Blue Jacket Drive in the suburb of Halswell, Christchurch

Blue Jacket Drive in Halswell and the street is too new to be on the library website but found information on the council website. From the council website. Blue Jacket Drive – The name of the ship Ellen O’Driscoll (Conailus wife) arrived in Canterbury on. Road names have been requested by Alan Ye for roads at the Cloverden subdivision on the corner of Halswell Junction Road and Murphys Road. The road names have been chosen in accordance with the theme of a historic connection to the Murphy family who landed in New Zealand in 1866 and farmed the property until recently. When I walked the street on Wednesday many of the houses on this street were having open days as most of the houses are still for sale. Interesting that they give Ellen’s surname as O’Driscoll as the shipping records have her surname as Driscoll. Ellen was 27 years old when she came out to New Zealand with her sister Hannah Driscoll. Hannah was aged 18. Both were domestic servants. The ship left Gravesend on 14th July 1866 and arrived at Lyttelton on 14th October 1866. The Blue Jacket was lost in March 1869 when the cargo of flax caught fire. The ship was off the Falkland Islands and 9 survivors were rescued and they managed to save the gold that was on board. The figurehead from the ship was found 21 months later washed ashore on Rottnest Island near Freemantle. That was a distance of 6000 miles / 9700 km from where the ship was lost.