Follow this link for a spreadsheet of our diary collection, including information about its availability in a digital format. The highlight of this collection are our SHIPBOARD DIARIES.
Shipboard diaries open a window into the world of the pioneer forbears who crossed the ocean waves and travelled halfway around the world to make a new home in New Zealand. They came at the mercy of the winds and currents on what was the longest one-way voyage possible. It took months and while there were moments of high drama – storms chief among them – it could also be incredibly boring. Writing a journal of the voyage was one way of passing the time. Being able to write and having the free time to do so skews the sample of diarists towards the better off and single. Our collection is unusual in that respect; it includes more voices from steerage, more women, and a disproportionate number of Scots compared to similar collections elsewhere.
Thousands of such journals must have been written, these are a sample of those that survived and have been preserved in our collection. Some are copies, either transcripts or reproductions, but others are the original hand-written pages. They can be hard to read and harder to decipher, with variable spelling and lack of punctuation common. Some diarists did no more than record the weather and the daily progress of the ship. Others showed a fine eye for detail and reveal the dynamics of shipboard life in the unique context of each particular voyage. Those are the most valuable but every diary provides treasured insights into what it was really like to make the epic voyage from Britian to New Zealand under sail.
Jane McGlashan’s shipboard diary, CS/9988