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market for farm produce had been all but lost to the cheap imports from Canada and the USA. Taxes, rates and rents where high and the future for farming in this country looked grim.

Though Wellington had been the victor against Napoleon in the war with France the cost of that war had left the countries finances in a very poor state. High taxes were demanded and the farmers found they could not pay a fare wage to their workers, in the 1840’s following the “Potatoes famine” in Ireland.

In 1846 there was a Typhus epidemic spreading throughout England, Gangs of Irish labourers were working in Cambridgeshire on railway construction and it was thought at the time the disease had come from them.

All these happenings helped the two brothers to decide to sail the Atlantic in search of a better life.

Richard senior had died in December 1838 leaving the farm to his son Richard.

How he was to make it profitable was questionable. It’s clear the brothers discussed these problems. As Thomas had the commission with Canadian Pacific the boys decided to take their chances of finding a new life together in Canada. They had hoped to travel together but Thomas’s wife Anne changed her mind at the last minute against leaving the country, no doubt influenced by her pregnancy however, the story goes that she held a carving knife to Thomas saying she would not allow him take Annie who was only a year old!

As far as the authorities were concerned, Anne Smith was an “Abandoned wife”, expecting a child and with no means of support. She was taken into the workhouse where George was born. She then had to look to the Village of Comberton for support. It is said that George only had one bath a year in preparation for his Christmas dinner paid for by the village.

Richard and Mary with their two children, Walter aged four and Annie aged two sailed on the last commercial Sailing ship to cross the Atlantic in 1846. Other passengers on the boat sailing to Canada were William and Mary Ann Markham             They sailed from Liverpool in 1846 took five weeks and three days. The boat had been becalmed through lack of wind. They arrived in New York and then made their way up the Hudson river, through Lake Erie to Port Stanley, Ontario. On the vessel with the Wallis’s were the Holbens, Gee and Cooper families who became good friends.

The following year in July1847 Thomas with his son John aged nine and Emma aged seven sailed on the ship: “Westminister” which was carrying 124 Adults and 76 children among them another young Wallis family with their three children Mark (4) James (3) and John (1). There were also some Gee’s aboard: brothers Jeremine (30) and William (26) Ann Gee(26) and children David (4) Martha (3) and Alfred (1). This was a wealthy family and had taken their own servants with them. The Gee’s returned to England several times to see their families and when they returned brought back silver watches for their children.

On another occasions they also brought enough heavy black silk to make each of their daughters and daughter-in-laws dresses. When their son David married Elizabeth she had dresses with ribbons and black jet pearl fashioned into them. In later years this cloth was made into a coat for the first grandchild of Daniel and Grace Gee Wallis.

     The families remained together until they found accommodation. The Wallis’

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