Saturday, November 15, 2014

Thames (NZ): Shipping - Cargo, Crew & Passengers

For those of you wanting to find out when your Thames families came to New Zealand, two of the best places to start are:
Auckland City Libraries, Passenger Arrivals 1838-1921

FamilySearch, New Zealand Passenger Lists 1839-1973. The aim is to have all these records indexed, in the mean time it is possible to also browse ships arriving by port and year.

There are many other sites available free, while commercial sites such as Find My Past have search options.
Early shipping at Grahamstown, before the Burke Street Wharf. Shipping to and from The Thames dependent on the tide.
Source: View of Grahamstown from Te Papa

As time goes by, FamilySearch will have more Thames shipping related to cargo ships coming in and out of the once busy port. At present you can view several shipping details for c1900. While not much information is available it is a worthwhile exercise to view the digitised records. They contain manifest and crew lists that were required for custom purposes. Take a look and get familiar with the search technologies available.
Ships to/from Thames, New Zealand online at FamilySearch are:
1898 - Maud Graham, Vale Royal, Moana
1899 - Jessie Niccol
1900 - Wild Wave
1909 - Empreza, Inga

The Empreza is described as a 236 tonne Baroque, that was built in 1865 in Scotland. On the 1909 visit to Thames, the ship was heading to Turua to pick up a load of timber from Bagnall's Sawmill. Destination was Sydney. Crew members aboard on this voyage were: Captain J BUSHELL; J ?HARMAN, 1st Mate; G MCDONALD, 2nd Mate; Chee POO, Cook; MCCALLUM, J CHRISTIAN, W SMITH, C POULSEN, C CARLSEN and J G ?HARRIS.

Auckland Star 10 August 1909
Part of the Manifest details at FamilySearch
Further Reading:
Treasury Journal Article: Sawmilling at Thames and the Coromandel by Bob Young
Thames Shipping News at Paperspast
New Zealand Maritime Museum for information on ships and their history
Other Blog entries related to Thames Shipping