Maiden Voyage of the Charlotte Jane 1848 - 1850 : Described by Miriam Lawrence and Captain Alexander Lawrence

This book contains a memoir written by Miriam Lawrence describing the extraordinary voyage she made in 1848-50 aged 20. She had accompanied her husband Captain Alexander Lawrence on the maiden voyage of the Charlotte Jane, a wooden 3 mast merchant sailing ship.

They set sail with their baby daughter, a teenage nursemaid, a surgeon and 264 emigrants for Sydney, Australia. They then sailed to Hong Kong, Singapore, Bombay, Whampoa (Canton) returning via Cape Town to London.

Besides the memoir, there are extracts from her husband's logbook and letters to and from Miriam's parents. There are also maps showing each stage of the voyage, illustrations of the ship from the Canterbury Museum Christchurch, New Zealand, and contemporary pictures of the places visited.

Miriam's writing provides an evocative account of what it had been like for a young woman to take part in such an adventure; one which many British merchant seamen were undertaking at that date: circumnavigating the world.

The Charlotte Jane was built in Bristol by William Patterson.