Couples and Travelling Companions

Aboard the Wimmera on her final voyage were several married couples plus others who were travelling in company with one other family member or friends. These included:

The Tuckers

Button Girl
Postcard. Author’s Collection.

Herbert Carey Tucker O.B.E. and his wife, Christian, had arrived in Auckland from Vancouver less than two weeks earlier aboard the Union Line’s R.M.S. Niagara. Herbert Tucker was an indentor and importer, operating from Commerce House in Flinders Street, Melbourne.

He had received his Order of the British Empire the previous year in recognition of his patriotic work for war funds, specifically the Commonwealth Button Fund, which had raised £500,000.

Tucker’s interest in an automatic tube patent had prompted him to arrange a visit four months earlier to the United States in order to arrange for the supply of steel tubes.

Their voyage home to Melbourne was briefly broken in New Zealand so that he could visit his sister, Mrs Cantley, of Kowhai Street, Kingsland (in Auckland).

The Peters

George and Grace Peter, of Waihi.

Jones & Raines

MR. SYDNEY JONES. A popular vaudeville performer on the Fuller circuit, who, with his wife, was amongst the surviving passengers. From sketch by Mr. Brodie Mack.
Free Lance, Volume XVII, Issue 938, 4 July 1918, Page 10

Sydney Jones and his wife Agnes Raines were a theatrical couple who had been performing in Australia and New Zealand for about three years. They had been engaged at the Auckland Opera House for the Fuller Company when, only the previous day, it was decided upon by the management, to sent them to Australia to support one of the Fuller’s Australian companies.

“At present there are no less than 16 complete Fuller companies playing in Australia and New Zealand, including six dramatic and one comic opera enterprise. Large picture interests are also held by the firm, and their vaudeville acts are working in conjunction with shows playing from Charters Towers, in Queensland, to Invercargill, in New Zealand.”

The Auckland Star, Saturday, July 6, 1918

As entertainers and pianists one local newspaper review applauded their “non-stop comedy act” and described Jones as “at his best in his imitation of an English music-hall comedian in the humorous song, “Ha, ha! He, he!” They were also “singers of good rag-time songs.”