Red Jacket

1862 September 25th Liverpool, Red Jacket. Arriving Melbourne 23rd December 1862. My Paisley Renfrewshire Scottish bred Gr Grandmother Mary McMaster aged 11 and her brother James aged 9 - orphans - were sent to Melbourne to live with their maternal grand mother and an aunt and uncle they had never met. On the passenger list they are with a 65 year old Samuel Mc Culloch and a 4 year old Thomas Smith - none of whom are related to each other. Samuel also had 5 sons and a daughter in law on the list They are unassisted passengers and I would like to know what was the process of sending young children overseas without a family/ friend to care for them. Did they need passports? where would they have got them from ? How would they have travelled from Glasgow to Liverpool. What was life like on board the Red Jacket for a child? So many question and so few answers or place to seek information.

My great great grandfather George Carey Parker (1831 - 1906) took a business & family trip from September 1864 to May 1865 from his home in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, to Australia, to the colonies of Victoria & New South Wales. He kept a diary. The outward voyage was on the Red Jacket, which left Liverpool on 22 Sep 1864, arriving Melbourne on 21 Dec 1864, so taking almost exactly 3 months. George was in the business of lace and wool, and he took samples around houses & businesses in Melbourne & Sydney. He did a brief family visit to his maternal cousins, surname Carey, in Maryborough, Victoria. George returned on the SS Great Britain.