Thursday, October 25, 2012

Not a Bad Place

My (newly found) cousin Judith found this wonderful treasure. I letter or diary entry almost certainly written by her GG Grandmother and my GGG Aunt , Jane Thompson Middlebrook, detailing the family’s arrival in New Zealand.

 

I found the photo of the Shalimar and the photo of Auckland’s main street in 1862 on the internet. The latter, a photograph by John Kinder, being on the Auckland Art Gallery website. 

Journalling on this layout reads

This letter or diary entry was almost certainly written by Jane Thompson Middlebrook,
eldest of the 7 children of John and Ellen Middlebrook . They had emigrated from
Ledsham, near Leeds Yorkshire, as part of the New Zealand
Assisted Immigration programme.
We came out in a sailing ship belonging to the White Star Line called the Shalimar leaving Liverpool on the 23 of August 1862. We bought emigrants for Melbourne arrived there on the 15th November leaving then for Auckland December 6th and arrived in Auckland December 20th 1862. We had a very good passage but a long one and a bit rough coming in through Port Phillips head. then came to New Zealand with wool to take back. When we got here we could not get up to the wharf and had to be landed in a barge and we could not get anywhere to board where we could all be together. There was Father and Mother and 7 of us family and we began to think we should have to stay on the wharf all night. Father thought he had better take us back until someone that came int he Shalimar said we ought to get into evacuation barracks so that was our first home in New Zealand where we have settled down. Not a bad place.

1 comment:

  1. What a wonderful find, must have been really exciting. A beautiful LO too, as per normal.

    ReplyDelete