On 23 March 1848, the ship “John Wickliffe” arrived in Port Chalmers, carrying the first group of 97 settlers of the new city of Dunedin – including the Otago settlement’s founder William Cargill. She was followed three weeks later by another 200 settlers on the ship “Philip Laing.” Otago had a long history of settlement by Kāti Mamoe and Kāi Tahu before New Zealand was colonised from the 1840s onwards by British settlers. The New Zealand Company dominated the early colonisation of New Zealand, establishing settlements at Wellington, Nelson and Wanganui, and also being involved in the settlement of New Plymouth. In July 1843 the New Zealand Company set up an office in Scotland to attract Scottish migrants to a proposed settlement called “New Edinburgh” and a block around the harbour of about 400,000 acres was divided and balloted from 1844 onwards. The city’s name, Dunedin, is the Gaelic version of Edinburgh - Dùn Èideann. The first settlers left Gravesend in London in November 1847 on the “John Wickliffe”, taking a journey of 100 days. Onboard were members of the Free Church of Scotland, a hardy group of Presbyterians. The attached images show the original passenger list from the journey of the “John Wickliffe” with all 97 settlers – mainly families (including William Cargill and his wife and five children) and single men of the working classes. The passenger list is contained in a register of New Zealand Company emigrations. Dr Hocken, founder of the Hocken Library, examined New Zealand Company papers where they had been lodged at the Public Records Office in London, and recommended that all duplicate papers – of which this list is one – be transferred to New Zealand. They were placed in the custody of the Dominion Archive in stages between 1927 and 1930. This list is a unique record of the arrival of the settlers of one of our four main cities. Otago Anniversary Day is now celebrated on 23 March.