Family History 4.38

Robinson story

From Robinsons of Rotherhithe by Joanne Robinson

 

 

The Morgan Connection

It must have seemed an exciting adventure for Jane as an eight year old to leave her home and sail with her parents, brother and two sisters to the other side of the world. Jane was born in the same area of London as her father, Paradise Street in Rotherhithe, on the 8th of December 1834, and probably had some form of schooling. Although it was still not common for girls to receive instruction in anything other than domestic duties, Joshua valued education and all of his children were literate.

 

As she grew older Jane would have been needed to help with the cooking, cleaning and the care of the little ones, especially when her mother was engaged in extra work at Government House. Jane would have already gained an appreciation of the work and hardship of pioneer life when she met her husband to be, William Morgan.

 

William Morgan had only been in the country seven months when he married Jane, at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Auckland on the 27th of December 1853, she at the age of nineteen and he twenty-seven.

 

William came originally from Leeds in Yorkshire, being born on the 3rd of December 1826, with his adult occupation being that of compositor (type-setter in a printing works). He set sail for the Victorian goldfields in June 1852 on the Tippo Saib, not with any ideas of instant wealth, but on doctor's orders to improve his general state of health. Neither his health nor his finances improved there and in disgust after eight months he sailed to Auckland on the William Woolley arriving on the 23rd of May 1853 with the express idea of catching a ship back to England.

 

We do not know why he elected to stay in New Zealand. Maybe he did not have the funds to pay for a fare back to the homeland immediately. He found employment as a schoolmaster and later on the local press, first with the New Zealander and then the Southern Cross (later the New Zealand Herald).

 

William would have met his future wife at Church. Although the Baptists worshipped with the Presbyterians, as they had no church of their own at this stage, they probably tended to congregate together socially. This would have been the only way for young ladies to meet eligible young gentlemen. Joshua no doubt thought that a young, industrious, teetotal Baptist would make a suitable husband for his eldest daughter and as she was a minor, his approval was required.

 

They made their home in Wellesley Street in Freemans Bay. William described it as 'a rum-looking estate'. During the first five years of their marriage, William worked for the Southern Cross as a compositor. Four children were born to them during these years: Thomas (1854), Nellie (1856), Joshua (1857) and Eliza (1859).

 

As William himself said in his journal, Jane was kept busy 'with gowns to make , and baby's frocks, and shirts, and napkins to make and many other domestic affairs to attend to.' He initially seems to have had an unrealistic view of marriage as he says:

 

I had notions before I was married - how I would read to my wife and talk to her - and how she would read and talk to me - how I would endeavour to instruct her in matters in which I was conversant and she was not - how we would take evening strolls together and attend evening meetings. But I have found most of these things knocked on the head. Not that we are unhappy or discontented. The reverse. But the thing is there is no time for these things.

 

(In 1963, William's Journal was published by the Auckland City Council Libraries Department, edited by N M Morris, under the title of The Journal of William Morgan.)