Skip to main content

Story: Cards, board games and puzzles

Chess on board ship, 1865

Image
Chess on board ship, 1865

Colonel Thomas Hardwick Smith (left) and his opponent, Charles Yelverton O'Connor, are seen concentrating fiercely on a game of chess on the deck of the ship Pegasus during its 1865 voyage to New Zealand. This highly mobile and demanding game helped relieve the boredom of the three- to four-month voyage for many immigrants. Smith later became headmaster of an Auckland school, and O'Connor a prominent civil engineer.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: A-277-016

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Mark Derby, Cards, board games and puzzles – Games in colonial society, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/38890/chess-on-board-ship-1865 (accessed 3 June 2026).

Story by Mark Derby, published 14 November 2012.