Ancestry

The Wall Family

In 1863 Frederick Wall migrated from Ireland to New Zealand, with his 5 brothers and his mother. They were pushed by the large increase in living costs, and a scarcity of food because of the potato famines and raised taxes. After his Dad died in the police force, Fred and his brothers along with his mother decided to migrate to NZ. The sons had been offered jobs in New Zealand as policemen. but they were later to realize that instead of being policemen the English government wanted them to fight in the Maori land wars as soldiers.

Push factor 1: Potato famine

The first push factor that encouraged my ancestors to migrate was a crop disease that caused the potato famine. It killed most of the crops, especially potatoes. The failed crops also killed animals that were eaten as food such as cows, pigs and horses, this caused starvation and malnourishment. It inevitably caused 38% of Ireland's population to die of hunger and starvation, this made most people that survived want to migrate to more prosperous countries like New Zealand.

Push factor 2: Tax

The second push factor was the increase in taxes on food and land. After the potato famine, the government saw that food was getting harder to find, so they started taxing it. So the richer class of people would get enough food to survive. This was terrible for the poor class of people as they could not afford much food in the first place. So when they started taxing food the poor class could not afford any, when this happened it forced them to move to a different country or die of hunger. Most chose to move to another country. Combined with the potato famine this halved Ireland's population for a long period.

Discussion of push factors: The reason to leave

There were several reasons my ancestors chose to migrate to NZ, the main ones like the potato famines and taxes on food ended up killing my ancestor, William from disease and malnourishment. Which forced his wife to move out of Ireland or get married again. She did not want to marry again as she was still mourning the loss of her husband, so she boarded a ship with her 6 sons heading to New Zealand. The ship was called the Black Rose it travelled non stop for 8 weeks until it arrived on a warm autumn night in Auckland, New Zealand.

Pull factor 1: Free trip & land!

In the mid-1800s the English government that also ruled Ireland were giving away free trips to New Zealand only under one condition that you worked for them when you got there. If you did what they wanted you to do they gave you free land. Most men came to fight, but some did other things like grow food and build. But when the English government did not get enough men to fight. They tricked people into thinking that they were going to work in an honest job but they ended up going to fight for them. The English government did this so they could have full control of NZ, over the native Maori inhabitants

Pull factor 2: good jobs

When NZ was first discovered people were crowding onto ships so that they could

get there first so they would have no competition in their job. In just a few years most people were crowding back after they realized that the whole of NZ was dense bush and full of savage native tribes. So most left to seek their fortune else were. when the government saw this, they released a program to bring more people to NZ so they offered free trips to anyone under the age of 40 who wanted to come, this brought a lot more people back, in no time at all there was a large population of Europeans living in NZ.

Pull factor discussion :

These reasons to come to NZ were very good ones as my ancestors were later to find out that they had made a very good decision to come to NZ. It's got good well-paid jobs and plenty of land., NZ is the ideal place for future generations to come.

Conclusion:

In conclusion to my report, my ancestors migrated from Ireland because there was very little food to none and the taxes on produce grown were far too high to be reasonable, this killed a lot of people. It killed my ancestor William Wall so his wife and sons migrated on a free trip to NZ. They had made the right decision for them and future generations to come. Thanks for reading my year 9 report I learnt a lot by writing this.

Bibliography

http://www.glenside.org.nz/wall-family.html#:~:text=New%20Zealand%20in%201841%20%E2%80%93%20Looking,New%20Zealand%20Company's%20age%20restrictione

• Grandpa George Wall

• https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$chart-type=bubbles

• https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/irish-potato-famine