When I first heard of the concept of bride ships I was utterly horrified and fascinated by the idea that women would actually willingly board ships, leave everything they’d ever known behind, and sail to a strange land, all for the purpose of marrying complete strangers. I couldn’t help but ask myself what kind of woman would do such a thing and why.
In the 1860s several bride ships left England’s shores with the destination of Victoria on Vancouver Island (which was at that time still a colony of England and not yet part of Canada). As I researched these ships and the women who took the voyages, I searched frantically for the answer to a question, namely, What sort of desperation did these women face that would drive them to board one of the bride ships?
In this third book in THE BRIDE SHIPS series, my hope is to show the perspective of one of the brides who came on the second bride ship that sailed to Victoria. This ship, called the Robert Lowe, left approximately four months after the Tynemouth (the bride ship highlighted in the first two books in the series).
While the women aboard the Robert Lowe were sponsored by the Columbia Emigration Society the same as the Tynemouth women, a distinct difference exists between the two groups. The group on the first ship came largely from the London area and consisted of wealthy middle-class women as well as the poor plucked from orphanages and slums.
The Robert Lowe women, however, were from the cotton manufacturing districts in Manchester, England. The calamity in the midlands was widespread, with tens of thousands of cotton-mill workers suffering from unemployment as a result of the cotton shortage brought about by the American Civil War. The women chosen to immigrate aboard the Robert Lowe were among the many who’d lost their jobs. In light of the bleak conditions in their homeland, the three dozen Manchester mill girls were happy to be offered the chance at a better life in the colonies where work and husbands awaited them.
As I portrayed in the book, this bride ship arrived in January after three months without any stops. After spending a weekend of rest and quarantine aboard the Robert Lowe, the women were ferried to Victoria aboard a steamship. Before they could go to shore, however, two ill women were taken to the hospital with what was believed to be consumption or mill fever, illnesses common among mill workers. Since the lung ailments can lie dormant, the women may have already had the disease, and the damp sea voyage may have allowed it to progress. Whatever the case, the two women died shortly after arriving in Victoria.
The rest of the brides came ashore much the way I portrayed. With the arrival of another bride ship, the excitement of the men in the colonies was out of control. With not nearly enough women for all the eager men, the women (similar to the Tynemouth women) had to run a gauntlet through the mobs hoping to find brides. While Zoe isn’t based on any real person in particular, I did hope to portray her bride-ship experience through the eyes of a mill woman.
Finally, in developing Abraham Merivale as a minister, I was inspired by the story of a pastor who lived in the colonies during this time period. The Anglican Church really did send missionaries to the mining towns and camps with the intention of spreading the gospel as well as maintaining order and civility among the miners. One such missionary was a tall, well-liked preacher by the name of John Sheepshanks, a highly educated man and the son of an upper-class family, who’d chosen to volunteer for a period of five years in the colonies without a salary.
John Sheepshanks was a cheerful and resourceful minister whose compassion made him popular among both the miners and natives. He spent time building relationships by playing ice hockey, spearfishing for salmon, and teaching reading. I modeled Abe around this beloved missionary who showed God’s love wherever he was within the mining districts of British Columbia.
I hope you’ve enjoyed taking this bride-ship journey with Zoe as she learned to seek after God’s will for her life and follow His direction, even when the whole plan wasn’t clear to her. I pray that as you seek after God’s will and leading in your life, you never forget He’s able to do exceedingly more than you can ask or imagine. If you allow Him to guide you, He might just surprise you with what He does!