The wealthy could afford to pay for their passage to Australia. The poor could qualify for government assistance to help them migrate. But what about the ones in between? Such as William Lord perhaps who, with his family, arrived at Portland, Victoria in January 1857. The family was Protestant, literate and the children were all teenagers or in their early twenties so were able to work.
Was it this ability for all the family to work once they arrived in Australia that enabled them to select land in the township of Cavendish? Or did they bring some resources with them? For William Lord is listed as having rateable property in the parish of Kilmmuckridge, County Wexford in Griffith's valuations completed between 1847 and the 1860s (see http://www.askaboutireland.ie/). Or had the potato blight driven them into poverty and off their land after the valuation was done?
The Lords were the only family from Wexford aboard the Mary Ann. How did they travel from Wexford to the Mary Ann which eventually left from Plymouth?
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