A poster of 1855, in which grocer John Pickles is offering to arrange immediate employment for a woolsorter at the Cape of Good Hope
IN times of local hardship, emigration could offer better prospects for the more adventurous.
By the 1850s several Keighley businesses were doubling as booking agencies for the Australian Black Ball Line and Eagle Line clippers, even advertising weekly sailings for those “intending to emigrate to America, Australia, or any of the British Colonies”.
Here, according to a poster of 1855, Changegate grocer John Pickles can arrange immediate employment for a woolsorter at the Cape of Good Hope, though he must be a single man. The following year, Mary Ann Peel and her three children had to be given poor relief. The reason: “Husband gone to Cape of Good Hope”!
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