Class and mobility in nineteenth century Wellington province: an exploratory study of immigrants arriving 1840-1880

Abstract

The role of class as an agent of social change in nineteenth century New Zealand has become an issue of considerable interest to historians in recent years. The debate has been argued more on the basis of speculation than evidence. A major concern of the research reported in this thesis was to provide evidence which would throw some light on the modes of occupational and class mobility of ordinary immigrants who came to Wellington Province between 1840 and 1880 and to compare the achievements of those who arrived in the first two decades with those in the latter two. To provide greater perspective, these men's mobility was evaluated in relation to their fathers and their sons. In order to measure mobility of any kind, it is first of all necessary to create a scale. For occupational mobility, the merits and demerits of utilizing one already in existence were considered and one modified to suit nineteenth century New Zealand conditions was chosen. The scale was also used to analyse changes in occupational structure covering a period during which the immigrants' sons had been coming into the labour force, a period of transition during which time the foundations of modern New Zealand were laid: it also provides a framework within which individuals moved up or down the occupational ladder. Occupational mobility by itself presents a very superficial idea of social movement since it takes no account of such important factors as ownership of the means of production, authority relations at work, fragmentation within the division of labour, life chances and life styles and, more generally, the relationships between groups or among members of groups. This thesis argues that all these factors are important in analysing 'class' and that New Zealand's social structure in the nineteenth century was essentially a fluid one. The class structure of Britain could not be transplanted direct to the colony for a variety of reasons, the most important being linked with the major mode of mobility - acquisition of land as a basis for family farming. An analysis of the relationship between occupation and land ownership had to be undertaken prior to the field work to establish the distribution of freeholding. This revealed evidence of the importance of land in the 1880s, both as a basis for market activities and as a speculative enterprise of people at all levels of society. Taken with the other major mode of proprietorship in other small concerns, the sorts of opportunities open to settlers lead to the conclusion that New Zealand's class structure as it was evolving towards the end of the nineteenth century contained a substantial middle class of small proprietors. At the same time, there was also another middle class grouping who were propertyless as far as their market place characteristics were concerned, an 'educated' middle class of officials and other white collar workers. Above them were an upper class propertied elite, below them a manual working class, by no means homogeneous in composition. The thesis is limited in scope to exploring the more economic aspects of class, but provides a framework in which research directed towards making the necessary transition from economic to social classes can be made. For this, much work requires to be done at a local community level. Despite the absence of Census Enumerators' Manuscripts and other records routinely used by the 'new' historians overseas, there are sources existing in New Zealand which have hardly been used, as well as established research techniques for making the best use of the data. In gathering data suited to the problem, a stretch of the 'methodological imagination' has been necessary. In this case the data on individual immigrant's demographic characteristics, occupational careers, social lives and details on their families was sought and gained through the cooperation of family historians and genealogists who are members of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists. A great deal of reliable material on the settlers and their families was procured in this manner and the method evaluated. Although this was no random sample, its respectability can be judged in terms of comparison with other published works. Finally, the debate on class was found to be linked with a more general problem in New Zealand historiography, that of two competing models, one following the Turnerian tradition and the other, the Hartzian. The conclusions bring together evidence which supports the usefulness of considering a theoretical synthesis for guiding the writing of New Zealand history which accords well with its actual course. The research conducted for this thesis was of an exploratory nature, concerned with formulating useful concepts, gaining insight and understanding. It does not claim to answer questions in any definitive way, but rather to suggest hypotheses and ask other, perhaps more pertinent questions.