“It is ill-suited for any but the young, strong and active. I could make you cry with the recital of the various shifts and difficulties that colonists have to encounter”.
Georgiana Bowen (1810 – ? ) ~ 12th March 1851
Georgiana arrived in Canterbury with her husband, her children, Charles, Croisdale, Letitia and her sister-in-law Anne on board the ‘Charlotte Jane’.
Pictured sitting on the left is her son, Charles Christopher Bowen at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the arrival of the First Four Ships at Riccarton in December 1900. Behind him stands his wife Georgina, beside him is Jane Deans, to her left, her son John Deans II and to his left, William Rolleston, Canterbury’s last Superintendent.
To the left of Georgina stands John Anderson whom some of you may have read about in the article ‘Cantabs of Steel’ and to her right is James Hay, whose family traveled to Canterbury with the Deans, Gebbies, Mansons and Sinclairs in 1843 from Wellington. The Hays settled in Pigeon Bay.
