My great-great-grandfather, James Schrader, was born in 1834 to Francis and Esther in Bermondsey, a congested slum beside the Thames. The area was known for its tanning and leather industries (Francis was a leather dresser), and much of London's food was unloaded at its bustling docks. James would have grown up within sight of the heaving merchant ships, from all ends of the earth, cutting through the river to and from the world's metropolis. He trained as a bookkeeper and in 1854 married Liverpudlian Mary Jane Povah. A son, Francis, was born in Liverpool in 1855, but two years later Mary Jane died. She was only 19. Perhaps suffering from a broken heart, in 1862 James left his son with Mary Jane's parents and went to London, where he boarded the ship Bombay for a new start in New Zealand. After landing in Dunedin, he found work as a post office clerk and became a member of the volunteer fire brigade. By 1868 he had moved to Christchurch, where he continued as a clerk and joined the Canterbury Rifle Volunteers. In 1870, aged 36, he married fellow Londoner Emily Paddy, aged 16, who was heavily pregnant with my great-grandfather, William.
The new family shifted to Wellington where James again worked a a post office clerk and Emily taught students the piano. For unknown reasons James became indebted, and in 1874 he filed for bankruptcy. He was discharged a few months later and the family returned to Christchurch, settling in working-class Sydenham, where James set himself up as an accountant. If he saw this as a step towards middle-class respectability, it was somewhat undone by convictions for public drunkenness and using obscene language. Whether drink was the cause or result of James's troubles is uncertain. He became an alcoholic and died from liver disease in 1883.
This made Emily a widow at age 29, but she soon remarried. Her son William, after attending Christchurch West School, trained as a tailor - fittingly, Schrader means tailor in German. In 1896, he married Elizabeth White and the couple set up home in Sydenham too. Elizabeth bore five children, two of whom died as infants. My grandfather, Clarence, was born in 1900. By this time, William was a signalman at Christchurch railway station and Elizabeth, a full-time mother and housewife. In 1909 the family moved to Timaru, where Clarence attended Timaru Boys' High School before landing a job as a clerk and meeting my grandmother, Mary Jenkins.
Source: The Big Smoke: New Zealand Cities, 1840-1920 Pages vii-viii By Ben Schrader