By Rosemary Bailey
This article was originally published in April 2025 in Soul Search, the Journal of The Sole Society
I have recently had a holiday in New Zealand and Australia and spent time in some of the museums. As always I kept an eye out for anything Sole, Saul, Solly or Sewell (and variants) related and came across these snippets of information.
I took a photo of the first sign relating to Henry Sewell, a migrant from England, details of which I think I saw in Te Papa Tongarewa Museum, Wellington, New Zealand. I have transcribed it below followed by the photo.
‘Everything very strange.
I can hardly tell what my first impressions were.
I think the main idea was of newness and unfinishedness – everything appearing as if it was done yesterday in a great hurry.’
Henry Sewell, 1853, English migrant
Now that we have Carol Campbell in Australia, working with me on the journal I asked her if she could find anything on the NZ version of Ancestry which I don’t have access to. As yet we haven’t been able to identify Henry for sure, although Carol has found that the first Premier of New Zealand was a Henry Sewell who emigrated to New Zealand in 1853 so it may be him. Hopefully more in the next edition of the journal. Just to say they had an excellent exhibition on Gallipoli at the museum which we thoroughly enjoyed.
The second incidence of someone with a variant of our surname was at Melbourne’s Immigration Museum and refers to Robert Charles Searle who was s soldier in the Boer War.
She was able to tell me that the only Searle born in Albany in 1869 was a John Robert Searle who was the son of William and Mary (Gamble). He died in 1942 and is buried in the Karrakatta Cemetery, Perth. There is a memorial plaque there for him as an Indigenous person. You can see the image opposite, apologies for the quality.
Interestingly, I came across these photos at various times on my holiday. But I don’t take many photos at all and the images don’t have a location on them, so I really am not 100% sure where they were taken. A lesson going forward, although my holiday was seven weeks long!
