Help through the generations
The Clark children. Robert’s mother is the youngest in centre. (Photograph supplied by Robert Chalmers)
Whilst researching his ancestry, 66-year-old QLD resident Robert Chalmers discovered an historical Salvation Army connection. Lauren Martin reports on a history that has suddenly come alive...
Robert Chalmers always knew the story of his grandparents’ arrival in Brisbane in 1927 on board a Salvation Army chartered ship that offered disadvantaged English residents free and supported passage to Australia.
It was an interesting fact but nothing more.
Until last month when that history suddenly started repeating itself, as Robert found himself at The Salvation Army, jobless and unable to pay his mortgage.
“I lost my wife in 2002 and then of course, getting older, I ended up losing any permanent work because I had been looking after her for a number of years as a carer,” he says. “I picked up a bit of casual work after that but not enough to make ends meet.
“Anyway, I got myself into a whole sheaf of trouble, I tried hard to get myself out of it but I got totally lost so I ended up at The Salvation Army. And here I was, a generation later sitting at this desk, and the generation before it had been my grandmother and grandfather sitting at the equivalent desk at Lancaster.”
Thomas and Emily Clark and their six children (one of whom – Emily junior – was Robert’s mother) emigrated to Australia on board the SS Vedic, part of The Salvation Army’s Migration and Settlement Program. It was an initiative spurred on by General Bramwell Booth, who, after a visit to Australia, said: “What a blessing for the crowded population here in the Homeland that they may go into such splendid conditions as I have seen in Australia, and that the children especially should have such delightful opportunities.”
A Salvation Army band greets the SS Vedic on its arrival in Perth. (Photo courtesy of the Australia Southern Territory Heritage Centre)
Robert says his grandmother was a member of The Salvation Army in Lancaster and that the family probably took the opportunity to travel to Australia to escape the onset of the Great Depression: “There was massive unemployment in the north – Manchester and Lancaster. I guess everybody was doing it pretty tough.”
The journey from London to Australia via Cape Town in South Africa took months, and Robert’s mother wrote about her recollections of it in her memoirs before she passed away:
Then I saw the ship. It seemed so large. We had to board her by means of this giant flight of steps going up the side. It seemed to reach to heaven. What a thrill and what an adventure it all was. It was not long before I had found my way into most of the corners on that ship.
“Mum was a bit of a tearaway even though she was only five or six at the time,” says Robert, “and the captain of the ship … asked my grandmother if she’d please keep her daughter in the cabin because mum was all over the ship annoying people, upstairs and downstairs and all that sort of thing!”
After their arrival in Brisbane, Robert’s grandfather continued his affiliation with The Salvation Army. But whilst Robert’s mother was a Christian, she didn’t worship at The Salvation Army and the connection was lost.
Until now.
As Robert works through his financial situation with The Salvation Army’s Moneycare Financial Counsellor, Chris Reese, his ancestry has become real to him.
“Chris has certainly been a great help. He’s taken a huge weight off my mind. And just being able to talk to him about other stuff and even this historical connection… it’s not just financial counselling but personal assistance you know what I mean? Somebody to talk to.
“My ancestry has become quite a focus now. Being able to refer to my own history to see where I come from and hopefully where I’m going.”
Comments
What a lovely story with a great connection between generations of one family, and two countries. Keep up the good work, Salvos!