L to N

In William and Sarah’s social class, there wasn’t much need for letter-writing, especially within the family. People weren’t particularly mobile – they generally were born, lived and died within the same small area. Emigration meant getting the hang of writing letters, of figuring out what to say and what not to say, all compressed into a small piece of expensive paper.

L is for letters. This business of writing letters was very strange. There was never any need for letters before, with all the family close at hand. Father and Mother must be finding it strange as well – their letters begin formally, as if a school exercise they expect to be judged by a schoolmaster. But sometimes they would write just as they spoke, and it was almost like they were standing in the same room talking. They must find her letters much the same. It was hard to find the words to describe all the new and strange things. And how did you put in a
letter something that you barely mentioned to your own family even when you were face to face? She had puzzled over the words for weeks, finally deciding she would write, “By the time you receive this, our family will number four. The happy event is expected in November.” When she told William, he said that by the time they read it, the event would have taken place, happy or not, but they would still worry until they received confirmation that all was well. So in the end, she hadn’t mentioned it at all.

William wasn’t registered to vote for the 1842 borough elections, and the only thing I can see that would have stopped him was lack of money. The same problem seemed to have affected most of the Gertrude passengers – only 6 of them registered to vote. In fact, from a potential electorate of around 2000, only 352 registered. William was one of only 150 who did register the following year – at a cost of a mere 2/6 – but the election didn’t happen. A clash between national politics and local body politics saw the fledgling municipality founder, and it wasn’t until 1863 that there was an election for a Town Board.

M is for Municipal Corporations Ordinance. The big excitement in the town was the passage of the Municipal Corporations Ordinance and the proclamation of Wellington as a borough. The franchise was 20 shillings, a large sum on William’s income. He was bitterly disappointed that he hadn’t been able to put together this sum in the bare month between the proclamation and the closing of registrations to vote. After all, part of the reason for coming to New Zealand was the hope of a fairer society, although they hadn’t expected that he would get an opportunity to vote quite so quickly. He had buried his disappointment in furious activity, attending all of the town meetings and speaking at many of them. It was an important opportunity, he said, to ensure that the best candidates were chosen to represent the working men. And anyway, getting his name out there and getting to meet almost everyone in the town would undoubtedly lead to opportunities for work. No doubt this was true, but William’s enthusiasms could be exhausting – he would come home from meetings all fired up, words spilling out of him as soon as he came in the door. He positively encouraged her to have opinions of her own, and to debate them with him. Sometimes she thought it was almost a pity that she couldn’t vote herself, but in the end, that was something best left to the men.

I’ve don’t know whether Sarah thought women should have the vote; in the 1840s, perhaps not – for William to be able to vote was new and exciting enough. Maybe later in life she thought, like her daughters did, that women should also have the vote. She died in 1891, before the successful women’s suffrage petition of 1893.

Naturally, N is for Norgrove. I’m not sure where the rest of this came from; it just came out of my fingertips onto the keyboard without any conscious thought. It hadn’t occurred to me until someone pointed it out, but this encapsulates the huge changes Sarah experienced in the space of about two years – new wife, new mother, new country.

N is for Norgrove. She was still getting used to being Mrs Norgrove. It seemed that no-one called her Sarah any more. William called her “dear” and “dearest”. Ovid called her Mama. Sophia, when she was still in Wellington, had called her Sarah, or just as often, she would call her “my dear Mrs Norgrove”, gently mocking the refined tones of the ladies who formed the town’s better society. Only her family still called her Sarah, and now that was just in letters which were few and far between. Sometimes, she just has to say her own name out loud, to hear it, to keep herself from disappearing altogether. Sarah my girl, she says to herself, Sarah, you had better buck up and get on with those potatoes, for they won’t peel themselves.