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During the summer of 1845, Asa and Abby were at school in Hancock, New Hampshire.  Judson and John came to give a concert and evidently to gather up their learned brother and sister.  They toured through southern New Hampshire and then went to Lynn for a rest by the ocean.  On August 11, they met their friends, Frederick Douglass and James N. Buffum.  They were to sail to Europe on the Cunard steamship Cambria in five days, and Douglass and Buffum excitedly urged the singers to come along.  "[I]t did not take much persuasion,"  said John,  "to induce us to go."

The singers hurried to Milford to quickly sell doubting relatives on the plan.  It would not be easy.  Judson was proposing to leave Jerusha with Kate, their baby who was born in May.  John would be leaving Fanny with their young son Henry.  And as if this were not enough, the group needed to raise $2,000 fast to meet emergencies while abroad.  They got this substantial sum by putting up real estate as collateral to secure a loan.

On the 14th, the quartet left for Boston.  The family gathered to see them off.  With great reluctance, Mary Hutchinson let her children go; and we are told there were tears in her eyes.  Their father said,  "Be true to each other, my children."  The singers spent the next two days making preparations.

The Cambria could not get close to the wharf, so passengers, in company with friends and relatives, rode a tugboat to the ship.  Jesse wrote a parting song.  The performance started well; but the scene grew emotional, and the singers, said John,  "gave only a last farewell as the old ship carried us away over the bounding deep."

They were not long at sea before Jesse, John, and Abby fell victim to the scourge of ocean travelers  -  seasickness.  Still, Jesse managed to send a letter from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Nathaniel P. Rogers, at what Rogers had deemed THE Herald of Freedom.  "We have all sorts of passengers on board.  Every nation and clime seem to be represented.  All have their little associations and clubs.  Yet all seem kindly disposed toward us."

The situation was a little less friendly to Frederick Douglass, for, as a black man, he was forced to board in the steerage.  The New York Tribune reported that  "Frederick is said to have behaved with great propriety, modesty and dignity, and to have won the admiration of a large number of the passengers."   A conversation between Douglass and others on board caused excitement.  Captain Charles H. E. Judkins asked him to speak to interested passengers; but the sea was rough and it was decided to postpone this talk until they had reached the Irish channel.

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On the 26th the captain let it be known that the company would be able to see land that evening.  At 10:30 P.M. lights were spotted, coming from the southernmost part of Ireland.  The next day, they caught sight of Wales.

That evening,  Douglass spoke to a group of passengers.  According to a letter from one of the Hutchinsons:

Captain Judkins was called.  When one of the passengers used hard words because Judkins had permitted Douglass to speak, the captain  "ordered the boatswain to 'call the watch,' and have three pairs of irons ready at a moment's warning."   "Gentlemen,"  he said to the crowd,  "I was once the owner of two hundred slaves.  If I had them now I should not be obliged in following the sea.  But they were liberated, and it was right.  Frederick Douglass may speak.   I am Captain of this ship."  But Douglass thought it best not to go on, and, instead, retired to the steerage.  The Hutchinsons sang "God Save the Queen," "Yankee Doodle," "America," and "A Life on the Ocean Wave."

The next morning was bright and clear, and the singers were up early, getting ready to go ashore.  In the streets of Liverpool, laborers were going to work, carrying their lunches in tin pails and dressed according to their various occupations.  The Hutchinsons took quarters with Douglass and Buffum, and, as Brother John wrote, observed  "the manners and customs of the people, which seemed strange to us."

The Hutchinsons found it was a bit early for concert season.  "Board bills were coming in,"  said John,  "expenses going on.  New clothes, cut in the fashion of our English cousins, were thought indispensable; so we doffed our long tails for the 'stubs' of John Bull."  Evidently it took longer than they expected to appear before the public.  They learned that their popularity in America had not come with them across the Atlantic and that they would need to begin again to sing their way into public favor.

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Jesse, who had acted at times as the group's business agent, now served again in that capacity.  The quartet's first engagement in the Old World would take place at Concert Hall, Mechanics Institute, in Liverpool, on Wednesday, September 10, 1845.  They were to be paid ten pounds.

"We found,"  said John,  "that our voices had not improved by crossing the Atlantic.  We went to the hall to familiarize ourselves with the surroundings, and were on the anxious seat all day.  The hour having finally arrived we went to the hall.  With trembling step and throbbing brow we entered our dressing-room; met Jesse, who seemed very much excited, and asked him what kind of a house, 'Oh, not very full.'  He had expected a full house."

When the Hutchinsons stepped before the audience, they were greeted by a burst of applause from all parts of the hall.  Their limbs were trembling and their hearts were beating fast.  They opened the concert with  "Blow On! Blow On! (The Pirate's Glee),"  which was followed by another ovation.  Abby's performance of  "The May Queen"  was encored; and  "Excelsior"  came in for special critical acclaim.  The Liverpool Mercury praised the group, saying that concerts such as this would advance their reputation.

By this time, the Hutchinsons had formed the habit of answering encore calls by singing different songs, not on the program  -  often humorous or topical numbers.  Thus, many of their best songs, such as the comic piece,  "Johnny Sands,"  seldom, if ever, appear on published concert programs and advertisements.

In a letter from Liverpool,  dated September 14,  Jesse reported that the group sang  "to a pretty good house."

Concerts in Liverpool followed on the 15th and the 20th.

The time it took for the Hutchinsons to build a following in England probably was to be expected, but they were impatient.  At home, they were singing nightly to crowded houses; and their appearances were much anticipated.  They had walked away from highly profitable engagements in America to come here.

The poverty and suffering they witnessed in Liverpool, and in other places during their European trip, left a lasting impression.   "I am awfully sick,"  said Jesse,  "of the horrid destitution and degradation of the lower classes  -  especially the women.  Nothing in our country can begin to compare with it  -  except, perhaps, in some few instances in some of the large cities, and in the dark borders of slavery."  John added,  "Such extremes of wealth and poverty we could not reconcile."

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The Hutchinsons made engagements in Ireland and left on board the steamer Madrid for Dublin on the 21st.  John, an expert on the subject of seasickness, said this was ten times worse than the Atlantic.

The Hutchinsons were entertaining music fans and perhaps inspiring support for the antislavery movement.  But they also needed to establish sources of income, and Ireland soon looked like it might not be the place to do it.  At their first concert in Dublin on September 22, they found a tiny audience made up partly of invited guests.  But they attended Frederick Douglass' lectures, sang to his listeners, and soon began making friends.  Their spirits rose further when they had a better house on the 29th.

Still, the Hutchinsons thought about returning to the United States.  Jesse said it would take only fifty dollars to persuade him to go to New York.  Judson recalled a long-ago dream that he would die at the age of twenty-eight.  He was now twenty-eight.  John said that, in a dream the night before, he learned he would drown on his way back from England.  Abby then related that she had dreamed they would all be drowned on their way home.  Apparently it seemed to the Hutchinsons that this was not the best time to risk crossing the Atlantic.  On the other hand, they were willing to take their chances on the Irish Sea; so off they went from Dublin to Manchester, by way of Liverpool.  The water was rough and the voyage unpleasant, but they made it to dry land.  Judson was filled with new hope that he might yet achieve age twenty-nine.

A letter of introduction helped the Hutchinsons meet people in Manchester.  Rebecca Moore, in addition, told John many years later,  "Naturally, a Herald of Freedom introduction attracted me to your concert. . . . "   Abby stayed at her home and Rebecca became the singers' lifelong friend.  "On the Atheneum platform,"  she said,  "I first saw the tall, nervous, highly strung Judson, who sung with marvellous skill, 'Excelsior,' in a voice that seemed to sound from a higher sphere; John, the dramatic personification of the 'Maniac'; Asa and Abby, sweet-toned twin singers; and Jesse, the stalwart man of business, who engineered the path to popularity and fame and to progress, if not to immediate fortune."

The Hutchinsons remained in Manchester for about a week, all the while making engagements to sing.  Then they returned to Dublin where more concerts were scheduled.

"About this time,"  wrote John,  "we went into a field, where we saw some women digging potatoes . . . and noticed that about one-half of the crop was bad, good for nothing, which proved to be the case all over the country. . . . "

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Brother Jesse sent correspondence to the New York Tribune about  "the appalling prospects of a horrible famine in Ireland."   "[T]he peasantry of Ireland are reduced to a mere pittance, bordering on absolute beggary and starvation.  For generations past, their food has consisted principally of potatoes, being obliged to sell off their wheat, cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, eggs, butter, cheese, milk, fruit, hay and vegetables, to pay unrighteous taxes and tithes.  Judge, then, how deplorable and pitiable must be the condition this year, under the horrible prospect of a failure in the Potato crop."

In Ireland the Hutchinsons took part in antislavery meetings and gave concerts.  This stay was not lucrative, but at least the audiences were no longer tiny.

On November 6, the Hutchinsons attended a party in their honor at the home of Richard Webb, who showed them  "The Bridge of Sighs"  by Thomas Hood.  They went into the library and began working up a musical setting.  Then they sang the new song for the company.  With some further changes in the melody,  "The Bridge of Sighs"  became one of their most admired songs.

On the 7th, the group returned to Liverpool; and the next day they entertained 1,600 people.  James N. Buffum, in from Birmingham, surprised them when he said that he and Douglass had clashed.  Buffum was to go to France with Dr. Edward A. Kittredge, and he asked to stay with the singers until the doctor came from America.  On November 18, Kittredge arrived; and the next day he and Buffum left for the continent.

The singers heard an address by George Thompson, MP; and it must have thrilled them.  Jesse heard him speak during his U.S. tour a decade earlier and was thus converted to the antislavery cause.  The next morning they had breakfast together and discussed the split between Rogers and Garrison.  The following morning, after a rough train ride to Manchester, they were visited again by Thompson.  He suggested that they sing one or two songs at his lecture that evening, and they agreed.  It seems he had been quite certain of their answer, for a bit later Jesse arrived, saying,  "Boys, did you know you were announced to sing to-night?"   To their surprise, they learned that posters were already up.

Prior to the quartet's first regular concert in Manchester, set for November 22, the Guardian gave them a wonderful welcome, commending their shows as novel and rewarding and describing their harmonies as delicious.

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In noticing this first Manchester concert,  the Guardian observed that the nineteen songs,  including encores,  formed

They opened with  "The Cot Where We Were Born."    The Guardian said, "Their clear, distinct articulation and enunciation made every word tell on the audience. . . .   This was followed by a wild bit of music, called the Pirate's glee, in which the effect of unisonal singing was very strikingly placed in contrast with the rich harmonies of the other parts of the quartett.  The line, 'The lightning from the sky is flashing,' was given with great force, and a very sweet cadence closed the strain."

The Hutchinson Family excelled at singing soft passages, as well as at allowing their voices to fall away to nothing.  "A sweet little serenade, 'Sleep on, sleep on,' was then sung by the four, in which a fine effect is produced by the gradual hushing of the simple harmony, till it subsides naturally and almost imperceptibly into silence."

That evening the Hutchinsons sang one of their most successful antislavery songs.  "A quartett, called 'The Slave's appeal,' a parody on the little song 'The Beggar's petition,' was given with an earnestness and energy that are infinitely more effective than the most finished singing, in which words and meaning are sacrificed to mere sound."   "The Pauper's Funeral"  was  "one of the most effective concerted pieces of the evening.  The words, 'Rattle his bones, over the stones,' are sung by three of the vocalists, and there is a sort of sepulchral response on the words 'his bones' and 'the stones,' by the bass voice, which is quite new and thrilling in its effect.  The line, 'He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns,' was sung by Miss Hutchinson, with very fine taste, feeling, and expression."

United Kingdom concert reviews were generally much more informative than their American counterparts.  Some journalists went beyond describing the Hutchinsons' musical performances and criticized them, often quite favorably.

One point commonly made about Hutchinson Family songs is that the subject matter was often unusual or even unprecedented in the field of public entertainment.  Along related lines, Rebecca Moore said, "The choice of songs was wholly new to the concert-going world.  Instead of the usual romantic and sentimental songs, Italian and English, varied with glorifications of battle and slaughter, we had poems by Tennyson and Longfellow and Hood at their best, and, in the minor keys, Charles Mackay, Eliza Cook and Lady Dufferin in words touching and true, all these set to old and new melodies exquisitely adapted. . . . "

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In Preston, the quartet was the first act to perform in a concert series with low ticket prices, intended to be accessible to laborers, mechanics, and factory operatives.  A local newspaper praised the selection of these singers for the opening show, saying a better choice could not have been made.

The Hutchinson Family arrived in Europe at a time when the citizens of both countries were talking about the possibility of war between England and the United States, over a vast, disputed piece of territory collectively known as Oregon.  Jesse quickly began working peace sentiments into  "The Old Granite State."

On December 10, the Hutchinsons attended an anti-corn-law meeting at Free Trade Hall in Manchester.  "The hall was crowded,"  said John,  "not less than eight thousand men being present, besides hundreds on the outside who could not gain admittance.  It was a splendid sight to see such earnest, attentive, upturned faces.  Yes, they were the working classes, who had come together mutually to seek redress for grievances; they were seeking the repeal of the corn-laws, that cursed system of keeping food from the starving poor of the country."

In Bolton on the 11th, a concert was arranged by a committee of laborers.  The quartet sang to one of their largest, most appreciative audiences so far.

The quartet was singing nearly every evening in Manchester and nearby towns and cities.  As the holidays approached, they saw energetic preparations for the celebration going on everywhere.  From the farm in New Hampshire came a welcome barrel of apples, along with chestnuts and hickory nuts.  On Christmas, during the evening, they were entertained by a friend who read to them from the newly-published  "Cricket on the Hearth"  by Charles Dickens.

On January 10, 1846, the quartet sang again in Manchester.  The Guardian said this crowd was one of the largest ever witnessed in the Athenæum concert room; and the singers delivered  "one of the most extraordinary melanges of vocal pathos, harmony, and fun"  the reporter ever heard.

It had been the Hutchinsons' plan to test their fortunes in London, so Jesse, taking his usual can-do approach, went ahead to make engagements.  They gave their last show in Manchester on the 23rd and left town the next day.

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Even at this late date, after a successful run of concerts in the Manchester area, the Hutchinsons were only a few hundred dollars ahead of what they brought with them from America.  Yet they rode all day on a train, enjoyed viewing the English countryside, and arrived in London on January 24, no doubt with sky's-the-limit hopes and quickened pulses.  Jesse met them at the station and swept them away to their quarters at 21 Hollis Street.

On Monday the Hutchinsons toured London with Dr. Kittredge, who had returned from France.  They visited Catherine Dickens, wife of the famed writer Charles Dickens.  She invited them to come back in a couple days.  Meanwhile, George Thompson promised to do all he could to promote their concerts.

That evening the singers attended a Buckingham Soirée at the hall of the British and Foreign Institute, on an invitation gotten for them by Thompson.  He gave a short, flattering history of the Hutchinson Family, along with a statement of their reasons for coming to England.  Dr. Kittredge, in his own colorful way, declared that Thompson  "wound the audience up to that pitch of loving kindness for the gifted songsters, that it was ready to break out into enthusiastic rapture at every demonstration on their part of musical talent."  The quartet sang a few songs, leading off with  "The Cot Where We Were Born."  By request, Sister Abby sang  "The May Queen,"  which was very well received.  Dr. Kittredge added that the Hutchinsons  "stood up there in that proud saloon, filled with the very elite of London, and by the simple and unaffected and almost uneducated power of their voices, brought out the 'bravos' in thundering tones, and with lightning rapidity, from the mouths of the men, and the tears from the eyes of the women. . . . "   He contrasted the uncharacteristically emotional greeting given the Hutchinsons to the much more restrained approval shown the notable English artists who performed that evening.

In fine spirits,  the brothers and sister returned to their quarters after a busy day.

On the 28th, the Hutchinsons called again on Catherine Dickens.  This may be the occasion when they met George Hogarth, her father.  "He came in,"  said Abby,  "and with the cool air of a Scotch critic, merely nodded to us, and took his seat at the farther end of the room.  With our hearts in our mouths we drew close together and sang, for the sake of the harmony, 'The Boatmen of the Ohio.'  We had barely finished the last note when our apparently cold listener came rapidly across the room, grasping us each and all by the hands,  [and]  said with emotion  -  'I never heard such harmony before in all my life.'"