Lounge on the Captain Cook immigrant ship

Lounge on the Captain Cook immigrant ship

The corridor lounge on the port side of the Captain Cook. 

The Captain Cook brought assisted immigrants to New Zealand via the Panama Canal from 1952 to 1960.  See Wikipedia entry and community contributions below for more information.

Community contributions

166 comments have been posted about Lounge on the Captain Cook immigrant ship

What do you know?

Marilyn Tapply

Posted: 11 Feb 2024

My name is Marilyn and I have already sent a message to Colin Prescott - so hello again and all who sailed on TSS Captain Cook in 1959. I have just found the shipping records and whilst the ship was in Glasgow on 21 September 1959 it didnt sail until 24 September. there were 1051 passengers aboard and a lot of baggage as people trasvelled with huge Cabin Trunks. I would be interested to find the actual date we arrived in Wellington. I know it sailed out again on 5 November, so assume it was shortly prior to that. If anyone was on that last voyage or has information and is interested I can be contacted by email on [email protected]

Marilyn Tapply

Posted: 11 Feb 2024

To Colin Prescott I too travelled on tss captain cook in September 1959 with my patents mark and Marjorie Tapply and my brother Ronald. I was 11 at the tube and my brother was 9. Like you my parents are dead and I don't have much recall. On the ship I remember my mum got very ill as dysentery went around. We all took part in the fancy dress, I was a Hawaian hula girl, my brother dressed as a local yokel farmer and my mum wore a torn nightdress, hair all disheveled with a sign saying "wrong cabin" (because it was knowledge all round the ship that a drunk man came into our cabin by mistake and wouldn't leave and ended up being arrested and put in the brig.). I remember the food was awful "pot au feu" soup was like dish water. Cruising the equator was great fun we had a huge ceremony and all git a certificate. They're was a"miss Caotain Cook* contest. We settled in Auckland and had a house built in a brand new area called Pakuranga which is now huge and built up. All my family stayed in NZ and my brother is still there. I came back to uk in 1969. I busted Nz nearly every year of my life until my mother died in2016.

Colin Prescott

Posted: 03 Aug 2023

Hi my parents Keith and Vera Prescott with my sister Marilynne and I emigrated on the TSS Captain Cook on 11 September 1959 sailing from Glasgow to Wellington, New Zealand. I have checked this date with various records and am 100% sure it is correct so some of the other posts on this site may be wrong as regards dates? I am trying to compile an album of what happened during the years 1959 to 1962. We returned on 13 January 1962 from Auckland to England aboard the Fairsea. Mum and Dad have now died and I stupidly never got them to write down their memories so Marilynne and I are attempting to do that. Any information about the TSS Captain Cook or the Fairsea would be gratefully received.

Tim

Posted: 20 Apr 2023

SUE HENSHAW 7th October 1958 from Glasgow:
I travelled on the Captain Cook with my family. Me a 1 year old, my brother Richard turned 3 on the way. My Parents June and Raymond Henshaw.
We arrived in Wellington on 14 Nov 1958. We travelled by overnight train to Auckland. West Auckland was home to us for the next 18 years. We are now spread all over New Zealand, parents still alive at 90 & 89.
Does anyone know what date we left Glasgow?

Neil Butlet

Posted: 02 Feb 2023

My father John Patrick Butler passed away January 27th 2023

Going through his paperwork I found out he travelled from U.K. to wellington on the Captain Cook August 1956

He returned to U.K. on the Southern Cross July 1958 to marry my mother ( her father would not allow her to join him in New Zealand

ROSEMARY SHAW (nee Houston)

Posted: 04 Jan 2023

My parents, brother and myself, came on Captain Cook Glasgow to Wellington 1957, I loved it, the library was the best, I was always sitting in the chairs, the fancy dress, I was Queen of Hearts, and the lifeboat drills, my poor Mum a chronic asthmatic, trying to get the life vest on, (nothing like todays life jackets). Then going over the equator, we all got dunked in the pool, some man, long beard, he had a sceptre in his hand, we arrived in Wellington, dead of night, got on this rickity old bus, which went for miles in the dark, we were to live in the transit camp in Matamata, a real eye opener for my parents, Now nearly 70 years watching sports from the cake tin or westpac stadium, there is mostly a cruise ship and the men are on the top deck watching the game, I love seeing Wellington Harbour, hey from 4 to 54, my life was beginning Now living in Aus, but hey I am a Kiwi, loud and proud

Fay Graham

Posted: 14 Dec 2022

My uncle, Alastair Wilson sailed from Glasgow to Wellington on "Captain Cook" aged 23 in 1958. Tragically, he was killed there in 1965 aged 30. Wondering if anyone knew him? He stayed at the Immigration hostel in Trentham, Lower Hutt

Diane Cox

Posted: 14 Dec 2022

Hi KC Holland
I am Diane Cox unfortunately Brian Cox is not my uncle.
It was only my parents and myself that emigrated from England.
Also, I cannot locate Brian in my family tree.
Diane

KC Holland

Posted: 30 Nov 2022

Diane Cox who travelled with her father Roy and Mother Doris Minnie, I believe is the neice of Brian Cox who travelled on that day. We are trying to find members of that family, as the experience must have been very inspiring for Brian who became a boating person, and was an flight engineer. Love to be able to find Diane.

Lesley Craig

Posted: 11 Sep 2022

I just posted a comment re my parents on the ship in 1954. But I wonder if anyone who signed the Certificate of crossing the Equator’ is still alive, or a relative?
Signature are: George Hayworth, Jim McDonald , John Parmee, Al Osman, Joan Harrington, Alfred Keller, F Stilwell, Patricia Moir, Thomas George Brown, John Williams, Patricia Murphy, Aly Ben Hamid, J G Jones, D Buckland, Charles Williams, Jack Mather, xx Humphrey, Carrio Stayes

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