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Sorry about the slow reply, Judith. I've had an email from the State LIbrary of South Australia with a couple of interesting links, including an index of passengers boarding England-bound ships from South Australia ... though I still have the feeling that this quest for a possible chaperone is clutching at straws! I think those of us engaging in family history are all too familiar with that activity!
Best wishes
Ian

Thanks again to those who have responded, and apologies for not having clarified the terms of my present search. To explain how we know that the 'Mrs Page', steerage paaaenger on the 'Success', was the same person as the Susan Elizabeth Allen who married James Page would involve quite a long and involved story. Suffice it to say that we are fully satisfied with this detail in our research into the Page family.

James Page, from a relatively humble background, had a titled sponsor whose identity we know and who, for reasons as yet not fully clear, was discreet (not to say secretive) in his dealings in this matter. We surmise that he would have arranged for someone to act as chaperone to this vulnerable young woman on the voyage to South Australia. This request of mine was a desperate (?) attempt to find the identity of this possible chaperone.

If there were such a chaperone, there are two possibilities. Perhaps he too settled in Australia; or (less likely) he travelled back to England, his commission having been completed.

I think that for now it will make more sense for me to look again at tracing these steerage passengers in England, hoping to find a link between one of them and the sponsor of James Page.

I am grateful to those who have shown interest in this murky matter.

I wonder if any researcher has come across the surname CAPEL? My person of interest (forename not known) arrived Port Adelaide, February 1851. I'd be grateful to know of any mention of the name in the second half of the 1800s.

Hi Trish
You're perfectly right of course, the name of a friend of Henry Page, a wider family connection, or someone who had furthered his interests. Henry is an interesting person, hard to pin down and in many ways my 'brick wall'. One of his sons was financed to migrate to South Australia, set up in a good shipping business ... seemingly in return for marrying a woman of, shall we say, shadowy background. The sponsor was a Duke, an aristocrat, a family story that research tends to validate.

Horace was the only one of HP's children to be given an unusual (i.e. non-family) name. It only now occurs to me that he was the first Horace, too. Perhaps I ought to be looking for a Horace Haverhill?
Thanks for your reply.

Thanks for this, CD. There's a lot to go through here. Of special interest is the fact you point out that there was a Darking /Page connection.

My ancestor Henry Page is found in the census of 1841 and 1851 (just before he died). In the 1851 he reports his birthplace as Charlwood, Surrey. Via various sources––legal documents mostly––i found that he had several siblings, all but one of which I have traced. I have the siblings' baptismal records but can find none yet for Henry.The parents of Henry's siblings were Thomas Page and Susan(na) Middleton. Thomas and Susanna, though hailing from the Medway area of Kent, did indeed spend some time in Charlwood, where two of their children were christened.

Whether the William Page you have found, who married Elizabeth, daughter of James Darking, has any connection to 'my' Page line is something I'll look into carefully.
Thanks again.