Auckland had been New Zealand’s capital for nearly 20 years when the SHALIMAR arrived in the Waitemata in December 1859. Governor Hobson had chosen the capital’s site over other options which included inside the Mahurangi inlet, inside the Tamaki estuary and Thames, and the Surveyor General, Felton Mathew, had draw up a fine, curvaceous plan for the city, featuring concentric circles of terraced housing.  from a photo that was in the possession of my Aunt Laura By 1859 Mathew’s plan had been discarded and the settlement was still concentrated around Mechanics and Official Bay and along the ridges of Ponsonby, Parnell and Karangahape Road. Partington’s flour mill had dominated the Karangahape Road-Symonds Street skyline since 1850 and Partington had become a major producer of flour and biscuits. While Shalimar passenger Thomas KIDD headed north to investigate the farmlands, his family lived in a rented house near Partington’s mill. John and Lucy SWALES were a Shalimar fami...

These days, heading north over the Auckland Harbour Bridge, it’s sometimes hard to imagine that when the SHALIMAR arrived in the Waitemata in December 1859, the North Shore was very sparsely populated and beyond that the map was practically blank. There were no real roads and certainly no bridges: Maori were familiar with a network of foot tracks and the very early Pakeha settlers had used these tracks as bridle paths. However, they were often impassable in winter and seldom wide enough for pulling a cart, let alone a dray laden with of a settler family’s precious belongings. The most practical way north then was by sea, often combined with a great deal of walking. For settlement on the east coast north of Auckland, the most practical routes where by sea to Mahurangi, Mangawhai, Russell and Whangaroa. The SHALIMAR passengers who settled in the Taraire Valley near Kaeo bought their land sight unseen in Auckland after perusing Charles Heaphy’s drawings in the Land Office. They took the...

On 8 th December 1859 the SHALIMAR was within sight of Melbourne. Since leaving Liverpool on 13 th September they had last sighted land in late October, off the coast of north Africa. Wistfully, one passenger wrote in his diary “We could be in Melbourne tonight if that were our destination.” It was about this time that passengers and crew – those at least whose religions allowed them to gamble – began to place bets on when they would arrive in Auckland: would it be before or after Christmas day? Amid the excitement of arriving, packing away the books and chattels that had given some comfort during the voyage, fathers and husbands among the passengers would have been anxious perhaps about the great responsibility that they had assumed in bringing their families so far from home to start a new life. After the SHALIMAR finally anchored in Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour during the night of 22nd December, the men folk made their way ashore in rowboats: some to be met by friends or fam...

Before I delve much further into the Shalimar’s passenger list, let’s have a look at the ship.  The Shalimar was built in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1854 and registered at 1,402 tons. She was named after the Shalimar Gardens in Kashmir and was owned by the White Star Line. When she sailed into the Waitemata Harbour a few days before Christmas 1859, she was the largest passenger ship yet seen there. On that voyage the Captain was J R Brown. He and the Chief Officer, Mr Cameron, seem to have been well liked, and whether through the doctor’s ability or thanks to the overall good health of the passengers pre-embarkation and the medicines they brought along to treat themselves, only three deaths occurred during the 101-day voyage.  After a short stay in Auckland, the ship sailed to Wellington and then on across the Pacific to Callao, in Peru. She subsequently made further voyages to Australia and New Zealand before being sold to various other owners. There were 214 passenger...