Reformatory Schools - Emigration to Port Natal. Taken from Aris’s Birmingham Gazette Monday 4 February 1856 p.3 col.2

We have the satisfaction of laying before our readers a proof of the practical value of Reformatory Schools in aiding the great work of colonisation, and in providing the means for permanently reclaiming juvenile criminals. Mr. Alexander M'Corkindale, a gentleman who has twice visited the colony of Natal, is now again on his way there, with the intention of cultivating sugar, cotton, and coffee, for the production of which the soil and climate are well adapted. He has purchased a tract of land, extending to about 3000 acres, situated forty miles from Darban, on the Tugala, and during the last few months has been in this country engaged in making preparations for entering on his labours. Having completed these arrangements, he chartered the brig Portia, a vessel of about three hundred tons burthen, and it is expected that she will sail from Gravesend to-day.

SS Portia

The crew and passengers consist of about 90 persons, including Mr. M'Corkindale, his wife and sister, an efficient schoolmistress, a surgeon, several labourers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and twenty-two boys from Reformatory Schools — seven of them being from Saltley, thirteen from Red Hill and two from Miss Carpenter's School at Bristol. The boys are apprenticed to Mr. M'Corkindale for three years and a half, during which period he will provide them with food, clothing, and lodging, and pay them wages. At the expiration of the term, if they resolve to remain his service six months longer, has agreed to pay them the current wages of the colony, and to present each of them with £15 and fifty acres of land. He also binds himself to afford instruction lo the boys, and to attend to their religious training.

The settlement, we learn, is within a short distance of a Missionary station, and the boys take out letters of recommendation to the Right Rev. Dr. Colenso, Bishop of Natal, under whose sanction the arrangement has been entered into. The colonists, too, we are informed, have expressed great anxiety to receive emigrants of so useful and promising a class, and, taken altogether, the enterprise bids fair to result most successfully-. Mr. M'Corkindale has provided, at a cost of £100, a library for the emigrants, and each of the boys has been supplied with a Bible, a Prayer Book, and Hymn Book. Each boy is also provided with a suitable outfit, the cost of which, and the passage money, has been defrayed by the School Committees.

Mr. Charles Ratcliff, the Honorary Secretary of the Saltley Reformatory Institution, has visited the ship on several occasions, and on Thursday last he found the vessel in excellent order, and everything ready for sailing. The boys were delighted with the new prospect opening to them. They all expressed the warmest feelings of gratitude for the care bestowed upon them while in the Reformatories, and a firm determination that their future lives should reflect credit upon the Schools. As an example of the completeness of Mr. M'Corkindale's preparations, we may mention that forty houses are now in course of erection on his estate at Natal, and that he takes out a full assortment of agricultural implements, and a large quantity of seeds adapted for use in the colony. The vessel is expected to touch at Madeira, whence letters will be forwarded to the Secretaries of the Schools,, and the parents of the boys, and it is arranged that after arriving the colony regular reports shall be transmitted to England. Should these reports prove favourable, it is in contemplation to send out more boys. It is scarcely necessary to add that none of the boys have been permitted to emigrate without the hearty consent of their parents or friends being obtained. In one instance, the mother of a boy at Saltley refused to permit him to leave England. The lad, who was eager to go, vainly attempted to shake her resolution, and the Committee at once deferred to the wishes of the mother. No sooner did the vacancy become known in the school than other boys at once offered themselves to fill it. Indeed the difficulty was merely one of selection, for there was scarcely an inmate the establishment who did not appreciate the opportunity of attaining honest independence thus held out.

The boys who went with McCorkindale were: William Manning [28], James Hines [58], William Hopcroft [65], John Williams [68], Thomas Peechy [69], James Hook [74], and Alfred John Taylor [82].