Link With the Past

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 149, 25 June 1937, Page 7

Link With the Past

ARRIVAL OF FIRST STEAMER IN NEW ZEALAND Sunday was the sixty-third anniversary of the arrival at Lyttelton of the Atrato, the first steamer to make the trip from England to New Zealand. She called at Port Chalmers, and left there on June IS, 1874, arriving at Lyttelton on June 20. Tho voyage occupied about six months, owing to a breakdown in the engine near the Cape of Good Hope, after which the vessel put back to Plymouth, under sail, for repairs. F. Nicholls, No. 5 Keeling street, Palmerstpn North, was a passenger on this 6teamer, and he states that he does not know if any other passengers who made that trip in the Atrato are still alive. Mr. Nicholls is now 80 years and four months of age, so that ho was only a youth when he arrived in New Zealand. Speaking of the mishap to the Atrato, Mr. Nicholls stated tho breakdown occurred 600 miles south of Madeira and that the steamer put back to Plymouth to undergo repairs. He was not on the Atrato when she broke down, but that he took the place of oue of the passengers, several of whom decided, when they got back to England, not to again leave for New Zealand on the Atrato. The Atrato took 59 days from Plymouth to Port Chalmers, including five days’ coaling at Table Bay. Some of the passengers left the steamer at Port Chalmers but Mr. Nicholls, with others, went on to Lyttelton, where they disembarked Incidentally, Mr. Chalmers was on the Wairarapa when she was wrecked on the Great Barrier in 1894.