Mitchell Family: Emigration

John Mitchell

John (54) and Mary (47) Mitchell from Yorkshire England emigrated to Wellington New Zealand in 1841 with their six children Elizabeth (22), William (21), James (19), John (16), Joseph (14) and Henry (9). Four other children had previously died of small pox in Haley Hill, Northowram, Halifax, Yorkshire.  Their names were Sarah, Nancy, Thomas and Bengeman.

Mary Nicholson

John and Mary’s children had all been christened at the Halifax New Connexion Salem Methodist Church on 12 July 1837.

The 1841 Census of the Haley Hill part of Northowram records the Mitchell family: John (Brick Maker), Mary, and their children Elizabeth, James, John, Joseph, and Henry, and notes: “This family left this place on the 9 of June for New Zealand under the said Company”.

The ship on which the family travelled was the Gertrude.  It had set sail from Gravesend on 19 June 1841 and arrived in Wellington on 3 November. Most of those on board, like the Mitchells, were assisted immigrants - people who could not afford even a one-way ticket to New Zealand but who were young, fit, and had skills the New Zealand Company wanted to build and develop settlements in the new country.

John was a brickmaker as were his two older sons William and James, from the pottery works of Halifax, Yorkshire.  His only daughter Elizabeth was a seamstress; the other two sons, John and Joseph were labourers. 

Mary had two brothers, Joseph born in Halifax on 25.5.1792, and William also born in Halifax. William also had a son called William who was born in Haley Hill, Halifax in 1827. Mary and her brother William both emigrated to Wellington.

 

This website was developed by Margaret Hobbs (nee Jamieson), the great, great, great grand-daughter of John and Mary Mitchell.  The site is dedicated to her grandmother, Henrietta Ethel Jamieson (nee Mitchell) who was the first daughter of Arthur Alexander Mitchell son of William referred to above.  You can contact Margaret by email on margaret.hobbs.3@ gmail.com [no space before gmail].

Brickmaking

Soon after arriving in Wellington, John Mitchell and his two older sons began work in a brickfield. There was good quality clay in the upper Willis / Cuba Street area where they established their own brickyard in 1842. Salmond (1986) describes the labour intensive process involved in making bricks:

"Clay was dug and tempered ... by being turned over with spades and wetted or by being trampled underfoot by animals. The tempered clay was then given in lumps to the brick 'moulder' who threw it into a wooden mould, scraped off the excess, and turned out the 'green' brick to be stacked for drying in the air." The bricks were then burnt or fired about 20,000 at a time in clamps. "A clamp was a stack of bricks which were set out in layers with enough space between each brick for heat to circulate. As the stack was built up, brushwood was packed in between the bricks and between each layer. The whole stack was covered with turf or cinders, a fire was lit on one side, and during the twenty or thirty days needed to complete firing, the fire was moved progressively around the kiln."

[Ref: Salmond, Jeremy, (1986) Old New Zealand Houses 1800-1940, Reed Methuen Publishers Ltd]

By 1844, four brickworks were operating in Wellington. A record of men qualified to serve as jurors for the District of Port Nicholson for 1845 records John and his sons William and James residing in Nairn Street, all with the occupation of brickmaker. Around that time the Mitchells' business was taken over by Mr William Tonks whose family continued making bricks in the area for many years.

The Mitchells, as assisted emigrants, would not have been able to afford to purchase land initially. They would have either squatted on vacant land  - there would have been plenty in the Upper Willis Street area - or leased it from an agent. This part of Te Aro Flat was away from the swamps and on the outskirts of the area that became Aro Street and Mitchelltown - a part of Wellington that was to be of great importance to the family, especially Henry.

In 1842, John Mitchell junior, aged 18, died of a fever. There is no record as to the cause of the fever.

 

Church

The Mitchell family were active members of the Primitive Methodist Church. One of the first of these churches in Wellington was in Sydney Street (now called Kate Sheppard Place). It was a small building of clay supported by rough-hewn timber (the 'slab and dab' technique). One of first Methodist churches was a whare-like raupo building near the Royal Oak Hotel in Willis Street.

The Wesleyans opened a Sunday School in Wade's store at the bottom of Lombard Street, Te Aro. MacMorran reports that one Sunday afternoon in 1842 (probably early March) five boys turned up for class. Was Henry Mitchell amongst them?

"The children sat round on soap boxes and sugar and rice bags, and kegs and barrels of various sorts and sizes -  to their own delight, perhaps, especially when a jar of molasses was at hand, and a long splinter was available wherewith to explore the interior and to fish up from the bottom or sides, the sticky sweetstuff remaining." Apparently their mothers were not so pleased with the resulting state of their clothes!

[Ref: MacMorran, George, (1900) Some schools and schoolmasters of early Wellington: with an account of the provision made for education in later times, Wellington, NZ: S & W Mackay]

Wesleyan Chapel, Manners Street

The church near the Royal Oak Hotel was replaced in 1844 by the Wesleyan Chapel in Manners Street. The Chapel was in brick with room for 300 people.  It is highly likely that some of the bricks had been made by John, William and James Mitchell.  On 19 October 1845, Elizabeth Mitchell married Eli Allen, one of the teachers in the above mentioned Sunday School in this Chapel. The couple's first home was in Ghuznee Street. Sadly, their first baby, Jane, died aged 4 weeks in October 1846.

In August 1846, James Mitchell and Eliza Mann who had met at the immigration barracks, were married at the Primitive Methodist Church, Sydney Street.

 

Picture: Brees, Samuel Charles, 1810 - 1865. Wesleyan Mission premises, Wellington, New Zealand [Engraved by] E Whimper [London] 1852, Reference No: B-051-018. Picture shows chapel, school etc, in Manners Street, which were destroyed in the 1848 earthquake. Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

 

The Militia

Since May 1840, at Colonel Wakefield's instruction, all immigrant males between the ages of 18 and 60 became part of a militia under his direction. The purpose of the militia was "to assure the minds of all persons of the existence of an adequate force for the preservation of order and protection of life and property and to uphold the power and authority of the British race". [Ref: Ward, Louis E (1928), Early Wellington, pg 51]

William, James and Joseph Mitchell all served in the militia and armed constabulary. Henry, though he went to drill, was never called upon to serve. William, living on the Porirua Road, served in the Wellington Militia from 1846 to 1849 working as a dispatch rider. The sort of conditions he would have faced in 1846 along the track between Paremata and Wellington were aptly described by W Tyrone Power:

"Within the first two miles I nearly lost my horse in a quicksand and had to dismount to pull him out; for ten miles further there was scarcely any footing; and it was a succession of plunges, jumping, slipping, stumbling, and falling among interlaced roots, fallen trees, deep holes, bogs, streams and gullies. Several times I pulled up, believing it impossible for a quadruped to get over some of the places; but on seeing tracks on the other side I put my horse at it, believing that what had been done once might be done again, besides - 'Should I wade no more, Returning is as tedious as go o'er.' "The last few miles are by a narrow and broken path at the edge of a precipice with a mountain stream leaping and brawling at the bottom. In spite of the difficulties, I enjoyed my ride exceedingly, thanks to the fine weather, the beauty of the forest, and the exhilarating song of the birds. The views from the hilltops near Wellington are very beautiful...".

[Ref: Carman, Arthur H, Tawa Flat and the Old Porirua Road 1840 - 1970, revised edition Nov 1970, pp 21-22]

In order to be able to respond quickly with artillery to protect the homes and lives of settlers in the area from Johnsonville to Paremata, British regiments such as the '65th Regiment of Foot the First Battalion the York and Lancaster Regiment' assisted the Wellington Militia, settlers and local Maori from 1846 to 1847 to widen the narrow track. Wheelbarrows, spades, shovels, axes, bill hooks, mauls, mattocks, picks and crowbars were used to beat back the bush. The soldiers slept in forts built along the way.

William retired from the 'force' in 1850 when he was 29 and married Catherine Anastasia Suter (20) in Wellington.

 

1848 Earthquake

In the 1848 Jury List, John Mitchell and his son James were still recorded as residing in the Te Aro Flat area as brickmaker and labourer respectively, presumably still working for William Tonks.

In October a series of earthquakes struck. Chimneys were levelled to the roof in about two fifths of the houses in Wellington. Brick buildings such as the Wesleyan Chapel in Manners Street were seriously damaged. Sergeant Lovell of the 65th Regiment - who had preached in the church the Sunday before - and two of his children died after being injured by falling bricks in Farish Street.

Eli and Elizabeth Allen's house was one of 70 buildings destroyed or damaged by the earthquake. Elizabeth and her baby daughter Mary had a narrow escape. When the earthquake struck, Elizabeth picked up the baby from her cradle and rushed out of the house just in time to save their lives. Elizabeth was 7 months pregnant.

The Primitive Methodist Church in Sydney Street was destroyed. However due to the dedication of its members, it was rebuilt within three weeks  - this time in weatherboard. As a result of these earthquakes and the likelihood of more in the future, there was much discussion about the suitability or otherwise of building in brick. The general conclusion was that, while the bricks themselves had in most cases been strong enough, the mortar used by bricklayers to hold them together left a lot to be desired. Lime, the best adhesive, was expensive to import or to obtain from Nelson so cheaper alternatives had been used. These included clay or mud mixed with insufficient or no lime, or inferior lime made from sea shells or chalk rather than from stones. Many people turned to wood as a more resilient building material. Eli and Elizabeth's new house was a wooden one in Cuba Street.

In the 1849 Jury List, John Mitchell and his son James were recorded as living in Willis Street as cowkeeper and labourer respectively. In 1850 John's address was Ohiro but his occupation remained as cowkeeper. Joseph (aged 23) is recorded as being a labourer also living in Ohiro presumably with his father John.