Celia Martin and others requested info about emigrants to Australia.
Please see the article "A Stitch in Time" by Sylvia Kent of Christchurch,
Dorset, in Golden Days in Dorset 1991.
Extract:
Around 1840 the east Dorset scene would have been one of abject misery and poverty, with
hundreds of families on the breadline, innocent victims of a Button making machine.
In the 1600's a Cotswplds man, Abraham CASE, opted for military service abroad rather
than working on the family farm.
Finishing his military service, Abraham married a girl from Old Wardour Castle, Donhead
St. Andrews, settling in Shaftesbury about 1622. He saw the potential for making cloth
buttons like he adnired in Belgium and France and organised the cottage button making
industry in east Dorset using linen twisted on rings of sheep's horns. An example can
be seen at Longleat on a waistcoat worn by Charles I at his execution in 1649, Queen
Victoria owned a
dress adorned with their buttons.
The family set up numerous branches around Dorset, Liverpool and London. TheLondon office
opened in 1743 where their general manager, John Clayton directed affairs. That office
closed in 1878.
By 1800, 4,000 women and children were employed in Shaftesbury. The best buttony was done
in Whitchurch. The bestpolishers in Milborne. All eastern Dorset were involved by 1807
with a turnover of �14,000.
At the Great Exhibition in 1851 Ashton's Button Making Patent Machine was displayed.
The effects were catastrophic. The bottom fell out of themarket and hundreds of buttoners
were on the breadline.
Things were so bad that the local gentry,with the help of the government, helped people to
emigrate to Australia and Canada. 350 families from Sturminster Newton emigrated to
Newfoundland.
Henry Case and his brother disolved the partnership in 1904.
In Australia, smeoe from Goolum Beach said her antecedent from Shaftesbury gaveher
occupation as 'button maker' on her marriage certificate in 1843, she later
emigrated to Ballat, Victoria, her grandson moving to Mackay, Queenslan.
Edmund Case born 1817, arrived in Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia early 1600 buying
several gold miners' rights there. With his family and brother, Edmund arrived in New
Zealand in the 1870's, where life was so tough that he committed suicide in 1877.
Edmund's descendents now live in New Zealand. Many descendants live around
Bishopdale,
Christchurch.
Please see the full article for further detail, in particular part 2 of Sylvia's
piece. I have her address if needed.
Why my interest? My maternal grandmother
was a CASE, descended from Peter Case (married Mary Matthews in 1721) of Motcombe,
Shaftesbury, thought to be a grandson of Abraham Case.
Best wishes
George Toth, Stockport, Cheshire, England
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Creating a one-name study of CASE name.
Other interests: TOTH, HORSMAN (Bucks), THORPE (Yorks), NICHOLLS (Essex), AREOFF (any),
McDonald (West Ham) and ALGER (West Ham).