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What is the connection between the two Camrose`s ?
Unfortunately this page does not answer this question but it does offer some information on the subject. (If any one has further ideas or info on this subject please E-mail me at jhud@camrose2.freeserve.co.uk
At the present time I have no information on what the connection between the two Camrose`s is although there are one or two possibilities of how the two communities came to share the one name. Starting at the beginning, the city of Camrose was a village called "Sparling", which in 1906 changed it`s name to Camrose. It seems most likely that the name Camrose must have come from a resident of Camrose in Wales (or at Least someone who knew Camrose well) who Emigrated to, or at least visited "Sparling"in Canada.
Why were people from west Wales in Canada ?
In the late 1800`s agriculture in Britain was in a poor state, recession hit as free trade allowed unlimited supplies of cheap grain from the American plains to push prices down. Agricultural produce in Britain was worth nearly half what it had been and the people who worked the land were often living in desperate conditions. It was at this time that large numbers of agricultural workers and their families began to move away, either to seek work in industry or to emigrate. By 1882 the Royal commission on labour found that since about 1870 there had been an insufficient supply of labourers and that emigration was continuing apace. Farmers often could not find sufficient men to work their lands. This drain on the rural population is evident in the census returns for Camrose parish where populations that had been steadily rising until about 1851 suddenly began to decline. By 1901 the population of the parish was just 720 people, nearly half what it had been in 1831. This exodus of people is still evident in the landscape of the county and indeed there are the remains of many a deserted old cottage in the parish today. A comparison of two maps of the parish, one dated 1840 the other 1908 shows that between these date about forty outlying cottages were abandoned as people left behind them the harsh conditions of rural life and went in search of a better life far from home. It seems that one of these Welsh émigrés from Camrose may have ended up in the village of Sparling, Canada.
The dates of the emigrations tie in with the date that the village of Sparling changed it`s name, but who was the Welshman or men who had the influence to cause Sparling to change it`s name to that of their home village so far away ?
Further inquires
As yet I have not found any information on emigrations from the county of Pembrokeshire to Canada but I will be making inquires and information of relevance will be posted here if and when it becomes available. If anyone in Camrose, Canada can throw any light on this please E-mail me at jhud@camrose2.freeserve.co.uk