In November Helen Allison’s talk was “Farewell to Kent”. She told us about why people chose to emigrate, what their expectations were and what the reality was like using a number of individually researched emigrants.
Prior to the 1834 Poor Law Act and the establishing of Union workhouses a lot of parishes encouraged their long-term poor to make a new life for themselves and paid for their passage to the colonies.
I have a typical example in my own tree; a deserted wife with three young children being supported by Biddenden parish who paid for a cab to take her to Rye and for her ticket to America.