SHIPS
that Brought a Migration to the
Far Side of the World

A Barque Running Before a Gale

by Thomas Jacques Somerscales 

The painting above is a 40.7 x 56 cm oil on canvas, held in the National Maritime Museum. A four-masted barque wearing foul-weather rig is shown making its way through a heavy sea in this port-bow view. Since this British-born artist lived in Valparaiso, Chile, where he ran a painting school from 1874 until he returned to England in 1892, it is likely that portraits such as this were made from personal observation. 

THE FIRST SHIPS 
written in 1920 for the Evening Post
by H. Fildes

As part of the welcoming celebration for a visit by the Prince of Wales to Wellington in May 1920, the Evening Post newspaper printed a four part article series in April on the founding of Wellington, then named Port Nicholson, in 1839-40.
   These four articles, in more than a few instances, have been compiled from eyewitness reports and diaries, so that one can almost envision one's self on the beach at Petone watching those first ships sailing through the heads and up the harbour past Somes Island, to anchor off Petone Beach; see the settlers in their incredible struggle to survive the primitive rigors of their surroundings; experience the birthpangs of an embryonic nation that has become so proudly New Zealand.  If the number of imigrants arriving at Port Nicholson mean anything at all, these articles document the founding of New Zealand as a British Colony, by British occupation that was virtually forced upon the British Government. They also reveal the interest local Maori people took in all of this, welcoming this European influx, assisting and supporting them through the first critical year of 1840 and beyond. 

Duplicated here in PDF format. Click on each article to open.
WELLINGTON - EVENING POST
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast

The Clifton
A Drawing by Summer Lovegrove, 
William and Betsy Bird, with their three children, Mary, John & baby Amelia, sailed in 1841, aboard the Clifton to Port Nicholson.  Another six children were born after their arrival and settlement at Newtown, Wellington. Summer is a twenty-first century, New Zealand descendant of their son John. 

SHIPS AND PASSENGER LISTS 
The Nineteenth Century Diaspora to the Far Side of the World

Following is a list of ships, including passenger lists, that brought our family ancestors to Australia and New Zealand in the nineteenth century.  These are listed in chronological order of when they arrived at their destination.  The ships arriving in Melbourne and Brisbane, Australia, all relate to the Bowland & Douglas Families except the last.  The Adelaide arrival relates to the Bird Family.  All of the New Zealand arrivals in both Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand, connect in some way with branches of  the Chamberlain Family.  The exception is the "Bombay", many of whose passengers settled in and named the South Auckland district, in the 1860's, after the ship they came in.  It is where my father's family came to live and farm some 70 years later, in the 1930's- IJC.

 In the final days of 1841 the family of Thomas and Susannah Chamberlain left their home at Preston Capes in Northamptonshire. They travelled to London and Gravesend where they boarded the sailing ship "LONDON". After a change of captain the ship put to sea with Captain Joe Atwood and Surgeon W.M. Turnbull on the 2nd January 1842 and arrived in Port Nicholson 120 days later on the 1 May 1842. The following PDF download is an actual eyewitness journal account of their voyage by one of the passengers, Charles Empson, supplemented by the Captain Atwood's log and Dr Turnbull's reports.

072-The 1842 Voyage of the LONDON

073-A Sailing Ship Migration to New Zealand

 Artist's impression of the SS Great Britain in her heyday, above. As she looks today, below.