Intro
On the 18th, November, 1852 my great great great grandfather ( William Wheatly ) was born. Sometime later he met my great great great grandmother ( Harriet Piper ), together then had seven children. Unfortunately three of the seven children died of unknown causes. A couple of years after the death of their children, they decided to move to a new country called New Zealand. So on the 9th of June 1910 the Wheatly family plus Will's wife, Whitworth Minnie Alice, and their daughter Irene Gladys desendied for New Zealand on the Rimutaka. It took them around 70 day to arrive in New Zealand, and when they did arrive they first landed in Wellington 18th of August 1910. After that, they went to West Port, sometime later they moved to Northcote Auckland where Harriet eventually died on the 24 February 1918.
biography
Name: William Wheatley
Born: 18th of November 1852, in England
Died: 14th of October 1941
Married: 17th of April 1878, to Harriet Piper
Job: Engineer
Children: had seven children
1st child: Lillian, born 19/02/1879, died 8/02/1888
2ed child: William ( Wills ), born 8/11/1880, died 12/12/1962
3ed child: Ernest Albert, born 06/09/1882, died 15/02/1886
4th child: Violet, born 21/06/1885, died 26/07/1886
5th child: Edith Muriel born, 20/05/1887,died 05/09/1968
6th child: Daisy Harriet Mary, born 30/05/1889, died 07/50/1891
7th child: Lydia Ann (Lil), born 16/07/1894, died 05/06/1975
push factor 1
There were a couple of reasons as to why they might have left London, But I think one of the major reasons is because in the 1900s the city of London was disgusting. In an article I read it said that the streets were covered in mud but in another book I reviewed it said that it wasn't mud, it was house dung. The Thames river was full of sewage water, and that there was sooty fog in the air or smoke. I don’t know about you, but if I was in those conditions I would want to live there. And I don’t think they would either.
push factor 2
London in the early 1900s was overpopulated, in fact in 1910 the year the Wheatly family moved the population of London was over seven million. In one city. That's more than all of New Zealand now. With that many people in a single city you'd think that would cause a lot of problems like, Pollution, homelessness, or that there aren't enough jobs so you can see why you’d want to leave. A new place that was full of green and not many people would be like paradise to someone that was in a city that was obviously not doing so good.
Discussion of push factors
So right now we have a family that is in a city that was polluted that had been overpopulated and there mustn’t have been many jobs, but I don't know how many engineers there must have been but I would say there were a few. There were a couple of reasons as to why they left. So quick recap, William Wheatly and his family have left London on the Rimutaka for a better life. ( Little fun fact that on the passenger list of people on the boat to New Zealand Willam’s profession was a farmer even though he was an engineer).
pull factor 1
Now you're probably thinking to yourself why 70 day to go to NZ when there are places like the USA or Spain or somewhere else in Europe, So I have gathered a few reasons as to why they decided to go to NZ and not those other places. One of the first things I should mention is that there weren’t that many people there yet, so put yourself in their possession, you can go to a place that has the same problems, lots of people, pollution, and maybe they don’t speak the same language as you. Or you can go to a place with almost no people, there are lots of people who speak the same language as you, there's no pollution and having a job as an engineer would get you a lot of money because there aren’t any others. That to me sounds like good living.
pull factor 2
Temperature. There is a big temperature difference between New Zealand and England. New Zealand is a lot sunnier and warmer, then England. The weather played a big part in the migration of the english to New Zealand. There is a saying in New Zealand “ you can experience all four seasons in one day “ although this is true it can be hot to cold in an instant New zealand's weather is warm most of the time. While in England when it's winter it stays cold. I compared the the average low temperature in the coldest months of the year, and there was 11ºc difference, thats a big difference
discussion of pull factors
I think that it was more the push factors then the pull factors that made them come to New Zealand. Yea there were a couple of good reasons to come to New Zealand, but really I think it was because of all of the problems that were happening over sea at that time. But they Obviously thought about where they were going to head, otherwise they would have gone to a country closer to them. It must have been a hard thing to do, leave the place you grow up in.
conclusion
In conclusion, there where a couple reasons I listed but I think the top to push factors was the fact that England was in a foul state was the most likely reason they left, and I think the most likely reason they came here was because of the excellent work opportunities, there was only around about 200,000 people in the country at the time of their arrival. I hope this report on William Wheatly has been a good use of your time.
bibliography
Works Cited
Philpotts, Trey. “Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth by Lee Jackson.” Dickens Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 2, 2016, pp. 153–156., doi:10.1353/dqt.2016.0023.
“Population and Migration.” An Economic History of London 1800-1914, 2001, pp. 51–64., doi:10.4324/9780203520116-9.