Changing Times of the 18th & 19th Centuries

With this move to the top of the Island can be seen the changing times toward the end of the 18^th century and when the ways of the Flanns began to alter. Family lands had been sold, and like elsewhere on the Island family holdings had become fragmented by inheritance. Wool trade from Portland sheep appears to have declined as well.

So other alternatives had to be explored, some Portlanders emigrated to Australia or Canada (where some Flanns founded other branches of the family), or they had to find local employment. Here the answer for Richard and Robert appears to find work in the local quarries. And it is from this point where our male forebears worked. That is not to say they did not have a little land to grow their own produce, nor to have a boat for fishing. From these they were unlikely to go hungry, but as the years went on life, so far as we can deduce, became harder.

The 19^th century brought even more dramatic changes on Portland as its isolation lessened with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the Victorian era, and these brought a degree of prosperity to the Island.