Further information - British and Irish immigration

This web feature was written by Jock Phillips and produced by the NZHistory.net.nz team.

Immigration study findings

This manuscript represents a fuller version of the findings which are published in Jock Phillips & Terry Hearn's book, Settlers: Immigrants to New Zealand from England, Scotland and Ireland, 1800-1945 (Auckland University Press). The manuscript was originally prepared by Terry Hearn and then revised by Jock Phillips. It differs from Settlers in that it presents the history of British and Irish immigration to New Zealand chronologically, and it includes many more detailed findings on particular immigration flows and groups of settlers. These are to be found primarily in the tables and graphs, and there is also much fuller commentary than in the published book. 

There are six chapters:

• Chapter 1: The first British arrivals, 1769-1839 (pdf, 130k)
• Chapter 2: Immigration during the Crown Colony period, 1840-1852 (pdf, 530k)
• Chapter 3: The Provincial and Gold-rush years, 1853-70 (pdf, 745k)
• Chapter 4: Boom, depression, and immigration, 1871-1890 (pdf, 557k)
• Chapter 5: Economic growth and renewed immigration, 1891-1915 (pdf, 410k)
• Chapter 6: The interwar immigrants, 1916-1945 (pdf, 410k)

Please let us know if you have any trouble accessing these pdf documents.

Links

• Genealogical links section on this site
• Long Journey for Sevenpence: Assisted Immigration to New Zealand from the United Kingdom 1947–1975.
• New Zealand Peoples -  Te Ara - Encyclopedia of New Zealand .
• The voyage of the Birman -  site by Peter Sim charting the voyage of the Birman a barque (sailing vessel) that left England in 1841 and arrived in New Zealand in 1842.
• Auckland Passenger Arrivals 1840-1883 - database on the Auckland City Libraries website

Books

• Donald Harman Akenson, Half the World from Home: Perspectives on the Irish in New Zealand, 1860–1950, Victoria University Press, Wellington, 1990
• Rollo Arnold, The Farthest Promised Land: English Villagers, New Zealand Immigrants of the 1870s, Victoria University Press, Wellington, 1981
• Susan Butterworth, Chips off the auld rock: Shetlanders in New Zealand , Shetland Society of Wellington, Wellington, 1997
• Ed. Lyndon Fraser, A Distant Shore: Irish Migration and New Zealand Settlement, University of Otago Press, Dunedin, 2000
• Lyndon Fraser, To Tara via Holyhead: Irish Catholic Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century Christchurch, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1997
• Charlotte Macdonald, A Woman of Good Character: Single Women as Immigrant Settlers in Nineteenth-century New Zealand, Allen and Unwin, Wellington, 1990
• G.L. Pearce, The Scots of New Zealand, Collins, Auckland, 1976
• Jock Phillips & Terry Hearn, Settlers: New Zealand Immigrants from England, Ireland & Scotland 1800-1945, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2008