The Voyage of the "Strathallan"
Life on an Immigrant Ship Bound for New Zealand
page 4
2/12 Letters for Home
26th November ‘Blowing stiff all evening and
night.’ Strathallan diarist John Morris made his diary entry for Friday the 26th
and also described the furling of the sails ‘clewed up the royals etc’. Then the
fourth recorded incident for the month is noted. ‘First mate knocked a cabin
passenger down on the poop.’ Although there is no further comment knocking down
a cabin passenger would be a serious offence.
27th November ‘On Saturday’ the Reverend Alabaster recorded
that, ‘our course mended a little and all yesterday we progressed pleasantly
though not as fast as on previous days’. The breeze must have been quite strong
as Morris wrote ‘Gus B—washed shirts etc., and the wind blew them all to
pieces’. Gus was Augustus Bambridge a 30 year old married man and although he
was an ironmongers porter he recorded his occupation as farm labourer when he
applied for assisted passage. He was married to dressmaker Charlotte Reeve but
had left her and their children in Shoreditch. Augustus was going to disembark
at Lyttelton but then would move to Timaru where Charlotte and the children
joined him in 1862.
28th November Both diarists recorded fine weather and the
Reverend went on to describe his Sunday. ‘In the morning I preached on the
season and its duties. The presence of so many dissenters made me especially
anxious to point out the beauty and advantage of the catholic Christian seasons’
Advent the first season of the Christian year begins four Sundays before
Christmas Eve.
He then goes on to record that for the evening sermon he preached on the subject
of ‘death the first of the four last things’ – (death, judgement, hell and
heaven). Although he considered that he had found himself ‘of late increasingly
weak and diffusive in my preaching’ when he preached that evening he found that
‘God gave me great freedom and the deep silence during and after the discourse
gave me hopes that it struck home with some at least’.
He distributed religious tracts which ‘were thankfully received’ but before the
end of the evening he recorded ‘we had passengers promenading the deck in
anything but the Sabbath spirit.’ Because of this ‘misconduct of certain
passengers’ the captain took ‘measures’ in regard to the single women, but he
does not explain any further. On some of the ships Sundays were very strictly
observed.
29th and 30th November ‘All however has passed off’ wrote the
Reverend the next day in reference to Sundays misconduct. John Morris doesn’t
mention the Sunday services or the behaviour of the passengers. He notes that
there were, ‘two ships in sight, the first since the 21st’. They were becalmed
all day. ‘Whales blowing about the ship.’ And with the fine weather a ‘five mile
walking match was held on the poop’.
The next day the ship Julia came alongside. She was bound for Liverpool but
needed tar and twine. This gave the opportunity for letters to be sent back to
England. The Reverend used his ‘manifold writer’ (a carbon copying device) to
communicate with friends in Oxford, Cornwall and London ‘at one and the same
time’.
At dinner that evening the Captain told the Reverend that he intended because of
the ‘fresh arrogance of Mr Roxworthy’ (a cabin passenger who must have annoyed
the Captain) not to take the northern course across the southern ocean but the
southerly circle. Unfortunately this course meant that they would face colder
weather and stormier seas. ‘I privately remonstrated with him on the
responsibility he incurred by so doing,’ wrote the Reverend, ‘and warned him
that in the case of harm to health I should try if the law did not provide a
remedy’. Under these threats of action, whatever they might have been the
captain relented. ‘Though hasty he has both good sense and good feeling,’ added
the Reverend.
John Morris in steerage was unaware of the drama in the cuddy, he was busy
observing from the deck. ‘Saw a large sun fish’ and he also wrote that it had
been a very hot day, and they had been ‘becalmed with the sea as smooth as a
sheet of glass’.
1st December The weather was ‘rather cooler’ with the ship
moving at about four or five knots. A shoal of porpoises was seen and the 1st
mate tried to harpoon one. ‘In the latitude of the Cape (South Africa) at last’
recorded John Morris.
2nd December ‘Ship going 9 to 11 knots’ noted Morris and he
also recorded that at, ‘12 o’clock: 36deg. lat. South 27 deg, long West.’ He
noticed ‘several large albatrosses in sight’. Now in the latitude of the Cape of
Good Hope the Strathallan
was still in the South Atlantic and would sail south east taking advantage of
the prevailing westerly winds.
Where are We?
Navigators used latitude (lines around the
earth and parallel with the equator) and longitude (lines running north and
south) to chart their position. At midday when the sun was at its highest point
a sextant was used to measure the angle of the sun and by consulting tables
latitude north or south of the equator could be established. An accurate
chronometer with time set at Greenwich Mean Time was read at midday when the sun
had reached its highest point. For every hour the clock recorded on either side
of mid-day they knew they had progressed 15 degrees of latitude west or east of
Greenwich. The intersection of latitude and longitude established the ships
position.
The speed of the ship was measured by ‘heaving the log.’ The log was a piece of
wood dropped over the stern and let out behind the ship using a fine line with
measured knots tied in it. William Smaill recalled how a ‘sandglass’ was used
and when the sand had passed from the top chamber the log-line was stopped and
reeled in and the knots on the line counted to give the estimated speed of the
ship.
Chronometer, sandglass and log, and sextant. D Charllwood
The Long Farewell
9/12 Stormy Weather
3rd December Another ship was always a welcome
sight and John Morris entered in his voyage diary that while they were becalmed
the King Phillip was nearby. A troopship it was destined for Bombay in India
with between five and six hundred troops who cheered the Strathallan and the
bugler played Home Sweet Home and Cheer Boys Cheer.
In his diary the Rev Charles Alabaster recorded a
conversation he had with cabin passenger Twemlow regarding the colony. Twemlow
had a cattle run in Otago next to ‘my old subrector Parson Andrew’. Parson J C
Andrew was for a time the runholder at Otematata Station. A large rock beside
Lake Aviemore is still known as Parson’s Rock, supposedly where he preached a
Christmas day sermon to the other runholders.
4th December ‘Stiff breeze. Plenty of sail on,’ with ‘the ship going before the
wind from 10 up to 13 knots. The water rising under the bows like a great plume
of white feathers,’ wrote Morris. The ship must have been carrying too much sail
as the ‘main-top-gallant yard arm (was) carried away’.
5th December Alabaster recorded, ‘on Saturday night (the day
before) the wind came on to blow and by morning the ship was ploughing her way
under three sails through a sea which might well be called mountains high.’ ‘We
are most of us anxious,’ continued the Reverend, ‘and not without reason as the
Captain expressed his conviction that it was the most trying weather the ship
was ever in’.
Being Sunday he held two services below, ‘and did what I could to encourage the
emigrants who to do them justice bore up very well though in a miserable plight.
The water every now and then dashed down the hatchways and the deck leaked in
every direction so that there was not a dry place to be seen and even the beds
were wet.’
Morris also recorded Saturday nights storm noting that at one time, ‘we shipped
a sea up the whole of the starboard side, the ship lying right over on the
water, carrying away everything loose on deck and flooding the ‘tween decks a
foot deep in water’. Later the next day the gale eased after the ship had been
carried 270 miles at speeds up to 13 knots.
6th December The next day there were still heavy seas but
less wind and Morris went below to ‘get things right in the hold’. He noted ‘all
in a mess among the stores’.
The entertainment for the day was ‘shooting albatrosses on the poop in the
afternoon’ while Hepwoth (a cabin passenger) ‘caught a Mother Carey by
entangling it in a long string trailed from the stern and jerked over any
passing bird’. The Rev Alabaster recorded, ‘we are surrounded with Albatross,
Cape Pigeons, Cape Hens, Stormy Petrels, Sea Hawks and Whale Birds’. The ship
was sailing at 12 knots all evening. ‘Splendid sailing,’ recorded Morris.
7th December Tuesday brought a ‘fine morning’. Later in the
day there was a, ‘concert at night and grand chorus in bed’.
8th December ‘Wet morning,’ noted Morris. During the night
the ship had reached 13 knots and was said to have run 324 miles in 24 hours but
John Morris wrote, ‘doubtful’. In the evening a new band was started and the
‘ship was rolling very much’. He also records they are ‘about the longitude of
the Cape (South Africa) and 45 degrees south,’ so the ship had sailed further
south since the 2nd of December.
9th December The day brought, ‘light winds’ with, ‘the ship
rolling dreadfully’. In the evening the ‘single men’s band’ played on the deck.
From his diary comments John Morris was probably a member of the band.
A week without fisticuffs was a rarity and there were two
incidents on the 9th. ‘Sailor Jack knocked the boatswain down,’ and there was a
‘fight between Clark and Jim the sailor’. Assisted emigrant John Clark was a 23
year old agricultural labourer and shepherd from Aberdeen who was going to
disembark at Timaru.
The Strathallan is about to begin its easterly journey across the Great Southern
Ocean into the Roaring Forties. There would be strong winds and rough seas.
Storms at Sea
Storms at sea were probably the most
frightening part of the voyage for the assisted emigrants. If the hatchway was
open, water sweeping the decks would pour into steerage and if the hatchway was
covered, the emigrants were in darkness, with the ship rolling and plunging and
the sound of the gale in the rigging and the sails.
Frederick William Sidwell a passenger on the Jura which reached Dunedin in 1858
described (using his own spelling) a storm. ‘Had a ver ruf day the sea running
mountains high, the ship realing to and frow like a drunkin man, chists
upsetting. Watter cans pots & pans tumbeling in all directions.’ As well some of
the passengers were, ‘seek’.
On another ship Fanny Davis travelling in the single womens
area of steerage left us with her descriptions of stormy weather. ‘All at once
there arose a cry that we were sinking and of course that added to the general
confusion and many were on their knees praying who had perhaps never thought of
the name of God before.’
After the worst storm on the journey she wrote, ‘the wind blew in a perfect
hurricane and every now and then the ship seemed perfectly under the water and
it poured down the hatchway in a perfect deluge. It is at such times as that we
feel the comfort of having a top berth as the people in the bottom ones got
washed out of their beds. The screams of the people as each wave comes down the
hatchway was enough to make the stoutest heart tremble. Many were fainting away
and the Matron was running about crying and instead of comforting people, making
them more frightened. No one can form any idea of the scene that have never been
in a like predicament.
Stormy Seas
London Illustrated News
16/12 Two Deaths
10th December The rough weather continued as the
Strathallan sailed eastwards across the Southern Ocean. ‘The ship still rolling
dreadfully,’ recorded steerage passenger John Morris. He also mentioned that the
ship was ‘supposed to be 6500 miles from port’.
11th December ‘Mrs Bishops child (Arthur) died last night’
recorded Morris. The Rev Alabaster wrote that he, ‘read the service over Mrs
Bishops little boy, the water washing in about my legs every few minutes’.
Morris notes that, ‘child buried between 12 and 1. Heavy seas during the
service’. Steerage passenger William Bishop was a gardener from London.
Travelling with him was his wife Meddey and their sons Walter and Arthur.
During the day arguments broke out between the captain and the boatswain and
then between the boatswain and Little Jimmy the sailor. John Morris’s diary also
records there was ‘dreadful weather all day till midnight then it gradually
broke off. The second stormy day. Thank God for its abatement.’
12th December Being Sunday services were held ‘in the cuddy
in the morning and under the main hatch in the evening.’ Alabaster also noted
that among the cabin passengers there was ‘a gloom over the spirits of all’
because there was dissension between the captain and the doctor, and this spread
to differences between the captain and some of the cabin passengers. This
problem may have been related to ‘the convivial meeting held (by a group of
cabin passengers) that night as on previous Wednesdays and Saturdays’. Probably
this was the gentlemens group referred to earlier in Alabaster’s diary. They had
‘instituted a club for convivial purposes’ but had excluded the Reverend.
Consequently as a result of the problems the captain ‘forbad the sale of beer or
spirits to five of the (cabin) passengers’.
13th December With following winds the ship was entering a
period of steady sailing and colder weather. ‘Stiff breeze. Ship going up to 14
knots, over 300 miles in a day. The best sailing since we started,’ recorded
John Morris.
The following day he recorded, ‘another fine days sailing’. He also notes that
the ‘hospital was cleared out’. Usually a small area in steerage was set aside
as a hospital. There is a note that a few days before the steward went into the
hospital.
15th December The day started with a ‘calm gentle wind’ but
later the ship was ‘close hauled; right over on her side. Strong wind.’ At 10
p.m. 13½knots was recorded. Earlier at 9 o’clock in the evening Albert Abbott
aged two died. His parents Thomas and Eliza Abbott were from Devonshire and were
to disembark at Lyttelton.
While it might appear that the Reverend Alabaster was more concerned with the
day to day happenings up on the poop deck he recorded he had been negotiating on
behalf of the steerage passengers and ‘an arrangement was made to supply the
steerage passengers with porks and meats for suckling woman and invalids’. He
also received from the five cabin passengers who had been derived of their
refreshments by the Captain ‘their promise as gentlemen not to abuse the favour
(so) I got their beer and glass of spirit restored’. A busy man he was ‘endeavouring
also to negotiate peace between the captain and the doctor’.
The diary entries of Alabaster and Morris reflect not only their place on the
ship but a little about themselves. Many of the Morris entries refer to the
state of the weather, the sails used, what can be seen and reference to fights
among the emigrants and crew. He is an observer, describing what he sees without
telling us what he thinks about the behaviour. The Rev Alabaster leaves no
record of fights on the ship, does describe birds seen on the southern ocean,
but seems mostly concerned with the pastoral care of the ships company. He
leaves no doubt as to what he believes to be acceptable behaviour or otherwise.
Two writers in different places on the ship and both with different values.
16th December No entry in his diary by John Morris. The
Reverend Alabaster recorded ‘buried Mr and Mrs Abbott’s child dead of acute
bronchitis’. Little Albert Abbott was the fourth small child to die on the
voyage and two more would be buried at sea before the ship reached Timaru.
Social Separation
As would be expected passengers on the ship
who paid full fare and were accommodated in cabins were treated differently to
those who only paid a part of their steerage passage and were subsidized by the
Government. The class system that existed in England continued on the ship.
Cabin passengers were served their meals by the ship’s steward, had the best
area of the deck for private relaxation and rarely mixed with steerage.
This led to conflict on some ships when steerage passengers didn’t always play
by the rules. One case recorded that the steerage single women during the church
service started to sing dance hall songs. But it worked both ways. When one
gentleman visited steerage to deliver uplifting tracts he recorded he was
pleased to see a number of the emigrants reading their Bibles but he sensed that
he was not welcome in their area of the ship.
The Reverend Alabaster noted earlier on the voyage that ‘a
hymn raised by some of the emigrants enabled me to get among them and after more
singing to preach and pray with them’. His association with the steerage
passengers was probably promoted more by his Christian messages rather than
genuine friendship. One person who appeared to spend time with steerage
passengers was Samuel Butler who would later live at Mesopotamia Station in the
headwaters of the Rangitata River. On the ship Roman Emperor he recorded in his
diary that he had formed a choir with practice three and four times a week with
singing ‘better than you would hear in nine country places out of ten’. He also
noted, ‘I have been glad by this means to form the acquaintance of many of the
poorer passengers’.
When Mary Thorpe an assisted
immigrant died on the Chile in 1873 she was 22 years old. She had a miscarriage
and then died of tuberculosis at sea north of the Crozet Islands. Her tragic
death demonstrated that sometimes social rankings in society were put aside in
times of need. She was buried in a chemise donated by a cabin passenger.
Illustrated New Zealand Herald