Star of India
Ship: 1045 tons
Captain: Holloway
Surgeon Superintendent:
Sailed London 26th 1873 September - arrived Lyttelton 31st December 1873

The Star of India was built by Stephens of Dundee in 1861. She was owned by the Merchant Shipping Co., but was under charter to the Shaw Savill Co. when she visited New Zealand in 1874. She made two trips, one to Lyttelton and the second to Wellington.

Of the voyage out to Lyttelton Mr Davey writes: "We had about 300 passengers aboard. They were a mixed lot - English, Irish, Scots, Swedish, Danes and a few Russians and Poles. I well remember the rough weather we ran into in the Bay of Biscay and the dismay it spread among the passengers. There was a lot of seasickness, of course, and the immigrants were very downhearted. You would hear the woman blaming the husbands and the men blaming the wives for deciding to come on such a dangerous undertaking. The people from the Emerald Isle would be vigorously telling their beads, while the cockneys were liberally swearing at each other and everybody else for being such fools as to leave good old London. But this only lasted a short while, and then all hands settled down to shipboard life. The women would be sitting round sewing and singing, and the men's favourite pastime was to play pitch-penny on the deck.

"It was a lonely trip in some ways, as we did not see any land, with the exception of St. Paul's rocks, in the South Atlantic, until we sighted the Snares. At least the passengers did not sight any other land, but I was taken up to the royal-yard by one of the sailors, and from that lofty perch I saw Table Mountain when we were off the Cape of Good Hope. It was rather a desperate trip for a youngster, but the sailor put a rope round my waist and kept a good hold of me. The on;y other thing out of the way we sighted, with the exception on a ship on fire was an iceberg.

"I remember that when we were near St. Paul's rocks the mate caught a nautilus in a bucket, and carefully put it over the side again, as it would have been bad luck to do otherwise. We also caught a shark and cooked some of it. Several people tried it, and I was among the number.

Mr Davey says that when the Star of India got to Lyttelton, and the day arrived for landing, quite a number of the women shed tears as they took their last look at the good old ship which had been their home for so many weeks, and had brought them safely to the new land in which they hoped to better themselves.
Source White Wings - Sir Henry Brett

Copywrite Denise & Peter 2000 - 2009

Reference:
New Zealand Archives IM15/74