Layout Prompt: Journey

This weeks Layout prompt for our family history chats at DSP was journey. Ive already done one journey layout this week but decided to do another.

This layout features the journey of the Middlebrook family aboard the Shalimar in 1862 .

It sounds like a much more prestigious vessel than ships that some of my other ancestors came out on and I love the description which is taken from The Shipping gazette and Sydney general trade list. Volume 12, Number 560 (29 January, 1855) Page 28

 

Journalling on this layout reads as follows

he Arrival of the Shalimar
The White Star Ship “Shalimar, JG Harley Lieut. RNR Commander arrived in harbour on Friday night 19 December 1862, eleven days out from Melbourne having sailed from Liverpool for this port via Melbourne on the 25th August . Arrived of Port Phillip Heads November 12 70 days out. . The Shalimar brings 112 passengers from Liverpool for this port.

Among the passengers were John and Ellen Middlebrook and 6 of their children,all who made successful lives in New Zealand and Australia amongst the early settlers. The family bought land in Matakohe and Whangarei before moving to Auckland. John died in 1866 leaving Ellen a widow until her death over 50 years later. She is a handsome looking vessel—always a recommendation—neatly rigged, her bow ornamented with a well executed female figure, and her stern enriched with a tasteful design in giltwork. Her arrangements on deck comprise a topgallant forecastle for the crew, a large, well-built house amidships, and a full poop aft with a commodious structure built on that, which includes the chief cabin entrance, and a very comfortable smoking room, with stained glass windows. She has plenty of deck-room for passengers to promenade, and her high bulwarks will shelter them in heavy weather. The appearance of the deck arrangements is very compact and tasteful for the houses are finished in an ornamental style, and painted blue and white. The chief cabin in an elegant apartment upholstered in dark polished woods, mahogany, rosewood and walnut, with a rich head-work of satinwood marking the panels. In the cornice-decorations the "white star" is conspicuous on a red ground. There are berths for a dozen passengers, with baths and every other sanitary comfort attached. Although the first impression which strikes us is its limited size, a more close examination shows that a much more than usual space is bestowed upon the state-rooms and berths.
The forward part of the poop is fitted to accomodate thirty second-cabin passengers, and twenty of the same class are located in the house amidships. In these apartments the improved plan is adopted of making the meal-rooms apart by themselves, and placing the state-rooms, with their sleeping berths, along corridors attached ; and the cabins are, by the aid of numerous windows and spacious skylights, cushioned seats, convenient tables and rich paperhangings of chaste and tasteful designs, rendered as light and airy, and agreeable as could be desired. In the deck-house are more bathrooms and the whole forward part of it is occupied with a large "kitchen," divided into two cooking galleys, one for the passengers, the other for the crew. It is fitted in berths of two, with a large family berth on each side of the centre division. In the aft and forward ends of the deck-house, and in front of the poop, are covered companion-ways, leading to the 'tween decks below, which have a height of eight feet in the clear. Here, as in every other part of the ship, the cabins are well finished, and unusually spacious, and light is secured by means of large ventilating shafts, skylights, deck lights, and other appliances. The midship portion is appropriated to first-class passengers in berths of two, arranged on each side of a passage way, and the fore and after ends to intermediate passengers. The general arrangement is on the ordinary plan, with the state room ranged along either side of the vessel ; but there is observable a useful novelty in the intermediate portion of the ship, which consists in several of the state-rooms being fitted with berths for eight or ten people, made on the telescope principle, so as to slide quite out of the way, and give great room in the apartments when not required for sleeping purposes.