III: Navigating Class at Sea
For young British governesses, the decision to emigrate to New Zealand was fuelled by ambitions for a better quality of life, greater prospects, and higher pay in what they expected to be a familiar social setting. These expectations would be challenged throughout the process of migrating, starting with experiences onboard passenger ships.
Passenger ships brought together people from diverse backgrounds and different social classes in tightly confined spaces for months at a time. Despite operating under strict rules that reflected Victorian values, these transitional spaces cultivated unexpected social exchanges, conflicts, and even courtships that crossed class divides. Records from these journeys reveal governesses’ anxiety at navigating unfamiliar social dynamics, while also showing their active participation in the adventure of the journey.
Governesses diligently guarded their social status aboard passenger ships, actively distinguishing themselves from ‘assisted’ working-class migrants whose journeys were funded by the New Zealand Company or the New Zealand government. A key strategy for demonstrating their difference from working-class passengers involved cultivating connections with first-class passengers.
Writing back to the Female Middle Class Emigration Society from Canterbury in 1882, Caroline Fox chastised the Society for sending a fellow governess to New Zealand with a second-class ticket aboard The Soukar—a relatively large 1304-ton iron ship that was noted for being especially uncomfortable.¹ She wrote:
“I think it was very barbarous of you to send Miss Leith out second class, I am sure she would have been very uncomfortable had it not been for the Captain’s wife, who was very kind to her, and had the power of asking her to mix with the first class.”²
Miss Leith's access to first class aboard The Soukar stands as an example of how governesses leveraged their perceived gentility to access privileged spaces and people, regardless of their personal wealth or class of ticket.
The Soukar sailing ship at Dunedin Wharf, c.1875-1899: Wellington, Alexander Turnbull Library, PA-Group-00198.
The Cardigan Castle docked in an unidentified port, c. 1890, Adelaide, State Library South Australia (PRG 1373/16/9), A.D. Edwardes Collection.
Governesses were not the only group of young, single women who competed for the favour of those higher up the social ladder. For working-class women and girls, too, advantageous connections could be made on the journey out. Housekeeper Sarah Stephens wrote in her diary on 17 October 1877 that her fourteen-year-old sister Charlotte had attracted the attention of the captain of the Cardigan Castle. She wrote:
“The Captain has taken a great fancy to her and she is now walking up and down the deck with him. She is looking very shy.”³
In some instances, these exchanges developed into courtship and marriage. Governesses who sought eligible bachelors for marriage in New Zealand would soon find themselves in competition with women of all social classes and backgrounds. Roughly four years after her arrival in New Zealand, governess Isabella Cary would complain that all the eligible men had been “picked up by servant girls a few years ago”.⁴ This would prove to be one of the many unexpected challenges of colonial life that governesses would encounter in their new lives in New Zealand.
Although shaped by social status and class of travel, the journey to New Zealand did present some universal experiences. All passengers, regardless of class or gender, faced dangerous seas and witnessed unfamiliar sights that evoked both wonder and trepidation. Governesses shared in these risks and adventures.
Shortly after her arrival in New Plymouth, Taranaki in 1859, governess Maria Nicholson wrote a long letter to her cousin about her seventeen-week-long journey at sea. Maria recalled experencing significant danger as her ship traversed extreme weather conditions, and her awe at seeing new and exciting landscapes, waters, and marine life. She also noted sharing in collective comradery. When her ship encountered another bound for America in the waters off Tenerife, passengers on both ships exchanged salutes, cheers, fired rockets into the darkened sky, and sung ‘Cheer Boys Cheer’—a soldier’s song with lyrics that farewell England in hope of finding fortune abroad:
Hope points before and shows the bright tomorrow,
Let us forget the darkness of today
So, farewell England! Much as we may love thee
We'll dry the tears that we have shed before
Why should we weep to sail in search of fortune?
Farewell England! Farewell for evermore.⁵
Maria’s letters reveal how long, tedious, dangerous, and socially complicated journeys were also infused with hopefulness and excitement. Young, single women took significant risks in travelling to New Zealand, and they did so with personal ambitions for seeking a better life in mind.
¹ Henry Brett, White Wings: Fifty Years of Sail in the New Zealand Trade, 1850 to 1900 (Auckland: The Brett Printing Company, 1924), Vol. I., p. 91.
² London, The Women’s Library at LSE, 1/FME (Letterbook of the FMCES, 1877–1882, Letter from Caroline Fox 2 October 1867).
³ Wellington, National Library of New Zealand, MS-Papers-10633 (Diary of Sarah Elizabeth Stephens, 1851-1920).
⁴ London, The Women’s Library at LSE, 1/FME (Letterbook of the FMCES, 1862–1876, Letter from Isabella Cary 2 October 1867).
⁵ Broadside ballad entitled 'Cheer, Boys, Cheer!', c.1852-1859, Edinburgh, National Library Scotland, APS.4.86.2.