The Voyage of the Melbourne

Welcome back to the second blog post about the Williamson family history, and the second post with a spotlight on the actual voyage across the world from Scotland to New Zealand.

In the last post, I shared a snippet from the Otago Witness, proving that the Melbourne was indeed the ship that brought John Williamson and his family to New Zealand, and gave a few details about the trip. However on such a long journey, there is sure to be some interesting happenings onboard a ship with 200 passengers.

Shortly after leaving from Leith, severe weather caused many ships to dock or postpone travel. The storm was so bad that some on board suspected that the sails may have snapped over night. On the 6th December 1860, the following was reported in The Scotsman, worrying many back on shore:

The next day, The Scotsman updated their report:

Archives for the Scotsman are unfortunately only available on the British Newspaper Archive which requires a paid account, so I have not been able to scour any further copies for further information.

Upon nearing New Zealand, further rumours had somehow spread that the ship was lost around Stewart Island and wrecked in the Foveaux Strait, as reported here by the Otago Witness, and further confirmed by passengers arriving at Port Chalmers.

Finally, it is all well and good to hear about the rumoured shipwrecks of the Melbourne, however this doesn't give us much more information about the Williamsons, other than learning a bit more about what they may have experienced en route, so to finish this post, I thought I would share an advertisement featured in many Scottish newspapers, offering assisted passage to New Zealand. This particular copy is from the Stirling Observer, dated the 2nd November 1860. As the Williamsons were listed as assisted passengers, it is likely they would have come across this advertisement or one similar to learn about the opportunity to move to New Zealand on this ship.

The advertisement is posted by the Otago Emigration Office in St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh. I am currently trying to learn more about this to get a better idea of the process the Williamsons may have gone through to receive assistance to move to New Zealand, and whether any records may still exist. 

I will leave you with a photo I took this past week by pure coincidence in another building in St. Andrew Square, here in Edinburgh. Many of the buildings in the square are old banks and manors making it quite a high brow affair, although nowadays these same buildings have since been filled with hotels, restaurants, with only the Royal Bank of Scotland surviving as a business there.