Ancestry Inquiry

Introduction,

In 1850, Henry Salmons emigrated from Cambridgeshire England to New Zealand. He was a part of one of the first waves of migration from the UK to New Zealand. They left the country because of the outrageous amount of crime and rapid population growth. My ancestor chose New Zealand because of the many opportunities that it offered. This inquiry looks at the push and pull factors that influenced my ancestor and many others to leave their homes and move to the small island nation at the bottom of the South Pacific.

Push Factor 1,

One of the push factors that I believe Henry left England in 1850 because of is the weather. As shown in the graph below, the rain in England is severely less than in New Zealand. This can be bad. It can be because, with little water, there is not much to drink, the soil will dry and when the rain comes, the soil can’t let much water in because it is dry and so floods form and crops die from drowning or drought.

Push Factor 2,

As well as the weather, England had a serious problem with overpopulation because of people coming in from around the globe to try and find a better place to live and this caused a whole bunch of havoc because there were too many people coming in at once, places started to get overcrowded and became a very unsanitary environment if you were in a house with others. And overcrowding also led to fewer jobs which meant fewer people with jobs which also meant the crime rate in the area went up by a long shot.

Discussion of Push Factors,

I think that overpopulation and the crime rate were a big factor in my ancestor leaving his homeland to travel to New Zealand, -which was still a brand new country at the time.-

Pull Factor 1,

In 1850, New Zealand wasn't populated much. Because at that time the British Empire had only started populating New Zealand for nine years. When Henry first moved to New Zealand there were only 22,000 British immigrants in the country, whereas there were 65,000 Māori people. New Zealand was much more spacious than the overcrowded Cambridgeshire and had much cheaper land.

Pull Factor 2,

Due to New Zealand being a very new and fresh country, there were loads of job opportunities 172 years ago. E.g. Farming was a very common job in NZ in 1850, and it still is now, lumbering was also quite an important job back then because they needed materials for houses and buildings in their towns, fishing was important as well because in 1850 there weren't many farms set up yet, the building also an extremely important job because they were the people who knew how to make the buildings with the lumber, dairy farming was used in cooking and there were tons of business opportunities for him too!

Discussion of Pull Factors,

I think that with the very small amount of jobs in England at the time that this could very well be quite a big reason to come here to NZ. New Zealand also is much less populated than Cambridgeshire where there could be up to 5 families in one small apartment alone. So moving to NZ for much more spacious living conditions is definitely worth the move in my opinion alone.

Conclusion,

In conclusion, I think that Henry -my ancestor- moving to New Zealand was for the best, for him and for all of us that came after him.

Henry Salmons: died. 1913

Henry married Rebecca Cave in England in 1850 in Cambridgeshire. They migrated to New Zealand on the ship Ann Wilson. Rebecca died on the journey, they had one son, James -where he was born I do not know. Sarah Fields and her husband were also on board, he died on the journey, and after arriving in Wellington on March 30th, 1857, they married in Wellington on June 24th. Sarah also had a son, his name was George. Apparently, for some unknown reason, Henry’s son James took the name Field - Sarah’s last name.

Source: (Salmons Records), made in 1996. [Salmons.FTW]