
Fritz Reuter
Built in 1865 in Liverpool shipyard,
Departed Hamburg 12 April 1876,
Arrived Wellington 4 August 1876.
As the fritz reuter negotiated the seas between Hamburg and Wellington in 1876, its Polish passengers had no idea they were as unwanted in New Zealand as they had been in Prussian-occupied Poland. More than 260 Poles made up half the 515 “souls” aboard, the largest number of Poles who had arrived in the colony at any one time. Scandinavians, Germans and Italians made up the balance. Immigration officials would typically have counted the fritz reuter passengers as 422 “statute adults” but immigration officials did not count them. These “foreigners” had arrived apparently against the express order of the colonial government, a government that a few months earlier bluntly stopped “foreign” immigration... The fritz reuter passengers disembarked on 9 August, still under the cloud of their lack of immigration status. Because of this, immigration officials were under no obligation to inspect the vessel, report on its condition, receive a surgeon-superintendent’s report, or ask for a copy of the captain’s log, which would have noted births and deaths. An unconfirmed 11 deaths included four children and six babies, making it difficult to marry the names of those who embarked in Hamburg with those who disembarked in Wellington. Source: Barbara Scrivens (February 2018) The Human By-Catch in a Colonial Immigration Industry [abridged] https://polishhistorynewzealand.org/fritz-reuter/