Time before the mast

My list of migrant ships spanning 80 years caused me to wonder how the length of the voyage had changed in that time. The journeys undertaken differ slightly in their ports of departure (Plymouth, Hamburg, London) and landfall (Rockhampton, Maryborough, Moreton Bay, Sydney) but against the length of a Europe-Australia voyage, these are minor.

The chart shows clearly the group of voyages under sail that lasted more than 100 days and those driven by steam that were completed in less than 70 days.

The Dorunda that carried 3xgreat grandmother Mary CREASE in 1882 was our family's first experience of travel in a motor-driven ship. Two years later, 2xgreat grandmother Jane and 3xgreat grandfather John DAVIES were aboard the Corona when it made the long journey under sail as it had done when carrying convicts 20 years earlier. Their trip (116 days) was more than twice as long as Mary's (52 days)

Two trips stand out by falling between these two extremes.

The Indus was originally built with steam-driven paddle wheels but her engines had been removed before she began service to the Southern Hemisphere. Nevertheless, her 1870 voyage carrying 3xgreat grandfather Henry SUDDABY and his brother John in 92 days was very fast for that period.

The 1919 sailing of the Beltana carrying great grandmother Eva Elsie and 2xgreat grandfather Frederick THORPE was the first after the owners received the ship back from military use in World War I. Uncertainty about the availability of coal would have meant very conservative use and some long refuelling stops that combined to make a very long voyage of 94 days.

If we wanted to recreate these voyages today on a passenger-carrying freighter, we would need to allow between 32 and 40 days for the trip. While that may seem no improvement on the late 1920s, it is important to note that the current cost is quoted as £3200-4000 rather than £33 in 1926.

The farm boy and the daughter from the manor

John WILKINS grew up on the farm of Thorpe Hall in Peterborough. He later married Eva Elsie THORPE. Was this an upstairs-downstairs romance that stemmed from idyllic romps in classic English gardens?

Rear gardens of Thorpe Hall, circa 1915

Sadly, no. John and Eva did not meet until after they had migrated separately to Australia. Eva's family was from Nottinghamshire and if they had any connection to Thorpe Hall, it was a very distant one. There is no evidence that Eva had ever seen the Hall before she and John made a return visit to the UK in the 1960s.

But there is an intriguing twist to their story. John WILKINS emigrated in 1925 under a State Government scheme to encourage British boys and young men to take up agricultural pursuits in Queensland. Upon arrival, each farm lad was allocated to a local land-holder for employment and training.

What must John have thought when he was directed to travel to Rosemount in the Maroochy River Valley to begin work for farmer Frederick THORPE and his family who had come from England in 1919?

John and Eva (our great-grandparents) eventually moved to Brisbane and (among other employment) traded as retail tobacconists in George Street. But in the 1950s, they returned to the land and took up a pineapple farm at Buderim. On that property they maintained a cottage for Eva's father, Fred, and for a time took care of one of their grand-daughters.

Transcription challenges

The current buzz in some high-profile American blogs concerns the allegedly high error rate in the 1940 Census Indices published by Ancestry.

This reminded me of a puzzling aspect of the 1911 England Census for our 2xgreat grandfather Frederick THORPE. The transcript available on line listed the family's address as 300 New Sunnyside Worksop. But the neighbours appeared to live at numbers 16, 15, 14 and so on. Why the sudden jump in numbering?

At the time, I was more worried about what seemed a strange change of occupation. In 1901, Fred had been a Spindle Setter. How was it possible that in 1911 he was called a Naturalist?

When I saw an image of the 1911 form, I realised that my two concerns were one and the same. Fred had indeed become a naturalist and dealer in animals and, as a result, the locals regarded his home as being like those new "Zoological Gardens". What had been interpreted as a number (300) was actually a word written in script (Zoo).

As we move to on-line completion of census forms with built-in error checking, our descendents will be deprived of the thrill of making these wonderful little discoveries in our returns.