Emigration fields, North America, the Cape, Australia, and New Zealand, describing these countries, and giving a comparative view of the advantages they present to British settlers.

Maker Patrick Matthew

Date1839

Object number00005577

NameBook

MediumInk on paper, cloth

DimensionsOverall: 23 x 204 x 130 mm, 0.35 kg

ClassificationsBooks and journals

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionBook by Patrick Matthew titled 'Emigration Fields, North America, the Cape, Australia, and New Zealand, Describing These Countries, and Giving a Comparative View of the Advantages they Present to British Settlers.' Adam and Charles Black: Edinburgh, Scotland. 1839.HistoryPatrick Matthew was a strong supporter of colonisation by Britain of foreign countries and the establishment of a British global maritime empire. He saw the British to colonise these lands, particularly North America, Australia, and New Zealand, to be the working class or unemployed which was a growing class atthe time. By establishing British colonies, these immigrants would be able to earn their own wage thus releasing the pressure on resources in England including of charity from the wealthy. Matthews' book 'Emigration Fields' also promoted the proposal of a British commercial empire that fully utilized natural resources that he saw as being under developed in these colonies. Matthews’s theories like many of his era was based on the racist notion that white Europeans were superior to other humans and that English culture was more enlightened. His limited notion of natural selection, published before Charles Darwin, was applied to humans with the belief that if the British colonised countries with a hospitable climate and conditions, they would somehow thrive and replace Traditional Owners and First Nation people. SignificancePatrick Matthew was an early theorist of the process of natural selection through his and work in horticulture and agriculture. He believed that a similar process could be applied to people and advocated the migration of the British to other areas of the world with similar climates.