On 16 December 1850, the ‘Charlotte Jane’ sailed into Lyttelton harbour, thus becoming the first emigrant ship to arrive at Canterbury, on the south island in New Zealand.
Four ships had set out together – the ‘Randolph’, the ‘Cressy’ and the ‘Sir George Seymour’ – but the ‘Charlotte Jane’ was the first of the four ships to arrive.
To mark this historic date in New Zealand’s history, here is a newspaper story from September 1850 that reports on the events surrounding the emotional departure of the ‘Charlotte Jane’ from Plymouth in early September 1850.
As many family historians in New Zealand use the BNA for their research, we think that this story (one of many in The Archive about the ‘Charlotte Jane’) will be of great interest to them.
Bucks Herald – Saturday 14 September 1850
Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000270/18500914/021/0006
4 comments On The Voyage of the ‘Charlotte Jane’ to Canterbury in New Zealand – 16 December 1850
I don’t think it was the first emigrant ship to NZ – but the first one to Canterbury in the South Island.
The article is correct for the description of the first four ships to Canterbury but these were not the first emigrant ships to NZ.
There were emigrant ships to NZ as early as the 1830’s to Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin.
The Charlotte Jane was the first emigrant ship to Canterbury, but not to New Zealand. The Cuba arrived in Port Nicholson (Wellington) in January 1840.
Hi Robert, Allan and JM de Montalk,
Apologies for that error, and thank you for the comments – we appreciate you taking the time to do this.
We’ve now amended this blog post.
Kind regards,
The BNA Team.