120 years apart...

In 1850, my great great grandparents, Robert and Margaret Wilson, left Ireland during the potato famine. They travelled on the Charlotte Jane, one of 4 pioneering ships which went from Plymouth to Christchurch, New Zealand, as part of colonising mission. Robert was a carpenter, and the Wilsons travelled under the patronage of the reasonably wealthy Ward family from Ireland, who sent 3 of their sons (aged about 16, 19 and 22) on the same ship, to help found the new colony in NZ. Their experiences of the journey and the early days of the new settlement are captured in a book called, ‘The Journal of Edward Ward’. The 2 elder Ward sons drowned in Lyttleton harbour in a tragic boating accident shortly after arriving; the youngest son, Hamilton Ward, who was then aged about 17, stayed for a while before returning to Ireland. The Wilsons stayed in New Zealand, until my grandfather came back to London in 1930 with my father, then aged 4. There appears to be no further contact between the families. Fast forward to 1969. My parents, Brian and Ruth Wilson, moved from Cheshire to Banstead in Surrey, buying a 4-bedroom detached house in Higher Drive. When talking over the garden fence to their immediate neighbours who had lived there for some time (John and Peggy Ward) and sharing some family history, it transpired that the great grandson of Robert Wilson was now living in the very next house to the grandson of Hamilton Ward, whose family had been their employers some 120 years before. Tim Wilson, 17 Jan 2012.