Yes They're Coming. No They're Not. Look They're Here!

83/783 - dated 27-11-83

James Hawthorn offers to pay £1 a month on the £12 for his own & brother’s passage.  Wishes also to nominate his wife & child for a passage to NZ.

Often people in NZ would nominate friends or family to come out to join them.  Sometimes the nomination was turned down by the person in the UK and the money paid in NZ was refunded.  Occasionally the nominated person still came out to NZ.  This particular group of papers covers the nominations of several people.

John Birrell of Wairio, Southland, nominated James Hawthorn and his brother Matthew, for passage to NZ sometime in 1880 and paid the required money.  For some reason (not explained in the documents) the Hawthorn brothers did not come to NZ at that time, however three years later they availed themselves of the nomination.  In between times, John Birrell had applied for and received a refund of the money he had paid for the tickets to NZ.  The Department of Immigration tried to seek repayment of the passage money from John Birrell but he replied that after receiving his refund he “gave up all responsibility and any mistake is with the Government or the agent at home”.

James and Matthew came out to NZ on the Wellington, arriving at Otago on 8 March 1883.  James was 22 years old, Matthew only 9 years.

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FSY2-SXS

James Hawthorn went in to the Immigration Office in Invercargill in November 1883 and advised that he would pay the outstanding money at the rate of £1 per month.  However he couldn’t start paying just yet as he was not working due to having cut the top off his right hand thumb (indeed his arm was in a sling when he visited the office).  James also wished to bring out his wife and child to NZ – approval would not have been given for a married man to come to NZ on his own, but when the original nomination was made three years earlier James was still a single man!

Another nomination mentioned in the correspondence was that of Mary Butler, nominated by Mr Michael Dinneen (nomination 106).  Mary was living in Limerick and was the niece of Mr Dinneen, himself a schoolmaster at Invercargill.  Mary declined to come to NZ due to ill health and so the money paid by Michael Dinneen was duly refunded.

There are three other nominations mentioned for which there is very little further information:

Nomination 89: Arthur Rice & family, who came on the Ionic

Nomination 226: Two girls (not named) who were nomination by James Collins. Mr Collins applied for a refund as the girls in question responded to an advertisement for single women to come to NZ and they were granted entirely free passages out.

Nomination 192: Jane and Janet Rae, nominated by Peter Miers. The correspondence note that the girls came out on the Wellington, however they actually appear to have come out on the Caroline in 1883.

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FSY2-ZZH

This will be my last post for 2013, but I am looking forward to sharing more interesting tales with you all next year.  Merry Christmas to all and a happy and safe New Year.  

The Dutemple Girls

Correspondence 84/106 – dated 7-2-84

Passage granted to Wellington Nominees 511 & 512 E & R Dutemple in “Doric”

In 1883, a man named James Baker nominated two of his nieces, Elizabeth and Reine Dutemple, to come out to New Zealand.

Elizabeth and Reine were two of at least eight children born to Victor and Mary Dutemple in Liverpool.  Victor was French and UK census records have him listed as an interpreter (1861), merchant (1871) and insurance agent (1881).  According to advertisements for his services in the Liverpool Daily Post from 1860, Victor was fluent in French, English and Spanish.

The earliest document in this particular group of correspondence is a letter (dated 5 Nov 1883) from a priest by the name of Thomas Murphy, of St Francis Xavier’s Church in Salisbury Street, Liverpool to the Agent-General in London.  Father Thomas had known the family for many years and provides a bit of the family background.

Victor died in January 1883 in Bordeaux, France and as a result the family found themselves “suddenly reduced from comparative ease and comfort to very straitened means”.   Mary’s brother James, already living in New Zealand, nominated Elizabeth and Reine to come out as Governesses.  Fr. Thomas wrote to the Agent-General as he was concerned that the girls were “ two innocent and virtuous girls of 19 and 23, delicately nurtured in a comfortable home” but was concerned at them facing the “roughness and hardships” of the voyage to reach NZ.   Fr. Thomas was writing to appeal for consideration on behalf of the girls in order that they might travel on either the Aorangi or Doric which were passenger liners, rather than some of the less flash Government immigration vessels, and in doing so that the girls might be “more sheltered on these boats from any danger of rudeness or roughness which I so much dread for their delicate and sensitive nature”.  Fr. Thomas also wrote in his letter that their mother, Mary, intended to travel to NZ with the rest of the family once the affairs in England were tidied up.

The Agent-General, Mr Bell, forwarded the letter from Fr. Thomas on to the Minister for Immigration in NZ, noting that he had asked the NZ Shipping Company to provide the girls an enclosed berth on either the Doric or Aorangi.  Mr Bell also noted that “because for my own part I should refuse any application of the kind if it were made by girls here, nurtured as these ones have been, to be put on board an emigrant ship in company with a number of single women sent out for domestic service”.

Elizabeth and Reine travelled on the Doric, arriving safely in NZ in early 1884, and were met by their uncle.   Their sister Therese arrived later that year on the Aorangi.  It is unclear as to when their mother Mary came to NZ and which of the other children came with her, however an advertisement was placed in the Bush Advocate newspaper dated 27 July 1889 that states: Mrs Dutemple – Undertakes the repair at clothes at her residence (Mr J. W. Baker’s), main street, Danevirke.  I have also found Mary listed on the 1896 Electoral Roll as a widow, living in Carterton. 

Elizabeth married Duncan McLachlan in 1884, Reine married Edgar Mason in 1887 and Therese married Jim Jeffery Knight in 1889. It seems they all settled in well to a less sheltered life in NZ.

Stoats & Weasels

Correspondence 83/845 - dated 17-12-83

Further as to payment of passage money on a/c of Metcalf & Albone who came out in “Waitangi” in charge of Stoats & Weasels.

Rabbits were introduced to New Zealand in the first half of the 1800s, largely as a source of food and fur.  However rabbits, having no natural enemies here and with plenty of food, bred like, well, rabbits.  By the 1870s rabbits had completely overrun parts of Otago and Southland and land owners tried all sort of methods to curb the population.

A great history of the rabbit in New Zealand can be found in the book “Exotic Intruders” by Joan Druett.  A digital version of this book is available to read on the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre website.   http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-DruExot-t1-body1-d9.html

Unfortunately for New Zealand’s fauna, one control method used was the introduction of a rabbit’s natural enemies – ferrets, stoats and weasels.

In January 1883 Mr F D Rich of Bushy Park, Palmerston, Otago, was visiting England and while there he organised a shipment of stoats, weasels, polecats and ferrets (and 500 pigeons for food) to be sent to NZ on account of a number of Otago landholders, including Mr John Cargill and Mr J C Buchland.  Mr Rich hired an experienced rabbiter to take charge of the shipment, and then engaged a second young man to cover in case of illness.  Mr Rich believed he had an agreement with the Agent General that the two young men would have free passage to NZ in exchange for also taking responsibility for a Government shipment of 50 ferrets that were to be sent on the same ship.

The two young men, William Albone and J Metcalf, travelled out to Port Chalmers, Otago, on the Waitangi with the animals, though the 50 ferrets which made up the Government consignment weren’t shipped with them.

The correspondence file relates to the costs of the passages of these two men.  Mr Rich believed that they were to be granted free passage in return for working as stockmen looking after the shipment.  However the NZ Shipping Company started pursuing Mr Rich for payment of their passage.  Mr Rich then wrote to the Department of Immigration who investigated the situation.  The Department found that there had been no formal agreement to supply free passage, however investigations showed that the men had actually been listed as crew members on the ship’s articles, working their passage at the rate of 1/ per month.  They had no contract tickets and as such, could not be classed as “passengers”, meaning that the NZ Shipping Company had no right to make a claim for money from Mr Rich.

The correspondence file doesn’t make clear what eventually happened to the passage costs for Mr Albone and Mr Metcalf.  Their charges, and others brought to NZ by various parties, caused devastation to the native wildlife here though this consequence had been forseen by some who had advised strongly against their introduction.  http://bit.ly/1cUDbSM

William Albone didn’t stay in NZ and headed back to the UK on the ship Tongariro.  What became of Mr J Metcalf is not known.

Personally, I feel sorry for the pigeons.