VAN family:
Henry VAN, the son of Thomas Van and Alice Gillett, was born in Oxford in 1803, the 2nd child of an eventual family of 14. His parents were the 4th generation of a family migration that had led the Vans from Leicester to
Newbold-on-Avon, Dunchurch and Oxfordshire where they paused briefly before moving on to London between 1803 and 1807 where they settled in Paddington. They were evicted from what is now the Oxford Street area, and Henry was brought up in one of London's most notorious slums, Notting Dale. He married Katherine Ross,   a 36 year old unmarried woman that he (presumably!) met aboard the Phoebe Dunbar within 6 months of landing in NZ and they had 2 children, the descendants of whom are mostly living in the Nelson and Wellington areas. Henry died in Nelson in 1890 and leaves a carefully considered will. Katherine, his wife, was born in Aberdeen in 1813, and seems to have had an equally poverty-restricted start to her life. She was illiterate, and had no real sense of how old she was - she had 4 stabs at it in 4 different official documents; each age given implied a different birth year, and none of her guesses turned out to be within 5 years of the truth. She survived Henry by 9 years, dying in Nelson in 1899.

Several things puzzle us about our Henry. He never married in England, describes himself as a Farmer on the manifest of the Phoebe Dunbar, (the reality is that he worked on the Old Oak farm estate in Acton and never seems to have been more than the standard Ag. Labourer) and somehow found the money not only to pay for his own fare (his was not an assisted passage) but also the fares of three others. The major puzzle is why, at the relatively advanced age of 47, he wanted to emigrate to the other side of the world and start again? However his money was obtained, he had enough to buy 4 properties in the Nelson area though his employment in New Zealand was again of the menial variety - various forms of labouring and cartering.  Whether Henry came by his money honestly or not, and regardless of the motivation for emigration, which will always be a mystery, it cannot be doubted that both Henry and Katherine finished their lives in a great deal more comfort than they started them. A surviving photo of Henry in old age reinforces a mental image of a tough customer who perhaps had only one chance to escape the circumstances of his upbringing - and grabbed it with both hands. If you have an interest in this family or may be able to suggest a solution to The Mystery please contact Steve Moran.

Francis Henry BRADEY:
The father and step-mother of Francis Henry BRADEY had arrived with their children on board the Adelaide in 1840. Francis, a son from the mariage of his father Francis BRADEY followed the family out on board the Phoebe Dunbar in 1850. His half-sister Mary Jane BRADEY was to become the mother of Louis Ward who wrote the oft quoted Early Wellington. If you have an interest in this family or would like to learn more please contact Robyn Thorpe.