Heritage

Letters from all latitudes : being some account of a voyage from England to New Zealand, 26 May-9 September 1864.

ImageSummary An original manuscript journal account of Joseph Wheeler's voyage out to New Zealand from Gravesend in the 'British Empire', departed England 28 May and arrived Lyttelton 6 September 1864.

Collection location Archive 254

Publication information Unpublished

Additional information

This is the original manuscript journal account of Joseph Wheeler's voyage out to New Zealand from Gravesend in the 'British Empire', departed England 28 May and arrived Lyttelton 6 September 1864, with 36 saloon and 366 immigrant passengers. She was at that time described as 'the largest ship which had ever entered Lyttelton Harbour'.

The first page of the journal bears the running title, 'Letters from all latitudes; being some account of a voyage from England to New Zealand, by Joseph M. Wheeler', commencing at Thursday afternoon, 26 May 1864.

Joseph Mort Wheeler died on 16 March 1910 in Sumner, aged seventy years, after a long life of public service to the Church and the Hillsborough and East Christchurch School Committees. He was a company secretary and accountant and was elected to the Sumner Town Board in March 1883, being re-elected the following year the top of the poll. In 1891 he was elected Sumner Borough's first Mayor and was primarily responsible for having the tram line extended to Sumner, a Christchurch beach resort on the south-eastern side of the entrance to the Avon-Heathcote Estuary.

This material has been digitised from the Archives and Manuscripts collection of Christchurch City Libraries.