Origins of Falkland Islanders - Late Nineteenth To Early Twentieth Century

Late Nineteenth To Early Twentieth Century

The development of the sheep-breeding industry in the second half of the 19th century was accompanied by substantial immigration, increasing the population sevenfold in fifty years, from 287 in 1851 to 2,043 in 1901. The vast majority of immigrants during that period came from the British Isles, mostly from Scotland. Scots were particularly common in Darwin, many of them coming from the Orkney and Shetland Islands, which have a similar climate to these areas.

In 1871, many shepherds situation on the Falkland Islands Company's main farm at Darwin were of Scottish origin, and members of the Free Kirk of Scotland. Finding a growing need for a minister of their own, they undertook, with the assistance of the Company to employ a minister for Darwin, and in 1872, Rev Yeoman took up the appointment. In 1873, an iron constructed church was brought from England and erected at Darwin. About this time, it was estimated that one third of the Falklands' population belonged to the Presbyterian church. (...) As Stanley grew, the Darwin minister visited the town occasionally and held services in the infants' school.

An additional boost to that population growth came from the expansion of Stanley’s port activities in service of the ships sailing between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific via the Strait of Magellan or Cape Horn. The port was particularly busy during the California Gold Rush, subsiding following the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914.

The early 20th century brought about a new industry to the region, Antarctic whaling in South Georgia, that supported a transient population varying from few hundred in winter to over 1,000 in summer. Some Falkland Islanders found employment with South Georgian whaling bases or ships, while some whalers settled in the Falklands to blend into the local populace. The whalers were predominantly Scandinavian (Norwegians, Swedes and Danes), with a minority of Britons, Germans, and a variety of other European nations. As a result of both natural demographic growth and ongoing immigration, the population of the Falkland Islands reached a peak of 2,392 recorded in the 1931 census, a figure that would not be surpassed until late in the twentieth century.

Read more about this topic:  Origins Of Falkland Islanders

Famous quotes containing the words twentieth century, late nineteenth, late, nineteenth, early and/or twentieth:

    The descendants of Holy Roman Empire monarchies became feeble-minded in the twentieth century, and after World War I had been done in by the democracies; some were kept on to entertain the tourists, like the one they have in England.
    Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)

    I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
    James A. Michener (b. 1907)

    All of Western tradition, from the late bloom of the British Empire right through the early doom of Vietnam, dictates that you do something spectacular and irreversible whenever you find yourself in or whenever you impose yourself upon a wholly unfamiliar situation belonging to somebody else. Frequently it’s your soul or your honor or your manhood, or democracy itself, at stake.
    June Jordan (b. 1939)

    The secret point of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power’s sake ... but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. It is the instinct which drove America to the Pacific, all through the nineteenth century, the desire to be able to find a restaurant open in case you want a sandwich, to be a free agent, live by one’s own rules.
    Joan Didion (b. 1934)

    Two sleepy people by dawn’s early light, and two much in love to say goodnight.
    Frank Loesser (1910–1969)

    Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid- twentieth century.
    Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)