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  1. #1
    Ms Tarfgi
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    Default Transport in the mid-nineteenth century

    How would my ancestors have moved from near Haverfordwest to Neath in 1848? (about 60 miles today, but presumably a much longer and more difficult journey then). They had at least 4 young children and all their belongings, though they wouldn't have amounted to much as father was an ag lab.
    I think I'm right in saying that the railway hadn't come to H'west at the time.

  2. #2
    Name well known on Brit-Gen
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    South Australia
    Posts
    4,594

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    Can't speak for UK traffic, but in 1848 my Fathers Grandmother with her Family, having arrived in Australia in 1838 Parents & 5 children, proceeded to WALK to Adelaide a distance of (now)1374-1380 kms ( 853 miles) with a cart pulled by bullocks. Their 10th ( & final) child was born along the way.
    These days about 2days drive, but if you could see the Hills they would have needed to cross,! truly awe-enspiring.
    I've heard the English are good walkers?

    ps. Family settled iin Goolwa & near surrounds, & multiplied.
    Happy Families
    Wendy
    Count your Blessings, they'll all add up in the end.

  3. #3
    Knowledgeable and helpful
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland
    Posts
    629

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    The railway (from Carmarthen) only reached Haverfordwest in 1854 so your ancestors didn't travel to Neath that way. I agree with Wendy that it was quite likely they just walked. 60 miles was not seen as a big distance to walk in those days. (I recently read a diary of an ancestor in Scotland who walked home 40 miles in a night, in the 1870s, to save money). There were "carriers" who would have carried heavier goods with a horse and cart, if you were able to pay. So any heavy goods your ancestors owned might have been moved that way. But I suspect that if they had little or real value they would probably have simply sold any heavy property in Haverfordwest and bought replacements in Neath.

  4. #4
    Ms Tarfgi
    Guest

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    Wow! and after what was presumably a very hard voyage to Australia. In comparison my family had a mere hop, skip and jump to their new home. Their troubles started when they got to Neath as within a few months, mother and two children had died of cholera, which was rife then in the rapidly growing industrial towns.

  5. #5
    Ms Tarfgi
    Guest

    Default

    Thanks Elwyn, your explanation was what I had assumed.

    My maternal great grandmother in Ireland used to walk from West Cork to Cork City every market day, to sell what farm produce she could carry - barefoot, as she couldn't risk wearing out her only pair of shoes. About 80 miles there and back.

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