The Wesleyan Methodist chapel

I came across a new resource, the 1873 Returns of accommodation provided in Wesleyan Methodist Chapels, available at My Wesleyan Methodist Ancestors, that might be of interest to other UK one-place studiers. It was a nationwide survey and will tell you whether there was a chapel in your place and the number of seatings. Wing held 411, and I've added that snippet to my Methodists page.

The voyage of the Thetis 1848

It's finally happened - I have finally published a page about the voyage of the Thetis from London to Sydney in 1848, its precious cargo of 24 Wing emigrants and what became of them in Australia. Who gave birth on board? Who returned to Wing? Who was shot to death? Find out here.

As a side note, our Wing folk weren't the only precious things on board. The 17 Jun 1848 issue of the New Zealander includes the calamitous news that the Thetis was carrying English newspapers up to 8 February on board, but with "a most unpardonable disregard to the interests of the colonies to which they were consigned made away with the papers thus confided, handing them over to the passengers of homeward bound ships which they spoke somewhere about the equator. This is abominable, as Parliament was to reassemble on the 3rd, and but for this nefarious deprivation we might probably have learnt the issue of the second reading of the bill for our new constitution." Strong words indeed!