[BITList] ''Fishing fleet'' found in BT27 passenger lists

[John Feltham]

Snipped from
http://ancestorsonboard.wordpress.com/2007/02/08/fishing-fleet-found-in-bt27-passenger-lists/

''Fishing fleet'' found in BT27 passenger lists

The attached image is the first page of the passenger list for
the voyage of the Kaiser I Hind from London to Calcutta on
12th October 1893.

The passenger list shows what appears to be part of a fishing
fleet. There are no obvious fishermen on board, however,
because this is a very special type of fishing fleet. All the people
on this page are noted simply as being "ladies and gentlemen".

Reading down the list of names, past Mrs Wright, Mrs Simpson,
the infant and ayah (Indian nanny), you come to Miss Max, Miss
Cowell, Miss Blyth, Miss Graham,a long sequence of unmarried
women, down to Miss Sandys and Miss Good. This is the suspected
"fleeting fleet": marriageable young women sailing out to India in
search of eligible bachelors, preferably the so-called "heaven-born"
serving in the Indian Civil Service or officers in the Army.

The fleet sailed out from Britain in the autumn or early winter and
spent the next few cooler Indian months socialising at the British
clubs and angling for a groom. There was always a shortage of
unattached British women in India, so the arrival of the fishing
fleet was doubtless fondly awaited by sincere and ardent gentlemen
ready to be affianced, not to mention by dastardly bounders who
enjoyed toying with a lady's affections for the season.

Unsuccessful women - the "returned empties" - re-embarked for
Britain in the spring.

ooroo