After the Hector: The Scottish Pioneers of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton 1773-1852 - Paperback

by Lucille H. Campey (Author)

This is the first fully documented and detailed account, produced in recent times, of one of the greatest early migrations of Scots to North America. The arrival of the Hector in 1773, with nearly 200 Scottish passengers, sparked a huge influx of Scots to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. Thousands of Scots, mainly from the Highlands and Islands, streamed into the province during the late 1700s and the first half of the nineteenth century.

Lucille Campey traces the process of emigration and explains why Scots chose their different settlement locations in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. Much detailed information has been distilled to provide new insights on how, why and when the province came to acquire its distinctive Scottish communities. Challenging the widely held assumption that this was primarily a flight from poverty, After the Hector reveals how Scots were being influenced by positive factors, such as the opportunity for greater freedoms and better livelihoods.

The suffering and turmoil of the later Highland Clearances have cast a long shadow over earlier events, creating a false impression that all emigration had been forced on people. Hard facts show that most emigration was voluntary, self-financed and pursued by people expecting to improve their economic prospects. A combination of push and pull factors brought Scots to Nova Scotia, laying down a rich and deep seam of Scottish culture that continues to flourish. Extensively documented with all known passenger lists and details of over three hundred ship crossings, this book tells their story.

"The saga of the Scots who found a home away from home in Nova Scotia, told in a straightforward, unembellished, no-nonsense style with some surprises along the way. This book contains much of vital interest to historians and genealogists."
- Professor Edward J. Cowan, University of Glasgow

"...a well-written, crisp narrative that provides a useful outline of the known Scottish settlements up to the middle of the 19th century...avoid[s] the sentimental 'victim & scapegoat approach' to the topic and instead has provided an account of the attractions and mechanisms of settlement...."
- Professor Michael Vance, St. Mary's University, Halifax

Author Biography

Dr. Lucille Campey is a Canadian, living in Britain, with over thirty years of experience as a researcher and author. It was her father's Scottish roots and love of history that first stimulated her interest in the early exodus of people from Scotland to Canada. She is the great-great-granddaughter of William Thomson, who left Morayshire, on the northeast coast of Scotland, in the early 1800s to begin a new life with his family, first near Digby, then in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is described in D. Whidden's History of the Town of Antigonish simply as "William, Pioneer" and is commemorated in the St. James Church and Cemetery at Antigonish. Lucille's mother, Cécile Morency, who was born in Ste-Marie-de-Beauce, is a descendant of Guillaume Baucher dit Morency, who settled in Ile d'Orleans in 1659.

Lucille was awarded a Ph.D. by Aberdeen University in 1998 for her research into Scottish emigration to Canada in the period 1770-1850. Lucille has published six books on the subject of emigrant Scots to Canada. Described by the P.E.I. Guardian as "indispensable to Islanders of Scottish ancestry," her first book, "A Very Fine Class of Immigrants" Prince Edward Island's Scottish Pioneers 1770-1850 (Natural Heritage, 2001), gives the most comprehensive account to date of the Scottish influx to the Island. Her second book, "Fast Sailing and Copper-Bottomed" Aberdeen Sailing Ships and the Emigrant Scots They Carried to Canada 1774-1855 (Natural Heritage, 2002), gives a gripping account of emigrant shipping from the north of Scotland to Canada in the sailing ship era. Her third book, The Silver Chief: Lord Selkirk and the Scottish Pioneers of Belfast, Baldoon and Red River (Natural Heritage, 2003), examines the three Selkirk settlements in Canada. According to the distinguished genealogist and author Ryan Taylor "the three titles now stand as a significant contribution to Canadian immigrant literature." Her fourth book is After the Hector: The Scottish Pioneers of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, 1773-1852 (Natural Heritage, 2004), her fifth is The Scottish Pioneers of Upper Canada, 1784-1855: Glengarry and Beyond (Natural Heritage, 2005), and her sixth book is Les Écossais: The Pioneer Scots of Lower Canada, 1763-1855 (Natural Heritage, 2006). A seventh book, which will deal with emigration from Scotland to New Brunswick, will be published by Natural Heritage in Spring 2007.

A chemistry graduate of Ottawa University, Lucille worked initially in the fields of science and computing. After marrying her English husband, she moved to the north of England, where she became interested in medieval monasteries and acquired a Master of Philosophy Degree (on the subject of medieval settlement patterns) from Leeds University. Having lived for five years in Easter Ross, in the north of Scotland, while she completed her doctoral thesis, she and Geoff returned to England, and now live near Salisbury in Wiltshire.