James Caradus

James Caradus was born in Scotland in 1823. His mother Jane Grierson was born in Dumfriesshire in 1800 and died in the Glasgow Poor House in 1861, aged 60.

It is noted that the spelling of "Caradus" in official records relating to Jane, vary from CARADUS to CARRADUS. It is also advised that the name on the trunk James brought to NZ, clearly had the spelling as CARRADUS. James could nether read nor write when he came to NZ and probably made a mistake with the spelling of the name.

His father Thomas was an 'English Labourer' who died about 1836. Nothing else is known about him. A Thomas Carradus was born in 1793, just over the border from Dumfriesshire, in Borrowdale, Cumberland England, to a Thomas and Mary Carradus. There is no evidence to date to show that these people were James's grandparents, but his brother and sister were named Thomas and Mary.

After the death of Thomas, the family obviously fell on hard times and this was the motivation for James and sister Mary Ann seeking to start a new life in New Zealand.

Due to the high unemployment in Scotland, the Commissioner of Emigration was sent from London to recruit two shiploads of families, destined for the new capital of New Zealand, Auckland. He chose family groups and people with trades who might benefit the new capital. James Caradus on the Duchess of Argyle, was a young man of 18 and his future wife, Elizabeth Russell on the Jane Gifford, was a girl of 10 travelling with her parents and two younger brothers.

The two vessels had sailed from Greenock, in mid-June 1842, over a week apart, and arrived together in Auckland on 9th October 1842, after a long arduous voyage of 3½-4 months. The Duchess of Argyle was only 40 metres long and a mere 667 tons. There were 305 men, women and children on board, in cramped conditions. The Jane Gifford was even smaller, 488 tons with 280 persons aboard.

James and Elizabeth were married on 10th October 1848 (the 6th anniversary of their landing in Auckland), when he was 25 and she only 16 and they established a home in Robinson St in the Village of Parnell. James worked as a rope-maker in Mechanics Bay. They had 15 children, of whom seven died in infancy, as was not uncommon in those days. However, they both lived long rewarding lives, he to the age of 83 and she to 80, which was remarkable for that period.

James became an expert rope-maker and in 1850 and started his own ‘Ropewalk’ in Hobson St, making a wide variety of twines and ropes from dressed New Zealand flax. He exhibited several specimens of his work at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 and received a medal and an honourable mention. His name appears in the Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa) at the top of a glass panel featuring enlargements of pages from the catalogue. The item lists the six specimens of twine he exhibited.

Eventually, it became so difficult to obtain supplies of dressed flax from the Maoris that he gave up the ropemaking trade. After unsuccessfully seeking work as a carpenter, he went to the goldfields in Otago, Ballarat in Australia and Thames, without luck. While he was away, Elizabeth ran a small shop he had built on the front of their house in Napier St, Freemans Bay. The shop stayed in the family until 1910. Unfortunately it was pulled down in 1969, when the Southern Motorway was extended to meet up with the Auckland harbour bridge.

In later years, James and Elizabeth achieved a more settled existence renting out small cottages he built in the Freemans Bay area. They shared a common interest in temperance and social work, and the poor area they lived in afforded many opportunities. They attended the Pitt Street Wesleyan Church and ran the Freemans Bay Mission in Union Street for many years.

They are both buried in the Wesleyan section of the Symonds Street Cemetery, Auckland.

Courage and Perseverance: the Russell--Caradus Story. Ailsa Caradus, Auckland.