Perhaps we take our ability to travel long distances in a short space of time for granted?
The distance from New York to London can now be traversed in less than six hours.
The flight time from Halifax in Nova Scotia to London is very similar.
An ocean going liner can cross the Atlantic in four days.
Taking things in more leisurely style, a ship like the Queen Mary will stroll across in seven days.
Going back a little further in time, the Empire Windrush took over two weeks to bring the Windrush pioneers from the Caribbean to England in 1948, but only a little over.
The troop ships bringing men from the Caribbean to England in 1915 also took about two weeks. The RMS Danube landed an initial contingent of recruits from British Guiana (as it then was) at Plymouth, their journey started on 21st August 1915 and they disembarked on 5th September.
But if we aren’t careful we may forget that it was not always like that.
We don’t know how long it took George Wise to get from Nova Scotia to Liverpool, certainly many years as his journey was a circuitous one. His Army record shows that with the 29th Worcestershire Regiment of Foot he “served four years and six months in the Peninsula [Spain], seven months in Gibraltar, two years and one month in North America, and eight years seven months in the Mauritius. Was present at the battles of Rolica, Vimiera, Talavera and Albuera, and also at the capture of the Ponotscot Territory, United States, North America, in the expedition under the command of Lt.Gen. Sir John Sherbroke in 1814.” His first recorded presence in Liverpool was in 1837 (where he was part of a burgeoning black community), thirty two years after he first enlisted in Nova Scotia.
There are so many things about today’s world that George would find incredible, among them our ability to cross the Atlantic in hours rather than weeks, but, if you read the latest article for Historycal Roots by John Ellis, there are many aspects of the story of George Wise that we might find incredible. You can judge for yourself here: