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those in steerage pitching about in semi-darkness alive with noise. Seas breaking over the ship
extinguished the galley fires, overturned soup coppers, and sent the emigrants' puddings
bouncing about the deck. Another day, it snowed, and the passengers threw snowballs at each
other.
Food was adequate, according to Fred, and there were few complaints. When a sailor caught a
five-foot shark and cooked it, Fred shared in the meal. 1 had a large tin full for my tea,' he
wrote. 'It eats like a cod fish.'
There were domestic squabbles in steerage and occasional violence. After one man beat his
wife, the ship's doctor, AC Kemball, threatened the man
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with severe punishment if he did so again. A woman who started a fight with another was
segregated and confined.
During the voyage four very young children died, and one at least was born - to a stonemason,
John Stafford, and his wife Jemima. The first death occurred on 29 April, six days after the
Maria Hay left Plymouth. The burial was followed by May Day ceremonies involving all the
other children. Two were chosen as May King and Queen, and a maypole decorated with
coloured paper was set up on the main deck.
On the English Midsummer's Day the coastline of Australia appeared on the horizon. A pilot
came on board to take the ship through the Rip and around to Indented Head, where the Maria
Hay anchored at sunset. There was drinking and dancing on the deck that night. Jane
Honeycombe most probably just sat and watched, talking to the friends she had made.
The ship had to be cleared by quarantine officers before she saiied on to Point Henry, finally
anchoring there on 3 July, a fine Australian midwinter's day.
So Jane Honeycombe, aged 28, arrived in Geelong after 78 days at sea. We do not reaily
know what kind of voyage she had, what she felt and thought. We can only be sure that she
stepped ashore with livelier expectations than when she turned her back on her native land. And
there to greet her was her father, whom she had not seen for a least four years and probably
more. He was 57 now, lean no doubt and bearded, his face and hands well-tanned by the
Australian sun, a sun not so fierce in that antipodean autumn.
According to the shipping list, Jane was an unassisted immigrant. She was also a Wesleyan; she
could read and write, and had been living in Middlesex. She was immediately employed as a
domestic servant, and as such she was taken on by Mrs Bauer, whose husband, Frederick, had
an ironmonger's shop in Ryrie St. It was situated on the south side of the street, between
George Wright, auctioneer, and W Harris, grocer.
Jane's father, William, may well have found her the job with Mrs Bauer, who undertook to pay
Jane £25 a year, and provide her with free rations for three months.
The Bauers may have come overland from Adelaide and South Australia, where a large German
community was already ensconced. After Britain, Germany had provided the greatest number of
European emigrants to Australia, and by 1881 just over 42,000 of the Australian people,
including those in New Zealand, were of German birth. Those born in Britian were, however,
more than 20 times as many - 912,000.
1854 was a good year to start a new life in Australia, and in due course Jane did very well for
herself: the little housemaid eventually had some servants of her own.
It was a year of several national beginnings: in May a horse-drawn railway service began
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