RootsChat.Com
Research in Other Countries => New Zealand => New Zealand Completed Requests => Topic started by: glenview on Thursday 15 September 16 16:51 BST (UK)
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Hi Rootschatters
I have re posted this here at the suggestion of a more experienced user on the Scotland site. I live in Scotland and am interested in who was involved in helping the emigration to NZ and in what way.
Original request:
I have come across terminology on an emigration record that I don't understand. I would like to be clear in my head about who was paying and who was to be paid back for the journey made by a family of few resources emigrating to New Zealand in 1862.
Someone on this site very kindly sent a link to records which helped me confirm that the family that I had lost track of in Scottish records had indeed emigrated. He/she found them on a passenger list.
One sheet on which their names appear is headed Assisted emigration to Canterbury New Zealand, by the ship Chariot of Fame and another is headed BILLS sent from the colony to the undermentioned Persons Passengers by the Chariot of Fame
The columns of the sheet about bills are:
Name of Person to whom Bills have been remitted by Friends in the Colony (husband ,wife, children)
Drawer (a former neighbour in Scotland)
Acceptor (a name I don't recognise is in this column)
Ist 2nd or 3rd of exchange (1st)
Date (June 1862)
Amount of Bill (£20 each for the couple and £16.13.4 for 4 children 17,15,13,11years old
Amount to be collected " " "
If anyone can explain what the usual practice was I would be very grateful.
Thank you in anticipation
Mary
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Hello Mary,
You may find some information in 'Papers Past'....
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/
And/or at these websites......
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/history-of-immigration/page-3
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/history-of-immigration
You could also contact: Otago Early Settlers Museum........
http://www.toituosm.com/
[Scroll to the bottom of the page for the e-mail address]
A little about the 'Chariot of Fame'.......
59th Anniversary……
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19220130.2.84?query=chariot%20of%20fame
Minniehaha.
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Hello Mary
From our PapersPast website, a couple of items pertaining to Immigration Regulations - specifically relating to the Canterbury Province.
Newspaper: "Lyttelton Times" - (Canterbury)
from - January 1858
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/LT18580106.2.3.3.
and 3 December 1862
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/LT18621203.2.22.2
[There were numerous similar advertisements placed in the local newspapers - have just given you one example from 1858 and another from 1862 (the only variation seemingly being that the cost of "17 pounds per passage" was added to the 1862 one.]
~ Lu
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Hello again Mary
The following is an extract from the "Falkirk Herald" (Stirlingshire, Scotland) - 17 March 1859 - page 1.
ASSISTED EMIGRATION -- CANTERBURY, NEW ZEALAND
The Provincial Government* is now assisting good labourers and mechanics to emigrate to Canterbury. The passage money is L 17 [17 pounds].
Part of this is paid by the Emigrant - an equal part is paid by the Government* - and the balance, if any, is advanced to the Emigrant as a "loan" which he repays to the Government* after his arrival in the Colony.
Single men are required to pay down L 10 [10 pounds] in cash; but good married couples will be taken for condsiderably less.
Preference given to Agricultural Labourers and Shepherds and respectable married men between 20 and 40 years of age.
Applications to : John FITZGERALD, Esq., Canterbury Emigration Offices, London
or to : John CAMPBELL, Writer, Emigration Agent, Cross, Falkirk.[/i]
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[(my note) * refers to the Provincial Government of Canterbury in the Colony of New Zealand. ]
~ Lu
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I have come across terminology on an emigration record that I don't understand.
Hello...
As I understand it ... (and assuming your family is the MUIRHEAD family) ...
BILLS = a bill of exchange.
In this instance an agreement between two parties, namely the former neighbour you mentioned as being the Drawer (Party A) and the Provincial Goverment of Canterbury (Party B).
Party A is already resident in New Zealand. Party A promises Party B that he will pay £56-13s-4d towards the fare of the MUIRHEAD family. Party A then notifies the MUIRHEAD family of his actions.
In exchange, Party B will tell their agent in the United Kingdom (the Acceptor) to accept the family as passengers. When the family turns up the Acceptor tells his bosses (Party B) to start getting the promised money off Party A.
According to the Chariot of Fame passenger list the family also paid £4-5s-0d in cash, presumably at the time of departure, and still had £10-11s-8d outstanding when they arrived in the Colony.
Regards
Beg
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Thank you so much Minnie Haha and Lu.
The links are wonderful and I can search by names from my records to get more of what happened next. I do have the deaths so I know the period to search. I could be distracting myself this winter in New Zealand newspapers. The records seem to very extensive and it's great they have been digitised.
It was great to read about the fact that the ship was a spacious one and know that their passage may have been reasonable in the long confinement aboard. Agricultural families at sea; how must that have been for them!
Best wishes from Scotland
Mary
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Thank you also to Ben
Ben,
I have sent you a personal message.
Mary
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Hello Mary...
Thanks for the PM.
Happy to help and happy to be proven wrong :)
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If you click the second link provided by Lucy in reply #2 (Lyttelton Times - 3 Dec 1862) and scroll down to Immigration Regulation No.2 it says...
[...] Any person resident in the Province desirous of assisting their friends in England or elsewhere etc [...]
Famous last words :-) but this is why I'm reasonably certain that the person who put up the money for their fare (the Drawer/Sponsor) is already in NZ. In fact he/she would be somewhere in the province of Canterbury.
In the 1860's the different provinces of NZ had "competing" immigration schemes. It's unlikely one provincial government would enter into a bill of exchange with someone from another province or another country.
It wasn't until 1870-ish that the Government of NZ merged the "competing" immigration schemes into one scheme. One of the bonuses was that the government kept records of the names and NZ addresses of any sponsors. Quite a few, but by no means all, of these records survive.
If you want you can post any details you have about the Drawer/Sponsor to this thread and someone here will most likely track him/her down.
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You have the name of the family in your signature so I assumed it was the right family. Plus you mentioned the children's ages.
Regards
Beg
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Thank you Beg
That was a very full explanation and I have hopes of further information from this thread.
So if anyone has information about a George Adam or possibly Adams who would probably be a farmer in Canterbury area. He was the drawer of money to help Peter and Margaret Muirhead from St Ninians, Stirlingshire, Scotland. The family included a son, John, who was a farm servant like his father and three daughter at least one was a domestic servant.
The wife/mother, Margaret, was an Adam and Peter Muirhead's mother was an Adam. It was a common name in the St Ninians area.
I would love to find out if George Adam in Canturbury had any connection to either family.
Thank you
Mary
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So if anyone has information about a George Adam or possibly Adams who would probably be a farmer in Canterbury area...
Hello Mary...
Do you know the age of George ADAM as there is a 24 year old by that name from Stirling who arrives in Lyttelton in early 1860.
Passenger list for the Roman Emperor
http://tinyurl.com/jr8p52l (http://tinyurl.com/jr8p52l)
Just going by age he may be the 71 year old who dies 18 Jan 1906 and is buried in Addington.
Burial record
http://tinyurl.com/z688smh (http://tinyurl.com/z688smh)
Probate file
http://tinyurl.com/z2e8wan (http://tinyurl.com/z2e8wan)
Regards
Beg
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Thank you so much Beg
That gives me something to work on. I am away from Wifi in a holiday cottage this week unless I get out and about as I am this morning. When I get home at the weekend I can check Scottish births.
I don't know if you would be interested in the outcome. I will let you know and if it turns out to be a dead end and I would be grateful if you would continue a conversation on other possibilities.
Thank you again
Mary
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Hello Mary
Beg was a step ahead of me with posting information ... but my findings were the same. ;)
I have already checked the Scotland census of 1841 and it seems most likely that this George ADAM was the younger brother of Margaret (MUIRHEAD) (bc 1816).
I'll put a transcription of 1841 in a following post.
~ Lu
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1841 - SCOTLAND
Bridgend > St. Ninians > Stirlingshire
ADAM
John - 70
Elizabeth - 45
John - 20
Margaret - 25 (bc 1816)
Mary - 15
James - 10
Christian - (female) - 8
George - 6 - (bc 1835)
... all born Stirlingshire (except Elizabeth, where it just states "Scotland').
+ James CAMPBELL - 40
~ Lu
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It was great to read about the fact that the ship was a spacious one and know that their passage may have been reasonable in the long confinement aboard. Agricultural families at sea; how must that have been for them!
They may not have all been agricultural labourers. One forebear of ours is recorded as a gardener on the manifest. All records before and after do not state that he is a gardener, but I suppose he thought it would increase his chances of being accepted.
I'm not sure how they would prove that they were of good character. His wife had been sentenced to four months in prison in her teens.
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NZ - PapersPast :
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19060119.2.2.2
^ Death Notice for George ADAM appeared in the "Press" (Christchurch).
The last part of notice is missing on above link - but it goes on to say ..."in his seventy-second year".
~ Lu
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George ADAM married Jane THOMPSON in 1862 (according to one source, on 21 December 1862 at the St Andrew's Church, Christchurch.)
They had a very large number of children (some of whom I located via electoral rolls and other resources) ... but have since checked for online "family trees" and there are a number of persons who have compiled trees which are posted on the ancestry.com website. [Info for these trees varies - some have conflicting information ... and none really give sources, other than quoting links to indexes.]
One tree though does have >
George ADAM - born St. Ninians, Stirlingshire - 12 December - 1834. ???
~ Lu
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Jane ADAM (wife of George ADAM) died on 16 August 1922 - aged 79 years.
She is buried with George at Addington Cemetery, Christchurch (indexed as surname "ADAMS").
Her death notice >
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19220818.2.4.
~ Lu
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The MUIRHEADs and George ADAM (and his family), lived only a matter of about 5 miles apart at Templeton and Prebbleton.
All the electoral roll listings for George ADAM show his occupation as "Labourer".
Having scoured NZ records (particularly newspapers) I found nothing to connect the MUIRHEAD and ADAM families. Often times newspapers give up information which provide connections ... but perhaps it needs to be considered that there was a big age gap between the children of these two families (i.e. George ADAM's children didn't begin arriving until the early 1860's ). ???
~ Lu
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Thank you so much for all the replies.
The most recent ones from Lu have moved me to a final confirmation of who George was. It makes sense that he was the much younger brother of Margaret Adam who was married to Peter Muirhead. He, in his youth, paved the way for the mature couple and their children.
Thank you for the death notices too. I can mark off the branch details but it is not the main line.
I just hoped that delving into it might confirm other things. I was fairly sure who Margaret was but she and Peter married in 1844, 11years before Statutory Registration in Scotland and her death record from NZ has her mother as a Margaret. However I will pursue the possibility that she may have been the first fife of John shown in 1841 census as 70yrs with a wife Elizabeth only 45yrs.
Thank you too for the geographical information too that they all continued to live near each other. Thank you, Lu, for checking out some of that and I may look into the other trees when I have time but only out of curiosity.
I am very grateful for all the time taken by all of you.
I will now mark this topic completed (from my point of view at least) as I don't plan to follow the line into more recent generations.
Mary