Jeremy Paxman's Who Do You Think You Are? programme related how his ancestors took part in a scheme to relocate from Framlingham, just over the border in Suffolk, to Bradford to take up guaranteed offers of work in the mills.
I recently came across a report from the Bury & Norwich Post in 1830 that said: '78 men women and children passed through Bury [St Edmunds] from Diss, Palgrave and Wortham and 59 from Winfarthing and Shelfhanger in two stage wagons on their way to London to take shipping to America.'
These towns and villages were all areas where there were Riots during the 1820s. I understand that there was a scheme by which the parish helped emigration as a response to these riots. Some emigrants ended up in the East Coast cities of the USA, where conditions where little better than at home. Others went to agricultural areas, acquired land, and prospered.
So I think that the answer to your question must be: quite a long way.
My great-grandfather moved from Diss to London in about 1880. His elder brother had moved to Burnley before 1871 and then to Halifax.
