 1839.
There were 178 emigrants on board and they sailed without stoppping at any ports or communicating with any ships, until they arrived in Sydney, Port Jackson on 23rd. January 1840. Having a good captain and surgeon, there was very little sickness and no deaths amongst the passengers although two of the crew met with fatal accidents. Divine service was conducted every Sabbath by either the surgeon Andrew Liddell or Hugh MacDonald of Coll, who also offered prayers in Gaelic each evening. There was a school established for the 30 children aboard and a strict health routine was kept. All bed rolls had to be aired on deck on fine days, the decks cleaned, and meals were regularly at 8.00am, 1.00pm and 6.00pm. Clothes were washed Mondays and Thursdays and there was a weekly muster to check the health of everyone. People were encouraged to excercise and dance to keep themselves fit on the 129 days of the voyage.
On arrival, the migrants and crew were medically examined and the ship inspected by the Health Officer who gave the George Fife an excellent report. The immigrants were housed in the Immigration Barracks in Bent Street, Sydney until jobs were found for them. Sadly, Isabella senior and John, Hugh and Flora's son, died within months of arrival and are buried in Sydney. John senior, Hugh and family, Roderick and wife and James were found work on farms in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney. John died there in 1848 and is buried in the Raymond Terrace cemetery as is Roderick's first wife Isabella who died in 1847. James, Hugh and Roderick and families in 1860 moved north and leased or bought land for farms on the Clarence River near the township of MacLean.
Jean, Sibella and Catherine stayed in Sydney and worked as laundry maids or servants in some of the grander houses in the city. They eventually married - Jean to a Scotsman from Fifeshire, Sibella to an ex-convict and Catherine to another MacDonald. Little Donald, Hugh's son eventually became a tutor and worked at Goulburn, a country town not far from present day Canberra but the family has no information about 12 year old Isabella, the grandaughter. Hugh, Roderick, James and Sibella and their familes always maintained a strong association with the Christian Church and Hugh especially conducted church services in Gaelic where he lived on the Williams and Clarence Rivers. In 1856, Hugh sent money for a ship's passage to Marion McDonald, his sister, married to Roderick MacFadeyan. They also settled in New South Wales.
At a family reunion in 1990 to mark 150 years of our MacDonald family being in Australia, over 200 ascendants of the original 14 gathered at Raymond Terrace in the Hunter Valley and a year later a memorial was unveiled in the cemetery. We remembered and learnt about our ancestors who lived as tenant farmers at Grishipoll for years before they left Coll but had previously lived in Grimsary. John senior was born at Feall but when the sandhills covered that village he moved to Grimsary (in the hills behind Machair Mhor) and all the children except Catherine were born there. In May 1990 Mrs. Sturgeon took me to view the ruins and the lazy beds still marked on the ground. The MacDonald family had attended school as the embarkation list in Sydney comments that they could read and write (not all immigrants could do that!)
And so you would say, the descendants of that brave family who sailed away from Coll in 1839 "did alright". We became land owning farmers, agricultural scientists, teachers, nurses, solicitors, a magistrate, tradesmen and women. However, I know for me Coll has an unquenchable attraction and its like a homecoming to step ashore (in 1964 it was from the small ferry boat) and walk the roads and hills and beaches of the island and gaze on the surrounding sea in all its moods.