Review: Planters, Paupers and Pioneers: English Settlers in Atlantic Canada by Lucille H. Campey

Planters, Paupers and Pioneers:  English Settlers in Atlantic Canada. By Lucille H. Campey, Natural Heritage Books [Dundurn Group], 2010, 470 p.

 Book one of a three book series by Lucille Campey on English migration to Canada, Planters, Paupers and Pioneers focuses on the experience of English settlers to the New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland from the late 1670s to the 1860s.

Campey examines the reasons for English emigration to Atlantic Canada and details the geographic origins of these emigrants. For example, the author has devoted a whole chapter to the Yorkshire settlers who came to the Chignecto Isthmus in Nova Scotia in the 1770s, and another to the Loyalist influx from the south.  She also discusses other emigrating groups, such as the Home Children from Liverpool to Nova Scotia. In addition to the who, what, when and why of English emigration, the author has also researched “the how” of it, and provides detailed information about the sea voyages themselves and the experiences of the settlers after arriving at their destinations.

This is a thoroughly-researched book that comes with many helpful maps, tables and charts. The author has included a complete list of placements of Louisa Birt’s 347 Home Children in Nova Scotia, a list of Middlemore Home Children, and a number of relevant passenger lists and ship crossing lists.  Appendices include Yorkshire Passenger Lists, 1774-75 and Ship Crossings from England to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. A bibliography is provided, as is a name-place-subject index.  If you would like to add context to your English-Canadian research, Campey’s book will supply a wealth of information and insight into the English settler’s life in Atlantic Canada.