Sarah Mathew reads 'Nicholas Nickleby'
During March 1840 Sarah Louise Mathew travelled by ship from Sydney to join her husband Felton Mathew in the Bay of Islands. He was acting Surveyor-General in Governor William Hobson’s party of officials and had just witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in February. Sarah (1805?-1890) had emigrated to Australia to marry her first cousin Felton in 1832. Her diary, begun on the voyage to New Zealand on March 2nd 1840, is held in the Sir George Grey Special Collections ( NZMS 79 ). It is one of a number of interesting documents written by both Sarah and Felton in the early years of settlement, which Professor James Rutherford researched in England and negotiated to add to the Library’s collection in 1940. Sarah’s journal is full of sharp observation, interesting speculation and some shrewd opinions on the people and places that were so new to her. However, one of her comments in the diary has always intrigued me. This is her entry for March 7th 1840: “This day being a li...