Story: Manners and social behaviour

This sketch by William Hawkins depicts him (centre, wearing a bowler hat) greeting his sailor cousin, Thomas Bailey, on board the Kaikoura in Wellington Harbour on 5 February 1867. The men had not seen each other for two and a half years. Shaking hands was until quite recently the only socially acceptable way for adult Anglo-Saxon men to greet or farewell each other, even if they were close relatives.