The Antipodes
On this page is information on a couple of Theakers who made the trip to the other side of the world. As far as I know they are not related to any of the current Theaker researchers.
Thomas Theaker, a single man and a labourer, sailed on the Regina, 676 tons, under command of Captain Thornton. Regina sailed from London on 2nd September and arrived at Lyttelton on 4th December 1859 with 283 passengers.
The following passage in reproduced here by kind permission. I would suggest you visit this site http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~nzbound/nzbound/regina.htm
as this is the source of the info and his page names all the passengers - this may be useful - he may have met his life partner on the trip!
"The Lyttelton Times"
Wednesday, December 7, 1859Our old friend the Regina, captain H.B. Thornton, returned to this port on Sunday morning, after an eight months absence, going home with a full cargo of wool in 86 days, and returning with a full complement of immigrants and cargo in 93 days, from port to port or 84 days from land to land. She left Gravesend on the 2nd September, and therefore on her arrival gave us a fortnight's later news than we had previously received; but the regular mail coming in on Monday superseded her intelligence. The Regina had a fair and favourable passage throughout; fell in with an iceberg a little eastward of the Cape; ran down her longitude in 48º and 49º and on the 17th November, in 97º E. spoke the Burmah, which sailed four days before her. The Burmah had carried away her foreyard. The Regina made the Snares on the 2nd inst. and lost no time coming up the coast. She carried 290 passengers, whom she has brought out in capital health and spirits; and the ship herself is a model of cleanliness. All the passengers were landed Monday.
The author of the above was kind enough to search other passenger sites relating to NZ and came up with only one other:
Sailing on the Maraval, 1257 tons, with Captain Ramsey commanding, was Sarah Theaker,23, a housemaid from Staffordshire. The ship carried 328 migrants. The Maraval sailed from London October 1878 and arrived in Auckland January 1879. As above I suggest a visit to the source page:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ourstuff/Maraval1879.htm