3-021-121 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Embarkation of dockyard workmen as emigrants at Portsmouth, 1869. '...discharged workmen of the Admiralty dockyards, with their wives and families, on board her Majesty's screw troop-ship Crocodile, Captain G. W. Watson, for conveyance to Canada...At the gangway all embarkation papers were given up by the emigrants, who were then passed on board and numbered off into messing and sleeping berths. This being done, the cares of the emigrants...were confined to the stowing away of their luggage in their berths and saying "good-by" to relatives and friends...a special train from Woolwich, consisting of six passenger-carriages and three luggage-vans and brake belonging to the South-Eastern Railway Company, arrived...with the intending emigrants from Woolwich and Deptford...The transfer of the people from the railway carriages to the troop-ship was easily managed, without the slightest trouble or confusion. The emigrants on board the ship were received by Mr. Murdoch and another gentleman from the Emigration Board...Captain Phipps, a member of the Emigrants' (Woolwich and Deptford) Relief Fund Committee, accompanied the train down from Woolwich and superintended the embarkation of the men, women, and children, with their effects'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.