What lured people to New Zealand?
Select default video size
Use the tabs on the right, to select a default video size.
You preference will be saved for future videos, but can easily be changed at any time using the tabs.
Transcript
- Interviewer
-
Jock what brought these migrants to New Zealand?
- Jock
-
A lot of them were agricultural peasants, you know they were people who lived on the land and basically had a very small…area of land in which to work. Particularly in the 1840s and in the 1850s and in the 19th century, there was a big growth in population, so more and more of these people basically, you know, had a pretty tough life, and particularly in Ireland of course, there was a major potato famine. And the other thing that happened is, to get to New Zealand, it took about 100 to 150 days on a pretty unpleasant boat. So it wasn’t a very attractive option and so a lot of times either the New Zealand provinces or the New Zealand government actually paid for people to come to New Zealand. They actually went out and they had people who went out and recruited immigrants. They had big what we call sandwich boards, where they would walk round with advertisements advertising New Zealand and attract people to New Zealand.