A Wedding and ... some mysteries


A wedding and … some mysteries

When brothers Hugh and James WYLIE and Teresa/Caroline SWIFT embarked on the SHALIMAR in Liverpool in September 1859, I wonder if Hugh and Teresa/Caroline already knew each other. Were they already planning to wed during the voyage or did a shipboard romance blossom, leading to their marriage less than a month out from England? 
The bride’s given name is variously recorded as Teresa and Caroline, but here, let’s suppose Teresa is correct. 
As I haven’t been able to locate a complete list of the details that were recorded about each passenger when they embarked, there is no way of knowing how old Teresa and Hugh were or where they came from. I suspect they either met on the ship or immediately before embarking. Why they didn’t marry before they said farewell to their friends and families can only be speculated at. It’s easier to imagine why they decided to get married among their fellow passengers rather than get married on arrival in Auckland where they may not have known anyone. If theirs was a whirlwind romance, where better than on a 101-day voyage to get to know each other, especially as they were travelling as cabin passengers? Captain Brown, Chief Officer Cameron and the ship’s doctor would all have been present and Captain Brown would have recorded the event in his log, and the marriage would have been registered when the ship reached Auckland. However, I haven’t found any trace of this registration.
What became of Hugh and Teresa when they reached Auckland? Again, this is a mystery. I haven’t found any births with them as parents nor any record of Hugh or Teresa having died. Initially I thought they had settled in the Pukekohe area and that Teresa must have died (or left Hugh) because I found a Hugh Wylie had married a Jane Moore in 1871. This couple had six children, including sons named Hugh and James, and their descendants still live in Franklin County. However, it now seems that this Hugh, a passenger on the Black Eagle from Liverpool to Auckland in 1861, was not the 1859 Shalimar passenger Hugh Wylie as the 1861 passenger Hugh’s brother James remained farming in Ireland.
Did our newly-weds decide to leave New Zealand for Australia? A Mr and Mrs Wylie were passengers from Auckland for Melbourne on the Gil Bas in April 1860. Various searches have so far not turned up any further trace of Hugh and Teresa. The story of the other Hugh Wylie, his family and his marriage to Jane Moore is well researched and eliminates the idea of James coming to New Zealand with Hugh in 1859. Without this information, I could have calculated that Hugh and Teresa went to Australia and then back to Ireland, after which Hugh returned alone on the Black Eagle, even though the idea of making three 100+-day voyages in less than two years is quite daunting.

So that leaves me with Shalimar Hugh’s brother, James. Did he remain in New Zealand? Did he settle on a farm in Papatoetoe, was he a baker in Raglan or the postmaster in Waipawa? All these options and others appear in the 1881 Electoral Rolls. www.findmypast.com.au

Are you a descendant of James WYLIE? Can you fill in the gaps in the mystery of Hugh and Teresa/Caroline (née SWIFT) WYLIE? Please get in touch.

‘The Moore/Wylie Family Story’ compiled by Joyce Morey provides fascinating reading about the early days in Pukekohe and maybe it will emerge that even if Shalimar-Hugh and Black Eagle-Hugh weren’t the same man, perhaps they were cousins.
For an account of the Shalimar’s voyage, see paperspast.natlib.govt.nz ‘New Zealander’ 28th December 1859 where the bride is named as Caroline Swift, while on the same website, in the ‘Daily Southern Cross’ 23rd December 1859 in the full list of incoming passengers, she is named as Teresa Swift.

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