Mrs. Boyde sang for her audience, accompanied by the guitar, 1861

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Sduddy
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Mrs. Boyde sang for her audience, accompanied by the guitar, 1861

Post by Sduddy » Wed Jun 16, 2021 9:52 am

Clare Journal, Mon 26 Aug 1861:
Mrs. Boyde’s Lecture on Social Emigration.
It was our priviledge, on Thursday evening, at the Newmarket school-house, to hear a most original and interesting lecture, varied and enlivened by song, poetry, and music, by this gifted lady, who has spent twenty years of her eventful life, usefully, in Australia. Although the day was marked by torrents of rain, and the evening anything but inviting, a great number of intelligent tenant-farmers and tradesmen (for whose information the lecture was specially given) together with many of the respectable inhabitants of Newmarket, assembled punctual to the hour, to hear their fellow-countrywoman give them the results of her experience on emigration.
Mrs. Boyde commenced her lecture, by tracing in a lucid manner, the discovery and early history of Australia – this “Gem of the Southern Seas,” and fairest jewel in England’s crown – touching on the past and future political and moral aspects of the colony; its social and domestic relations, its climate, productions and natural history, and its past resources in minerals, grain, and cattle. The lecturer paid a well deserved compliment to our distinguished countryman, Sir Richard Burke, to whom Australia owes a deep dept; as well as to our intelligent fellow-townsman, the Hon. Captain Baggot, whose son was the first to discover copper-ore in the Kapunda district, in the White-clay-State, while collecting a few wild flowers for his sister. A shepherd at the same time (both accidentally and in ignorance of the immense results and vast wealth to the world of their discovery), finding some lumps of green malchite in the blue slaty lias of the Burra Burra district. In these localities are now worked two of the richest copper mines in the world, and giving employment to thousands of hands.
Mrs. Boyde, in a masterly sketch, contrasted social and combined emigration, as approved to that of single and individual exertions; giving the results of her great experience, and pointing out in the clearest way the certain benefits of the former, and the uncertain results of the latter. The plan proposed can only by carried out by a company, having funds at their disposal for the purchase of blocks of land with a definite and well organised system to proceed with. Mrs. Boyde recommends in preference South Australia, as the most temperate, productive, and finest part of this fine island. There can be no doubt that if a company could be formed according to Mrs. Boyde’s plan, mutual benefit must result to all having shares in the company, or to emigrants availing themselves of its advantages. She illustrated her views on social emigration by a happy reference to the practice in the early and patriarchal ages, as we find in the Bible, and, also, by its results in America when the Puritans from England, in the reign of Charles II., emigrated in a body. Those bold “Pilgrim Fathers,” who forming themselves into a social band left their country to escape religious persecution at home, and founded on the shores of the New World the states of New England and the North, from daring battle with the South in favour of freedom and abolition of slavery. Mrs. Boyde sang for her audience, accompanied by the guitar, Mrs. Brennan’s beautiful song of “The Pilgrim Fathers.”
Alluding then to the discovery of gold the eloquent lecturer electrified and delighted her hearers by reading parts of Charles Mackay’s fine poem, “The Lump of Gold,” and afterwards singing Mackay’s soul-stirring song, “There’s a Good Time Coming.”
Mrs. Boyde concluded a most brilliant and classic lecture by reciting from memory a fine prize poem written by a lady of her acquaintance in Australia, and singing, accompanied by music on the guitar, an exquisite song, “Hail Fair Australia,” composed by Miss E. Turner, a fair daughter of that fair land.
Seldom indeed has it been our lot to have passed a more delightful evening. We sat and listened for more than two hours, not only without fatigue, but with positive pleasure, and regret at the finale. It was a discourse full of practical facts, drawn from reflection of a woman of a very high order of intellect, pregnant with christian feeling, fine philosophy, utility, and human progress. It was, in truth, a fine moral and intellectual feast, served by an energetic and accomplished woman.
Mrs. Boyde is an enthusiast, but then it is in the cause of truth, human happiness, progress, and religion; she is no slave to an ideal system, nor is she carried away by a blind and visionary theory. No; with her all is practical, clear, demonstrative, logical, and useful. She is in the right; it ought to be, and it will be.
We hope this lady may remain among us, and be induced to devote her great talents and experience, and greater energy to the development of this important subject. We would beg to suggest that she should give a lecture in every town and city in Ireland on emigration, and she may be assured that the seed cast upon the water will, by-and-bye, spring up into a luxuriant and goodly tree. Philo.
I think Mrs. Boyd must be Hannah Villiers Boyd, one of the women whose lives were brought to light by Lucille Ellis in Women of Clare (2017): https://astheywere.blogspot.com/2017/11 ... en-of.html

Sheila

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