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the iast time. 'They made many fair promises,'Mereweather wrote. 'But alas! These promises
were soon to be broken.'
indeed, one of the emigrants, having drunkenly assaulted the police, had to be redeemed from
the Town Hall by Mereweather, who obtained the man's release from the Mayor himself. And
the night before the ship departed, he noted that many returned 'in a most disgusting state of
drunkenness - many of them highly professing Christians.' The only consolation was that no
Anglicans were among them.
He also noted, on Saturday, 23 February: There are numbers of fresh passengers pouring into
the ship.'
Among them were the six Honeycombes - William, Elizabeth, Henry, Elizabeth, Martha and
John - leaving England and leaving Plymouth, and none of them would ever see England again.
Who saw them off? Who embraced them and bid them farewell? Perhaps some of Elizabeth
Honeycombe's relatives, some of the Fumeauxs, watched the family be ferried in longboats from
the shore to the ship and waved goodbye from Plymouth Hoe. Perhaps William's older children,
Richard and Jane, even William Robert, travelled to Plymouth from wherever they were to see
their parents, their younger brothers and sisters, for what might be the last time.
Perhaps William the sawyer or his son William watched the departure -even Samuel
Honeycombe, my ancestor, whose life would alter dramatically when he also left Plymouth and
went to sea.
As the sun rose on the Sunday morning the Lady McNaghten raised anchor, lowered some sails
and turned towards the entrance to Plymouth Sound, turning her back on England and the cold,
grey fields and leafless woods of the Devon shore.
if as ftfereweather says there were about 50 passengers on board the Lady McNaghten when
she left Gravesend, then about 63 must have embarked at Plymouth. The total complement of
passengers when the ship sailed from Plymouth was 115 - excluding the Captain's wife, Mrs
Hibbert, and the ship's surgeon, Mr Taylor. The crew would have numbered about 15.
33 passengers were bound for Adelaide; the rest, including the Honeycombes, would travel on
to Port Phillip, on another ship,
As the Honeycombes were Ifsted as being intermediate passengers on the Sea Queen, it seems
probable they aiso travelled as such on the Lady McNaghten. This meant they were a cut above
steerage, paid more than steerage passengers, and were accommodated in an enclosed space
or cabin below the main deck, but still among those in steerage. They probably travelled
together as a family as a result, and were guaranteed some measure of privacy. Occassionally,
on big ships, intermediate passengers were accommodated in rough cabins or huts on the main
deck itself.
Those who paid for the voyage would not have thought of themselves, or wished to be
described, as 'emigrants'. This label was disparagingly bestowed on those who were 'assisted'
and didn't pay. Assisted passengers would have travelled as part of a financially assisted group
or package, or free it sponsored by the government or by some commercial, religious or
philanthropic organisation.
The cabin passengers on the Lady McNaghten were three single men: the Rev J D
Mereweather, Mr Rogers and Mr Wildman. Along with Mrs Hibbert and the surgeon, Mr
Taylor, they would have dined and socialised with the Captain and his officers, their tiny,
cramped windowed cabins surrounding a living and dining area or saloon under the poop deck
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