The Database:

The Families,

The Surnames,

The Narratives,

An extract from the publication, "The Immigrants", by Tony Simpson:

It is nearly impossible for us to conceive what the experience of emigration to a new land might have meant to an immigrant New Zealander in the nineteenth century.  In an age when security, both individual and social, came from one's surrounding family and other immediate relationships, and when few people moved far from the environs of their birthplace, undertaking a journey of 12,000 miles to an unknown land where they knew, at best, a handful of other people and from where they were unlikely to return, must have been a wrenching leap into the unknown.  Adding to that the known hazards of travel by sea, and taking account of the length of the voyage, it is, however, possible to begin to understand the courage and the determination required to make the decision to go.  It is also an indication of how people felt about the unacceptability of the conditions they were leaving behind that large numbers of them took this step.

Figure I:  'Emigration a remedy'

One of the most famous of all the emigration poster images (Hocken Library).

Two things help us to get to grips with what the experience of emigration must have meant.  The first is the known objective circumstances of the voyage as described in reports, letters and diaries.  The other is the thoughts and feelings expressed in those same diaries and letters as people assessed the experience and tried to come to terms with it.  Such source material itself poses problems.  Although literacy was more widespread in the early nineteenth century than is sometimes believed, the habit of keeping diaries and writing letters was largely confined to a narrow social group.  Mostly these were people who occupied the cabins on board the emigrant ships, and these are a very small and unrepresentative sample of the emigrants.  We are obliged, therefore, to rely on the relatively rare records from the steerage or the comments of the cabin passengers concerning their less propertied fellow passengers to establish how the great majority of emigrants responded both to the voyage itself and to the experience of arrival in the new land.[i]

To those who arrived to take up their passage on the eve of their departure, the sight of a ship preparing to sail cannot have been very comforting.  Many of those who recorded their impressions of the voyage began by saying so.

An emigrant ship on the eve of her departure presents an extraordinary spectacle to the inexperienced eye.  The noise, confusion and bustle on board – the busy hammering of the carpenters finishing the different cabins – the gangs of 'lumpers' hoisting in the huge casks and packing cases and stowing them in the ample hold – the constant arrival of the different classes of passengers, anxiously watching the descent of their little property down the gaping hatchway, or turning to console some weeping wife or mother, quitting, perhaps for ever, her much-loved home, or gazing with eyes of wonder upon the busy scene - bewilder the novice as he first sets foot upon the deck.  The state of the ''tween decks' also, as it is termed, is little different.  The chief cabins are crowded with confused heaps of furniture, which the owners are endeavouring to arrange and reduce to order – servants are running hither and thither, and in their embarrassment, hindering rather than assisting their masters – outfitters are looking for their customers, with articles forgotten or not ordered until the last moment; whilst the half-distracted passengers are almost ludicrously endeavouring in the midst of the unaccustomed tumult, to get their furniture and luggage securely stowed in their little cabins, as though in anticipation of the immediate presence of the dreaded sea sickness.[ii]

Figure II: "A sad farewell"

Adieu! Adieu! my native shore

Fades o'er the waters blue;

The night winds sigh, the breakers roar,

And shrieks the wild sea mew.

For pleasures past I do not grieve

Nor perils gath'ring near;

My greatest grief is that I leave

The friends I hold so dear.[iii]

In fact this apparent chaos both of luggage and passengers was ordered and regulated much more comprehensively than it appeared.  The New Zealand Company in particular issued very clear and detailed instructions as to who might expect an assisted passage and how they should prepare themselves for the voyage.[iv]  Labourers had to belong to specified occupations which were calculated to be of value in the new colony).  The list of 26 preferred occupations included agricultural workers, smiths, those who worked with horses and agricultural machinery, and those engaged in the various building trades.  If they were also engaged to work for an emigrant capitalist, so much the better.  Men were obliged to supply testimonials as, to their qualifications, character and health; to be not less, than 15, nor more than 30; and married (with a certificate to prove it).  Only if they had a large family might the age limits be lifted.  Oddly, children had to be under one year or mote than seven to qualify for a free passage, otherwise they would be charged at £3.  Single women might also emigrate if they had another person with whom to travel and with whom they had some family or employment relationship, and provided they too had a suitable occupation upon which they might fall back on arrival.

If they met other requirements but did not qualify for a free passage, intending emigrants could pay at the rate of £18 15s.  But like everyone else they had to be vaccinated against smallpox, find their own way to the port of embarkation and bring with them their own tools of trade, clothing, bedding and other necessaries for the voyage'.  Few in the steerage can have reached the maximum adult allowance of half a ton of baggage or 20 cubic feet of hold space.

The minimum outfit requirements were extensive, including not only the clothing which might be expected but 4 lb of marine soap per person (i.e. soap that was supposed to lather in salt water but often did not), blankets, sheets, a mattress and bolster, eating utensils and, for the women, 2 lb of starch, a pair of stays and a comprehensive sewing kit.  Basic rations were supplied to a strict schedule.  Three days a week, for instance, an once of suet or a third of a pint of peas was issued to the steerage.  This diet was not very varied, comprising mostly biscuit, salt meat, flour, rice and potatoes.  Passenger, were advised to carry supplementary rations, and most did.  Food was prepared by the steerage passengers themselves, who were divided into messes for the purpose.

Figure III:  This 1841 plan gives some indication of the discomfort and lack of privacy

of the crowded steerage compartments on a typical emigrant ship.

(Alexander Turnbull Library)

The steerage passengers, were accommodated below decks: single men, if there were any; in bunks six and a half feet long by two feet; married couples in bunks an extra foot and a half in width.  This space had to accommodate not only the people concerned but everything they needed about them for the whole voyage.  What privacy they sought, or the little others felt they required, was supplied by a curtain.  Down the centre of the steerage space ran a large table at which people had to eat and do anything else public which required a flat surface.  Washing and laundry arrangements were by way of buckets of water drawn up as needed.  Periods on deck for this and other purposes were sometimes limited.  There was usually also a hospital served by a surgeon who was supposed to inspect all passengers at intervals but sometimes did not.  He would normally be assisted by four constables' appointed from among the passengers or crew, and a matron appointed to oversee any single women on board, although these minor officials were as much to act as beadles to keep order as to see to the welfare of the steerage passengers.  The emigrant William Nichols noted in May 1849 that 'the whole of the single females owing to the misconduct of a few are sent below at eight o'clock and their lamp taken away and locked in the dark until seven the next morning.  The doctor keeps them very strict; the doctor's assistant counts them every night after they are in bed like a flock of sheep.'[v]

Cabin passengers, of whom there might be as many as 40 including children (as on the Bengal Merchant in 1839) or as few as eight (on the Corornandel in the same year), fared rather better.  They had much more space and privacy, and were significantly better fed.  Mostly the live animals carried were sacrificed to their wants, and stewards cooked and served their meals for them.  Interestingly, there was provision for some cabin passengers to travel free, particularly clergy of all denominations and sometimes other professionals such as the surgeons, who were effectively working their passage and who accordingly sometimes showed little interest in the welfare of their ostensible charges.  Captains generally received an additional 40 guineas for each cabin passenger to provide the extras they needed by way of food and drink for the voyage.  Some could not, of course, resist the temptation to profiteer on this, and there were often regular disputes.[vi]

One of the immigrants, Alfred Fell, subsequently published some advice for intending cabin passengers.[vii]  They should choose the poop cabins, which would be more light and airy, and the larboard in preference to the starboard, because the former was the weather side and allowed fresh air to blow through – a great boon in the tropics.  Bunks were to be preferred to hammocks, and all furniture and boxes should be firmly lashed or bolted to the floor.  Passengers should also, he thought, bring their own supply of bottled water or at least some filtering device because the ship's supply quickly became brackish.  A straw hat was indispensable in the tropics and "you cannot have too much linen.  A candlestick with a glass shade is requisite to suspend, with a lot of sperm candles.[viii]  A metal footbath is useful for many things, as well as a water-can or two.  By attending to a few little comforts like these, and living in harmony with each other, the voyage to New Zealand, although a long one, nevertheless to a young person may be rendered a very agreeable period of existence."  This and other evidence that older people with families did not find the three-month journey quite so agreeable.

Fell also remarked upon the good messing arrangements he enjoyed.  On one Sunday in the tropics, "we had an excellent dinner: a salmon preserved and as fine as ever I tasted, soup (and sailors make capital soups), a roast goose, a saddle of mutton, a couple of fowls, with curry and a Westphalia ham, plum pudding and apple tarts, cheese and bottled porter, champagne and sherry, with dessert consisting of apples, nuts, almonds, raisins etc."  This was among 22, including the officers.

The contracting arrangements between immigration entrepreneurs, and the shipowners could be complex.  In the 1840s, for instance, the New Zealand Company contracted with its shippers at the rate of 1s 6d per day for each steerage passenger carried.  The shipowner on a well-conducted ship in which rationing and other requirements were fully met might expect to profit at the rate of about a penny a day per person from this.[ix]  Presumably this was worthwhile or the owners would not have entered into the arrangement.  But as with the victualling of the cabin passengers, there was always the temptation to skimp.  There was not much the immigrants could do about this except complain when the voyage was over.  Such complaints were usually ineffective, and many were undoubtedly forgotten or abandoned as the prospective complainants scrambled to establish themselves in a new country.

Figure IV:  What most plans do not show is the use of the central space as an eating and living area.

In stormy weather steerage passengers could be battened down here for days on end.

(Alexander Turnbull Library)

 Most of these details were known in advance to those who chose to emigrate either through the publications of the company and other contractors or; as the period progressed, through the accounts of those who had experienced the voyage.  So why did they choose to emigrate in the first place?  At a public and official level, most emigrants may have shared the motivations advanced by those who had the authority to act as spokespeople on the occasion of their taking their leave, an event often marked by a formal gathering at which speeches were made by prominent citizens.  Thus, speaking at a Glasgow banquet to farewell the first New Zealand Company ships in 1839, the sheriff, a Mr Allison, responding to the toast of the lord provost, envisaged a time when 'the British race' would people western and southern hemispheres with 200 millions speaking our language, reading our authors, glorying in our descent'.  And he went on to ask:

"Are we oppressed with a numerous and redundant population?  Are we justly apprehensive that a mass of human beings, already consisting of five and twenty millions, and multiplying at the rate of a thousand souls a day, will ere long be unable to find subsistence within the narrow space of these islands?  Let us turn to the colonies, and there we shall find boundless regions capable of maintaining ten times our present population in contentment and affluence, which require only the surplus arms and mouths of the parent state, to be converted in gigantic empires."[x]

Sir William Molesworth was even more expansive.  Speaking to a dinner at Plymouth to farewell settlers leaving for the newly acquired lands in Taranaki on 20 October 1840, he announced: "We are by nature a colonising people.  God has assigned to us the uninhabited portions of the globe, and it is our duty to take possession of them . . . to found an Empire which might in future ages become the Britain of the Southern Seas.''[xi]

No doubt most of his listeners were more interested in contentment than empires.  A subsequent meeting in Dublin, attended by the lord mayor and some dignitaries of church and law, passed a resolution noting the need to promote emigration from Ireland for the relief of the destitution of labouring people, to improve the condition of all classes of society and to encourage settlement in countries 'where they will be likely not only to thrive in fortune, but to lead good lives, and to bring up their children in virtuous habits'.  New Zealand, the resolution noted, appeared to offer all these advantages.

More personal thoughts and feelings upon departure are harder to catch, although it is clear that while hope of self-improvement was usually the motive to emigrate, the experience of leaving was a bittersweet one.  Susan Meade, travelling to the southern hemisphere with her sister and brother-in-law in 1842, confided to her diary:

"The white cliffs of my native isle have faded from my sight – where the happy years of childhood have glided swiftly away in the society of my affectionate parents, sisters and brothers of my happier hours – but for these dear ones I have left I do not regret leaving England – I am fond of travel, and hope seems to shed a halo round my pathway whispering scenes of happiness yet to come in the terrestrial land of promise to which I am bound."[xii]

Jane Bannerman, departing for Otago on the Philip Laing in 1847, and then just 12 years old, later recounted that; "Never while I have power of memory will I forget that sad dreary day.  I cannot describe the discomfort around us.  The poor passengers looked so dispirited and weary, women weeping and little children looking so homesick, there seemed no room for them on the deck.  I turned down into our cabin in the stern of the ship to be out of the way of so much sadness and discomfort."[xiii]

Many of the letters and diaries of emigrants made specific reference to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in trying to explicate their feelings and motives In 1852 Henry Whittingham, himself an emigrant, wrote grimly to his brother, who intended to follow him, "Remember that your voyage is for your own benefit, taken voluntarily by you.  To lament this is to lament your own act, and to lament what cannot be undone."[xiv]  Others were more cheerful and forward-looking, if equally portentous.  Alexander Marjoribanks noted, as his ship cleared Scotland, "We were all full of hope and anxiety to see what had been represented to us as a sort of earthly paradise – a smiling land, the very sight of which was at once to have banished away all our cares and all our sorrows."[xv]  Many; including George Angas, tried to express their feelings in verse:

Away, away – let visioned scenes

Of other lands elate thee,

Nor vainly cling to those behind

While brighter ones await thee.

Though many a thousand weary miles

Of ocean are before thee

The beacon star of hope shall shed

Her cheery influence o'er thee.[xvi]

Angas was bound to be optimistic.  In the wake of the Wairau affray which had disposed many would-be settlers against choosing New Zealand as their destination, he had been engaged by the New Zealand Company (of which his father was a leading luminary) to prepare an illustrated work of propaganda with heavy emphasis on the cheerful good humour of the Maori.  But even he was caught up in the ambivalence of departure.

LIFE ON THE OCEAN

Once on board, the emigrants had more pressing and immediate concerns to deal with.  Some of the steerage passengers, having established themselves in their new situation, were outraged to discover that they were expected to play their full part in the running of the ship, not only in respect of the preparation of meals but also in keeping their quarters clean and aired, and in standing watches.  Dr Alfred Barker, on board the Charlotte Jane heading for Canterbury in 1850 with his wife Emma, and with 100 steerage passengers under his control, began each day with a roll call, the airing of mattresses on deck, and a roster of eight men to scrub the steerage compartment floors and sprinkle chloride of lime.  But first he had to quell an incipient mutiny, "Several stoutly refused, and said they hadn't been accustomed to scrub etc etc., and one mutineer held out stoutly against a compulsory task, and we were ultimately obliged to put him to sleep by himself in one of the boats hanging over the ship's side on a wholesome diet of biscuit and water, after which he thought it advisable to knock under, and has worked well ever since."  Barker went on unwittingly to reveal what conditions must have been like in the steerage, "The filthiness of some of these folks should be seen to be appreciated, and as long as the sea sickness lasted the work of getting them in order was really no trifle, in addition to the fact that going below made me invariably seasick."[xvii]

Most of the passengers, however; and especially the single men, took to their new roles as cook or laundry hand with zest, and some discovered skills and a resourcefulness in themselves they had previously not suspected.  Francis Taylor commented ironically in 1850 that in rising at 4 a.m. to take his turn at doing his laundry it was, "laughable to see so many men in the washing buckets up to their elbows, lots of fun, more fun than dirty clothes.  I find I can do it smartish.  Think something about taking a laundry maid's place [on arrival]."[xviii]  This boded well for their progress in their new country.

From the extant accounts it is clear that the voyage was mostly boring.  "Nothing worth mentioning except sky and water, water and sky," remarked Henry Widdowson on his way to Australia in 1825.  Nearly 30 years later Byron Ronald likewise confided to his diary, "As every day is little different from the one preceding, I thought it not worth while to write every day."[xix]  This monotony was interrupted by storms, of which there are many compelling descriptions in letters and diaries ('confusion and awful noise; the waves tossing themselves almost mountains high, and every now and then one sea larger than another would sweep the decks, poop, and everything.  I could neither sit nor stand, and it was with great difficulty that I could keep myself in bed'[xx]).  There were also deaths, commonly of children, recorded in a manner we would now find callous or even shocking, "the children throve every day.  Three or four deaths of little children from natural causes took place, but no serious sickness", or, "Two children died on the passage one of whom was not expected to live when it came aboard – this is a very small mortality considering that we had forty cases of measles, some of them followed by whooping cough."[xxi]  Seasickness, was ubiquitous, along with illnesses, some of them startling to say the least, "One of the cabin passengers, Mr Rankine, who during the voyage has been drinking heavily, was this day attacked with the Blue Devils and conducted himself in a very riotous manner like a lunatic."[xxii]

But the journey was also enlivened by events such as the sighting of unusual fish, the hailing of other vessels, the apparently obligatory ceremony associated with crossing the line, and a range of entertainments got up by the passengers among themselves.  Thus Mary McKain on board the Olympus in 1841 remarked, "One of the immigrants has a violin and plays on it most evenings, and many of the people dance on deck.  We have singing and jokes of all kinds."  She then rather spoiled the effect by continuing, "and as a contrast a man was put in irons one day for striking his wife.  The assistant superintendent is not liked, and has this week been suspended for striking one of the emigrants.  So you see, we have sport of all sorts."[xxiii]  But incidents of this kind notwithstanding, passengers of all classes often went to extraordinary lengths to pass the time pleasantly, setting up choirs and debating societies, and even an occasional newspaper.  Beneath these high jinks, however, a curious tension runs like a theme through many of the accounts kept by the cabin passengers.

Alfred Barker was not alone in his patronising attitude towards the steerage.  Others made comments which are equally revealing.  Martha Adams, travelling to Nelson as a cabin passenger in 1850 aboard the Eden with her two children and husband William, after commenting on the unbearable heat in the tropics and bemoaning how she had been obliged to dress her children less formally than usual, drew a distinction between them and 'the common children, going without shoes and stockings'.  She also stayed well clear of the steerage passengers, "l have never been myself into the steerage, as William says it is not fit for me to go, and besides it is now so filthily dirty, that it can only be wondered at, that there is not more disease on board."[xxiv]  This was not simply an isolated snobbishness.  Alfred Fell spoke disapprovingly of

"One or two of our fellow passengers who will go amongst the emigrants and make themselves familiar with them.  The captain is very much annoyed at it, as it tends to lower our dignity by familiarity and of course, lower the dignity of the ship.  One of them absented himself from our meeting on last evening, and was found amongst them.  The captain felt himself insulted at his preferring their society to ours, particularly at our weekly festival.  We passed a vote of censure upon him immediately, and this morning he apologised.  But if such a thing is repeated he will certainly be sent to Coventry by all of us.  It is very foolish of them, as we have no business to come in contact with them at all, living in different parts of the ship.  I have never spoken to one of them yet."[xxv]

This same captain surprised even Fell by forbidding the steerage passengers to come on deck to sing hymns as a group on a Sunday because they had impertinently done so without his leave.

A number of writers on southern emigration have commented on this phenomenon.[xxvi]  No doubt the ships were a microcosm of the social structure of Victorian Britain, with its firmly delineated class distinctions.  On some larger vessels the distinctions were even more minutely maintained by the existence of an intermediate class between cabin and steerage in which the passengers had their own companionway and cabins but ate their meals in messes.  What particularly concerned those such as Fell and Adams was not so much the failure on the part of the ship's authorities to maintain distinctions, but the disinclination of non-cabin passengers to do so.  "Some of the second class (ie. intermediate) passengers are very troublesome," recorded Rachel Hemming indignantly in her diary in 1854.  "The first day one of them, with his wife, took their seats at the captain's table, and refused to show their tickets, alleging that they were first class passengers.  However, the purser enforced the appearance of the ticket, and the steward expelled them."[xxvii]

What especially raised the ire of the cabin passengers was the sight of steerage passengers trespassing on the poop deck.  This was the stern area below which lay the first-class cabins and other amenities.  The officer of the watch commanded from the poop, and as a recreational space it was regarded as the prerogative of the cabin dwellers.  Steerage passengers who trespassed on it were usually unceremoniously chased off.  Some captains allowed access to the poop from time to time, particularly when the 'tween decks and maindeck were being cleaned, but the regular occurrence of this caused many cabin passengers deep offence.  John Whiting for one complained of his captain's doing so in 1854, and added, "if he understood his business and looked after them and saw them all turned up on deck while their place was cleaned and they were all washed and properly clean in their person there would be no fear of disease.  It is certainly very unjust towards the cabin passengers – I would strongly advise any persons of respectability if emigrating to Australia to do so in a merchant ship and not in an immigrant one."[xxviii]

John Fenwick, writing his diary also in 1854, could see the inequity of the poop, 90 feet long and 35 wide, being reserved for about 50 people while the much smaller available space on the main deck had to take the remaining 500 aboard – a dense crowd of men, women, and children – ropes, luggage and confusion of all sorts – some read, one knits, others smoke, and most are idle."[xxix]  But such sympathy was rare.  Martha Adams' attitude was much more typical, "We are sorry to find that the regulations of the ship are not adhered to as much as we expected; the intermediate and even the steerage passengers walking on the poop with the greatest impunity; so there is very little advantage in paying extra for this privilege which now is open to all."[xxx]

It is nevertheless hard to escape the impression from many of the extant diaries that the farther from England the voyage progressed, the harder it became to keep up the social distinctions so important at 'home'.  Martha Adams fulminated against attitudes whereby

Figure V:  Cabin passengers considered the poop deck their exclusive preserve

and vigorously resisted any attempts to open it to the steerage.

(Alexander Turnbull Library)

"Everybody on this ship think [sic] a great deal of themselves, and even the poorest imagine that they will be grand folk in New Zealand, it can easily be pictured what disturbances are constantly taking place among them owing to this cause.  There is not I believe a single young woman on board but scouts the idea of being a servant when they land: nothing less than a piano forte and crochet seem compatible with their ideas of their own dignity; on which account it is so difficult to get any little service performed for you, presuming you have no servant of your own.  For instance, should you require an article of children's: clothing washed: you may find someone who on Friday, which is a washing day, will attend to it for you: but if you offer payment you will be told 'they could not think of such a thing, as they only did it to oblige you, and that their papa means to buy them a piansy when they get to New Zealand.'

There was sometimes even collective action against privilege and the pretensions of the cabin.  Towards the end of some voyages water was inclined to become extremely foul and even to run low.  On the Eden there was a concerted, albeit unsuccessful, attempt to force the captain to make for port at the Cape of Good Hope when it became clear that the water was running out but that rationing would be confined to the steerage.  In the event rain resolved the crisis, but not before the captain had been obliged to cancel his rationing order.  Nor had Alfred Barker quelled his last mutiny.  As his ship neared New Zealand he recorded, "A few days ago we had a quarrel with some emigrants who struck work and gave us a good deal of trouble, but the assurance that the galley fire would be put out and no food cooked for them, together with the sight of the arms chest which was brought on deck, made them listen . . . and [they] knocked under in time to get their dinners."[xxxi]

One of the most interesting of these incidents occurred on the Timandra, bound for New Plymouth in 1841, over the sprinkling of chloride of lime in the steerage.  This was a common enough measure to ensure hygiene, but there had already been some stormy scenes over the extraordinary insistence of the ship's surgeon that he should carry out a post mortem on those steerage passengers who died en route, and of whom there had been a number.  These had caused such an uproar that the ship's captain, Skinner; had had to intervene and tell the surgeon that his safety could not be guaranteed if he persisted.  When the first mate tried to sprinkle the lime, the passengers protested that it burned their clothes, and in the ensuing altercation the mate was assaulted and the captain was obliged to threaten the steerage by drawing up his crew and reading the ships' rules.  The mate's assailant was put in irons until he apologised, which he initially refused to do.  No doubt Captain Skinner was relieved to see Mount Taranaki come into view eleven days later.

But if the occupants of the cabin imagined that landfall would put an end to the impudence of the steerage, they were mistaken.  Many cabin passengers discovered, once ashore in the new land, that social niceties were not of an order to which they were accustomed, and that many of the distinctions they took for granted in Britain were not, and indeed could not be, observed in the new land.  Not only that, but attempts to affirm them often ran into strong opposition.