Henry Schofield originally emigrated to New Zealand in 1863 on the Mermaid. In 1868 he and his family returned, via Melbourne, to England. They returned here with their children Elizabeth, William and Mary, in 1873. As this diary recounts, Elizabeth and William died on the voyage. Henry then worked as a farm labourer at Leeston and a butcher at Kaiapoi before buying a farm at Oxford, where their family was reared.