IV: English Ladies and Wild Colonial Girls
The waves of migration from that fuelled New Zealand's colonial growth in the nineteenth century transplanted Victorian ideas and social attitudes to its shores. Many of these established norms, though, would be stretched into new forms, shaped by New Zealand’s unique social, economic and political landscape.
Governesses’ initial impressions of settler society vividly highlight how expressions of social class (and movement between social classes) diverged from how class was delineated in Britain. For middle-class governesses, defining and reinforcing their distinction from working-class women was an ongoing project that extended well beyond their time onboard passenger ships.
Female Middle Class Emigration Society Letterbook.
Image credit: London, London School of Economics, The Women's Library, 1/FME (Records of the Female Middle Class Emigration Society).
Letterbooks like this one from the Female Middle Class Emigration Society contain correspondence that reveals the first impressions and anxieties of new, migrant governesses in New Zealand.
In a letter written in 1880, governess Miss Caldwell lamented over the relaxation of class divisions in New Zealand, observing that working men and servants "can live like ladies and gentlemen," while gentile individuals performed "the work of servants." Similarly, governess Marion Hett wrote in 1870 about her worry at the prospect of having to find work as a domestic servant and “dress as one” if she were not able to find a suitable position as a governess.
This blurring of class lines generally caused anxiety and confusion for governesses, jeopardising their precarious middle-class status and eroding markers of social class, like clothing, that distinguished them from working-class women.
Miss Brind, Glass monochrome photograph (Photographer: William Davis), Nelson, Nelson Provincial Museum, (Ref 165).
Some governesses reacted to these new social settings and challenges by reinforcing their identity as respectable, genteel ladies. Whereas on passenger ships they did this by defining themselves in opposition to government-sponsored assisted passengers, in New Zealand they did so by highlighting their Britishness (or Englishness) against that of existing female settlers who were often referred to as ‘colonial girls’. Writing back to the Female Middle Class Emigration Society in 1875, governess Kate Brind claimed that amongst her social circle:
“…people think nothing of colonial girls. Just coming from England is a recommendation.”³
Kate’s dismissal of ‘colonial girls’ is notable as Kate was in fact a New Zealander by birth. After the death of her father, Kate had left the Bay of Islands and travelled to England where she received her education. She returned to New Zealand in 1872 with the help of the Female Middle Class Society, possibly motivated by a desire to re-join her brother who had returned some years earlier.⁴ Despite her New Zealand connections though, Kate’s letters make it clear that she considered herself to be a genteel Englishwoman rather than a ‘colonial girl.’ This differentiation allowed women like Kate to preserve an identity that was distinct from the local population of settlers, who were thought to be wild and “rough”.⁵
Otago Daily Times, Issue 4705, 17 March 1877, Page 1.
Advertisements posted in local and regional newspapers highlight the different credentials that New Zealand families expected from governesses. While some families sought women who had the skillsets of typical British governesses (skills in arts and languages, for example), others sought simpler stuff.
In New Zealand, some governesses would find themselves asked to perform tasks that they perceived to be ‘servant’ tasks like cooking and sewing. The simplification of the governesses’ role, paired with the expectation that she should take on domestic duties, reflected her diminished value in New Zealand society comparative to that of women who were considered “really useful” for being used to domestic work.⁶
In the first weeks and months of their arrival in New Zealand, many governesses learned that their social class could not be commodified in the same way that it could be in Britain. They would have to learn to adapt and adjust their expectations in order to succeed in this new setting.
“…there could not be a greater contrast in the society and style of living. There are no distinctions of rank, excepting perhaps that muscular strength takes precedence of intellect and refinement, because manual labour is the only road to success in a new country. There are men of higher education doing the work of servants, whilst others who brought nothing out with them but a strong arm are now prosperous and wealthy.”
—Maria Nicholson to Elizabeth Hall, from New Plymouth and Nelson, Wellington, Alexander Turnbull Library, MS-1717.
Governess Maria Nicholson's early letters from New Plymouth offer a further glimpse into a common colonial culture shock over the relaxation of social class.
At the time of writing to her cousin in 1859, Maria had been working as a governess for the Brown family (with whom she had travelled to New Zealand) and socialising with local settlers in Omata, New Plymouth for a little over three months. Her observations, filtered through a distinctly British lens, reveal a core belief: that class hierarchies were an innate and unchangeable part of society. Her description of "men of higher education doing the work of servants," for example, frames manual labour not as a sign of men becoming servants, but as a temporary, singular inversion of a permanent social order.
¹ London, The Women’s Library at LSE, 1/FME (Letterbook of the FMCES, 1877–1882, Letter from J Caldwell, November 1880).
² London, The Women’s Library at LSE, 1/FME (Letterbook of the FMCES 1862–1876, Letter from Marion Hett, July 1870).
³ Wellington, National Library of New Zealand, MS-Papers-4205 (Biography of Miss Kate Brind compiled by Joselyn Chisholm).
⁴ ibid.
⁵ London, The Women’s Library at LSE, 1/FME (Letterbook of the FMCES, 1877–1882, Letter from Fanny Crofs 11 July 1880).
⁶ Charlotte Macdonald, , A Woman of Good Character: Single Women as Immigrant Settlers in Nineteenth Century New Zealand (Auckland: Allen & Unwin, 1990), p.34.