The encouragement of emigration by British trade unions, 1850–1900

Back to the Future? The Potters' Emigration Society and the Historians

“…40 The failure of the Potters' Emigration Society spelled the end of British trade union interest in American land, although unions' belief in the efficacy of emigration lingered on until the depressed years of the 1880s. 41 …”

Inspecting the ‘extraordinary drain’: emigration and the urban experience in Merthyr Tydfil in the 1860s

“…Emigration was advocated and promoted by a variety of public bodies, civic leaders and trade unionists. 18 In the iron and coal districts of south Wales generally in the 1850s and 1860s, the rhythms of interest in emigration were sharpened by gold rushes in California, Australia and British Columbia; the organized emigration of Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) converts to America; the establishment of the Welsh colony in Patagonia in 1865; and, to the surprise of many contemporaries, the American Civil War. 19 In Merthyr in this period, emigration was a highly public, visible and publicized phenomenon, and the focus of much interest, concern and comment.…”