What was it like to travel to Sydney from the UK in the
1920s?
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| Nanny's ticket to Australia |
One little scrap of paper in my father's memorabilia and a
couple of internet sites gives some insight
on this.
This is a ticket for my grandmother's travel to Sydney in 1926. She purchased
the third-class Orient Line ticket on the Ormond in April for £33.
Together with her future mother-in-law, Mary Ann, and future brother-in-laws,
Alfred and Frank, she was immigrating to Sydney and joining her fiancé, James
Kerr of Glasgow Scotland. He had moved there 12 months previously.
£33 buying power is £2,500 in 2025 100 years later and with inflation. I would imagine it was pretty difficult for
most people to afford the fare.
Not much was known about her background. Details of her mother,
Mary McLaughlin have only just been discovered. She was known by her family to
be an only child but as it turns out, she had an illegitimate Strelley half-sister and two half
brothers. She went by the name Strelley and spent time with her father at his
gym, even though it turns out she was illegitimate. She worked firstly for
Saltcoasts Mission Biscuits and then for
McFarlane Lang Biscuit Company as an ovens woman and lived with a relative of
Macfarlane family in 1921 census. She earned extra money working at fight night
events for the Strelley gym. She was able to buy her £33 ticket to Australia
without anyone's help.
They applied for their passports and the four prepared for their journey to
Sydney. They were travelling to London before departure, on the 29th of May,
1925, staying with Joe Valli's wife (vaudeville fame) prior to the journey.
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| RMS Ormonde |
The Ormond was previously a World War I 14,853 tonnes
ship, now converted to a three-class passenger liner. This oil-burning steamer
ran a regular service from Tilbury, London, to Australia until 1952. Its
regular route went from Tilbury, London, via Gibraltar, Toulon, Naples, Port
Said, Suez, Aden, Colombo, Fremantle, Adelaide, Melbourne, Burnie, Sydney and
Brisbane. It was known as the RMS due to its extra role as a Royal Mail Ship.
It carried post-war immigrants keen to make a new home in Australia. Generally,
it had around 278 first-class, 196 second-class and 1,017 third-class
passengers as it plied its way back and forward several times a year.
The ticket reveals what the third-class passenger would expect for their money.
Firstly, each ticket was for either a six, eight or 10 berth cabin. It was guaranteed
to carry four quarts of water per passenger per day. Presumably, this was
provided for bathing and toilets as well as quality drinking water. Bedding,
cabin and table requirements were provided by the ship.
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| What to look forward to..... |
The ticket lists the weekly provisions supplied to each
adult. These were dictated by the Board of Trade and Ministry Scale. This
included
2lb 4ozs of pork, 1lb of preserved meat and 2lb 8ozs of
bread or biscuits. Also listed was the required quantity of potatoes, raisins, butter, suet,
sugar, oats and flour etc.
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| Third Class Dining Room Deck F |
Meals were supplied in the
third-class dining rooms at the following times:
8am for breakfast
1pm for dinner
5pm for Tea
8pm for supper
Breakfast consisted of porridge with milk, sausage, Irish
stew, curried meat, rice, cold meat with bread, butter, jam, marmalade, tea and
coffee. Dinner or lunch was served with soup, fish or boiled meat, fresh
vegetables, stewed fruits, pudding, bread and butter and jam and marmalade.
Tea consisted of cold meats, pickles, salad, cakes or
scones, et cetera, plus bread and butter and jam, etcetera. Supper was bread
and butter, cheese and biscuits.
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| Dining Room Third Class Deck E |
Each passenger was permitted 15 cubic feet of luggage, carried
in trunks to the value of £10 unless insured for more. A 15 cubic feet is a
trunk of 14 inches (L) by 35 inches (W) by 17 inches (D).
Being so far from home on this lengthy trip oh how they would have marvelled at
the exotic sights along the way. Was the
trip an epic adventure expected of travellers today? Did they partake of the
sun and sea air? Between meals did they use the gym, enjoy dancing and partake of shipboard
sports such as tennis and shuffleboard.
A few stories from other relatives who made the long trip.
An earlier trip by the Kerrs travelling to New Zealand
resulted in a shipwreck. David Montgomery Yuill Kerr, Hannah Anderson Johnson, with
their children, James, Robert, May and David left Scotland to make a new life
in New Zealand in 1922. They originally left for N Z on the SS "Remuera"
on 20 July 1922. It appears to have had a collision with the SS " Marengo"
near Weymouth in the English Channel. The passengers were taken off the ship by
the SS "Victoria"
My Gadsby family travelled with great great grandmother
Selina and family Grace, Maude, Julia, Kitty, Selina, and young son William.
They met up with future friends the Thurlows, and a shipboard romance ensued.
They carried with them a well-thumbed copy of the “Girl's Own Annual” hundreds
of pages with stories of fashion, Australian lifestyles,
cooking and memories left behind. I've often imagined my relatives and their
exploits on the six-week trip with their experiences and new found friendships.
Later in the 1920s, my mother-in-law, Wynne travelled over as an eight-year-old
with her six-year-old sister, Patricia under the guidance of a stewardess. One
of her memories is of the residents of the Suez Canal welcoming them by lifting
their dresses. To their shock, they were wearing no underwear!
At port stops were
our relatives too scared to venture ashore at exotic and unfamiliar ports?
Perhaps they were offered shells, ivory carvings, exotic foods etcetera, by
the locals at docks on the way. Pieces of coral and ivory, amongst my
grandparents’ memorabilia makes me think they did gather some souvenirs on the way!
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| Carved Ivory |
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| Vintage Coral |
