Whatever happened to Jonathan Moscrop?

For the past three months, readers of Echo Memories on both sides of the world have been folwing his diary of his 1879 voyage from Darlington to Dunedin in New Zealand. This is waht became of him and the Matthews family who emigrated with him.

THE Moscrops were once a family of some substance but, as with all good families, there was a dark horse.

He was John Moscrop, who was overly fond of the drink. So fond, in fact, that his family disinherited him and forced him to leave their native Willington, in County Durham.

John, a timekeeper on the railway, was married to Margaret (ne Hudson) who was also a Willingtonian by birth. On June 15, 1855, Margaret had a son whom they called Jonathan - in later life, Jonathan said that he had been born at Hilltop, Durham, which no longer seems to exist.

The Moscrops came to settle in Darlington on Albert Hill - an area that was rapidly growing as migrants from all over Britain were sucked in to work the furnaces of the expanding iron industry. The Moscrop boys, including Jonathan and his brother John, worked for Skerne Ironworks, which was the forerunner of the famous Cleveland Bridge company.

Around the same time, another family of migrants came to live on Albert Hill. They were the Matthews, headed by John and Fanny who had married in the small mining town of Sedgley, near Wolverhampton. They had soon moved because the first of their ten children had been born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1857.

That first child was Sarah, and when the Matthews settled on Albert Hill, she struck up a romantic liaison with Jonathan Moscrop.

John and Fanny ran a chimney sweeping business. Their business card boasted that they did not employ child labour.

But during 1878, they decided to find a new life on the other side of the world. We can only guess at their reasons. In the late 1870s, the iron industry was going through one of its periodic slumps, which had probably thrown the family into poverty.

Newspapers such as The Northern Echo were carrying enticing adverts telling how the government of New Zealand would pay the travel of anyone useful wishing to migrate.

Then there was the Reverend J Berry, a Methodist minister who toured the North of England extolling the virtues of New Zealand and urging his flock in poorer areas such as Albert Hill to leave for a new life. We know the Matthews were Methodists because with 13-year-old Mary Ann Matthews went a book called The Door Without A Knocker. It was inscribed: "United Methodist Free Churches, Nestfield Sunday School, Darlington.

"Presented to Mary Ann Matthews, on the occasion of her leaving England for New Zealand. Signed on behalf of the Committee, JA Robson, Secretary. 22nd January 1879." (Nestfield is a part of Albert Hill.) With John and Fanny went their eight daughters and one son - sadly, their second son, James Frederick, had just died, aged three.

And along tagged Jonathan Moscrop, 21-year-old Sarah's boyfriend. Jonathan kept a diary of his voyage from Darlington to Dunedin - and it is that diary that readers of Echo Memories in County Durham and the Otago Daily Times in New Zealand have been following for the past three months.

In copperplate handwriting, Jonathan's first entry begins: "I left Darlington, Bank Top, on Friday, January 24th, 1879." (Bank Top is the name of Darlington's mainline station.) He tells how they travelled to Glasgow where they were shown around by John Harris "who used to live at Albert Hill", according to Jonathan's diary. As Harris was Fanny Matthews' maiden name, it seems likely that a family connection assisted them aboard their ship.

Although Jonathan does not name their vessel, we know that she was the Westland, making her maiden voyage. Amazingly, the ticket that they all travelled on still exists. It is in Oamaru Museum in New Zealand and shows that their total fare of £129 5s was paid by the country's government.

The ticket was issued in Glasgow by P Henderson and Company, which owned the Westland. Indeed, the Westland was the last sailing ship that Henderson built specifically to carry passengers to New Zealand. She was built by Robert Duncan in Glasgow and launched in October 1878.

There were scores, if not hundreds, of clippers ferrying people to the New World, and the Westland was one of the best. In 1888, she set the London to Dunedin record of 72 days. "Her advent was unexpected, the vessel not being due for at least another week," reported the Otago Daily Times. "Captain Scotland was heartily congratulated on having made the shortest passage of any sailing vessel."

Despite being the most modern ship of her day, the Westland was not luxurious. The problem for the ship-owners was the return journey from New Zealand, which had to be made to pay, so goods such as wool and wheat were carried back to Britain. However, if a ship is full of paraphernalia for passengers, such as beds and private cabins, there is less room in which to cram goods.

John Hillary travelled on the Westland's second voyage later in 1879. He was a 40-year-old Methodist minister who came from "a small village near Bishop Auckland". Inspired by the Rev J Berry, he emigrated with his wife and six children, and in his previously-published diary he explained how both passengers and goods were accommodated.

He wrote that collapsible bunks were fitted in the hold and the only privacy for passengers came from curtains. These bunks and curtains were retracted when wool and wheat were stashed in the hold.

Such cargoes are not particularly pungent, but one cannot imagine what it must have been like for the poor passengers who travelled after the Westland had finished a 79-day journey from Oregon to Liverpool with a full load of salmon in her hold.

Our diarist Jonathan Moscrop was fortunate in that he shared a cabin with the Matthews' only son, 15-year-old John Henry. However, they were in steerage - a cheaper cabin because it was cluttered with the ship's equipment, usually its steering apparatus.

Jonathan wrote: "There's not much comfort on deck, but one is forced to try and stop up, because down in the steerage there is such a bad smell arising from the ropes and sails which are stored close to where we sleep. It is a nasty place altogether."

Aside from the suicide of David Wood, who jumped overboard, the Westland's maiden voyage was fairly uneventful and the Otago Witness newspaper reported that she arrived at Port Chalmers, Dunedin, after 80 days at sea. On board were 11 saloon passengers, 17 steerage passengers and a 169 immigrants whose passage had been paid by the government.

The Matthews were met by a Mr Cartwright who took them to their house in Oamaru. We do not quite know the connection, but three years later, when Mary Ann Matthews was 17, she married an Edward Cartwright who had been born near Wolverhampton and was 17 years her senior. They had 12 children.

Her parents, John and Fanny, had several addresses around Oamaru with John earning a living as a gardener. Both died in Enfield near Oamaru; Fanny in 1888 aged 57 and John in 1906 aged 79.

Their only surviving son, John Henry, stayed only three years in New Zealand before moving to Australia. In 1890 he married Mary Kemp and had six children, but died of tuberculosis in 1902, in Sydney, aged 39.

All eight of the Matthews' daughters married in New Zealand and bore children, but the one that we are most interested in is their eldest, Sarah.

She was the reason that Jonathan had gone on the voyage, and there is one hint in the diary that they were close. Unmarried men were segregated from single women, but one stormy day Jonathan wrote: "Sarah and I were sitting together a few minutes where we thought we were secure, but we got a real souser which felt rather damp. (That's for breaking the rules.)"

Their love survived the soaking by the giant wave for, on June 8, 1881, at Oamaru Wesley Church, they were married. Their first daughter, Fanny, was born in 1882, followed by Alice in 1883, Sarah in 1884, Mary in 1885 and Ruth in 1897.

Their only son, John Henry, was born in 1891. Named after Sarah's brother, with whom Jonathan had shared a Westland cabin, John Henry died aged nine years and nine months, killed by a cricket ball at school.

This must have been a heartbreaking time for Jonathan and Sarah, because John Henry's death on November 25, 1900, came so close to the death of their eldest daughter, Fanny, on November 11, 1900. She was only 18.

Jonathan had several jobs and addresses in Oamaru. At various times he was employed as a gardener and a labourer; at most times he was living in New Street - a street whose name suggests that it was home to many newcomers.

He died at the age of 65 on February 10, 1920. The following day's North Otago Times newspaper reported: "The death occurred suddenly late yesterday afternoon of Mr J Moscrop, of Exe St, who dropped dead in Trent St, shortly after leaving the residence of his son-in-law.

"The late Mr Moscrop has been on the staff of the local picture theatre for a number of years, and was highly esteemed by the large number of people who knew him. The deceased had suffered from heart trouble."

He was buried in Oamaru Cemetery in the same grave as his two children who died in 1900. The headstone is also engraved with the name of his cabin-mate, John Henry Matthews.

Sarah died on April 17, 1931, aged 74, and she too is buried in Oamaru Cemetery.

The couple's four surviving daughters all had children, several of whom are still alive in New Zealand, and there are now plenty of grandchildren.

Sarah's eight siblings, who also emigrated on the Westland, produced plenty of children and their family tree now stretches down to great-grandchildren who are also scattered across New Zealand and Australia.

Many thanks to every one of them from all the generations who have been in touch to bring the diary of Jonathan Moscrop to life on both sides of the world 124 years after he wrote it.

Any further information gratefully received. Please write to Chris Lloyd, Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk, or telephone (01325) 505062