ABSTRACT
Joseph Coyne’s 1852 farce, “Wanted: 1000 Spirited Young Milliners for the Gold Diggings!” tells the story of a dastardly scheme thought up by Joe Baggs, a clerk, to entice innocent dressmakers to an illicit assignation in Kensington Gardens, under the pretence of offering them the prospect of a new life in the colonies with “seven thousand disconsolate diggers waiting with open arms upon the beach.” In 1849 Sidney Herbert’s Fund for Promoting Female Emigration attempted to use the iconic figure of the distressed needlewoman to raise funds, and establish popular support, to assist “the most helpless of their sex-the working women of this country” to emigrate. Images of dislocation and displacement in the portrayals of the distressed needlewoman made the proposed solution of emigration a paradoxical one. Whilst on the voyage the emigrants were expected to conform to their identity as seamstresses: to perform as industrious, God-fearing, moral, respectable, submissive workers, and as potential wives.
