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killed over 5,000. The epidemic in Plymouth and Devonport began in July and lasted until
November. In Devonport, 717 had died from cholera by the end of September, the most fatal
month being August, when 488 people were buried in the parish of Stoke Damerel - the
average burials there being about 90 a month.
Dorothy Honeycombe, who was 63, died of choleraic asphyxia', the second, usually fatal stage
of the disease. Don Steel, in Discovering Your Family History, writes: The first stage is a mild
and painiess diarrhoea, which lasts for two or three days... In the second stage the diarrhoea
becomes very violent, accompanied by continual vomiting, a severe pain at the pit of the
stomach and intense thirst. The symptoms then advance rapidly - agonising cramps of the legs,
feet and abdominal muscles, the surface of the body becomes cold and blue or purple, the skin
dry and wrinkled, the features pinched and the eyes deeply sunken. Death often comes in as
little as one day from asphyxia by vomit.'
37
The cholera epidemic, in Plymouth and Bristol, certainly preceded William's departure and may
have been a factor in his decision to emigrate. Disatisfaction with working and living conditions
could have been other factors, and concern for his children's future. Or was he [ured by the
Australian dream of egaiitarianism and fair shares for all? William was a bit of a radical,
remember, and a socialist, a discontented, energetic man. He was not as destitute, as debased,
as the thousands of city dwellers who laboured and lived in all but intolerable conditions merely
to keep body and soul together. He would have questioned such an existence, sought remedies,
and being literate would have read for himself about emigration and the means of escape. For
such as he, life in industrialised England held little promise. The promised land that the papers,
returning sailors and settlers had told him about for many years - as had probably male relatives,
neighbours and friends - lay elsewhere, far away. Better to live elsewhere, to seek better wages,
better working and living conditions, and a fairer life for his children, without want and misery
and hunger and despair, and blessed with hope.
He must have had his reasons and they were probably very personal ones. For England at the
mid-century - hard as life was for most - was passing through a period of comparative stability.
According to Lytton Strachey: The Victorian age was in full swing... The last vestige of the
eighteenth century had disappeared... and duty, industry, morality and domesticity triumphed.'
These were epitomised by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. She was 30 in 1849 and had
already given birth to six children; her husband was planning his monument to his ideals of
peace, prosperity and to progress most of all - the Great Exhibition, which the Queen would
open in Hyde Park in London in May 1851. The Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, a Whig,
would be succeeded by Lord Paimerston and Gladstone. Known as Liberals, they would
govern the nation for most of the next 50 years.
None of that would William the stonemason see, nor did he probably care for such things. He
was middle-aged and ageing; his four older children had already left the family - although two of
them, Richard and Jane, would follow htm overseas.
At some point towards the end of 1849 William must have made his momentous decision to
emigrate. He signed the forms and paid the fares of a passage to Australia for six - for himself
and his wife and his four youngest children, Henry, Elizabeth, Martha and John. That Christmas
was the last they would spend together in England.
In February, 1850, not long after William's 53rd birthday, they packed their bags and boxes,
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