Samuel Butler was born probably on 4 December 1835 at Langar Rectory, Nottinghamshire, England, and was baptised on 17 December 1835. He was the second child of the Reverend Thomas Butler and his wife, Fanny Worsley. He was educated at Shrewsbury School from 1848 to 1854 and St John's College, Cambridge, from 1854 to 1858, when he graduated 12th in the Classical tripos, with first-class honours. But his impulse to escape the constraints of the church, education, law and the patriarchal family led him to decline ordination and persuade his somewhat imperious father to finance his emigration to New Zealand. He sailed on the Roman Emperor on 1 October 1859. Only a month before departure his preference had been for western Canada, and his passage to Lyttelton was originally booked on the Burmah, which disappeared without trace. (. . .)

Source: govt.nz on 06/09/2019