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Photographic Letter from Olga Monrad

Object type

Multi page

Description: Letter written by Olga Monrad (nee Berg) wife of Ditlev Monrad.
Written in Danish on the back of a set of photographs, the letter describes life on the farm at Karere between c.1860s and 1870s.

Reproduced here are the photographs, the handwritting on the back and a translation in order.

Ditlev Gothard Monrad (1811–1887) was a prominent figure in nineteenth-century Denmark: a bishop in the Lutheran church and a noted scholar and politician. He was prime minister of Denmark during the 1864 war against the German Confederation, but when the Danes were defeated and lost considerable territory Monrad’s premiership ended in disrepute.

In March 1866, Monrad arrived in New Zealand, with his family and five young Danish men who also wished to immigrate. He eventually purchased land at Karere in the Manawatu, where he built a house and developed a farm. Some family members settled in New Zealand permanently after Monrad and his wife Emilie (d. 1871) returned to Denmark in January 1869.