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Hatton Strafford, Frank Bickers, William Stephen, Alex Slone, Alex McClean, Frederick
Keogh, George Robertson, Humphrey Short, William Tyne, John McVicker and Jacob Kernot,
with now only his older son. There were also W Andrews, T Carting, T Rawe, JT Atkinson, W
Gray, W Millard, WJ Phillips, E Simmons, F Barnby, L Mock, and A Vellacott. In addition
there were the teenage sons of four families on the ship: Henry Honeycombe, Richard Silver,
William Brimsmead and J Cadwallader. And a teenage daughter, Charlotte Silver. Alternatively,
Richard and Charlotte Silver may have been brother and sister of Alfred Silver and not his
children.
Harriet Hill and Eliza Vivian seem to have been the only women travelling on their own, though
they might well have been with cousins or a married sister. Eliza Vivian also had two children.
The married couples, with their children numbered, were: Benjamin Wray and wife (2); Alfred
Silver and wife (plus Richard and Charlotte perhaps); John Davis and wife (4); John Andrews
and wife; William Ball and wife; G Chapman and wife; W Dunn and wife; J White and wife;
Henry Baker and wife (1); W Cadwailader and wife (plus J Cadwallader, their son); R Tonkin
and wife (1); J Gee and wife (2); S Richardson, junior, and wife (2); W Honeycombe and wife
(4, including Henry Honeycombe); F Henshidge and wife (5); James Lawrence and wife (2);
and J Lawrence and wife (5). The Lawrences were obviously related and were probably
brothers.
The spelling of these names, and the initials and Christian names given, vary in each shipping list,
as do the total numbers of passengers on board. But there were always deaths, and births to
alter the numbers as well.
Three Honeycombe children had birthdays during the voyage: Elizabeth was 12 in February;
Henry 16 in March; Martha ten in May; John's eighth birthday was in Adelaide.
Shipping lists in the newspapers are not very precise or even accurate concerning the sex of
children, most merely write 'children'. The South Australian Register of Adelaide and the Argus
of Melbourne give the children of William Honeycombe and his wife as four 'boys' (Adelaide)
and four 'sons' (Melbourne). The non-identification of two of the four Honeycombe children as
'girls' may be due to the simple fact that the girls were dressed like boys and had short hair. We
know, from Mereweather, that the surgeon, Mr Taylor, had insisted on some children's hair
being cut off as they had ringworm (or lice). William Honeycombe may have seen this as a
sensible ploy, whether or not necessary, and a
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strategem likely to render his daughters less attractive to the licentious men on board. To this
end, and because wide skirts were an inconvenience on ship, he may aiso have garbed them in
trousers.
Henry was probably a 'delicate' boy. A stonemason, like his father, he would die of Bright's
Disease (inflammation of the kidneys) when he was 24 - a complaint he could have suffered
from as an adolescent, before it became chronic or acute. Is it possible that his poor health was
a fact in determining the family's departure to a warmer dime?
Health and hygiene were always of some concern on passenger ships, especially the bigger
ones. So were some of the doctors. Not a few were inefficient, intemperate, insolent, immoral
and occasionally deranged. None of them was aware in those days how diseases like typhus,
cholera and TB were caused and spread. Such drugs that they had were mainly for the
treatment of diarrhoea, constipation, headaches, mental and physical debility, and for the relief
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