New Zealand Company ships
The New Zealand Company was a 19th-century English company that played a key role in the colonisation of New Zealand. The company was formed to carry out the principles of systematic colonisation devised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of a new-model English society in the southern hemisphere. Under Wakefield's model, the colony would attract capitalists who would then have a ready supply of labour—migrant labourers who could not initially afford to be property owners, but who would have the expectation of one day buying land with their savings.
New Zealand Company ships
Sailing under Captain William Wilson, she was the first of five 500-ton immigrant ships hired by the New Zealand Company to take settlers to Wellington in 1839. It was followed by the "Aurora", "Adelaide", "Duke of Roxburgh" and "Bengal Merchant", plus a freight vessel, the "Glenbervie", which all sailed with instructions to rendezvous on 10 January 1840 at Port Hardy on D'Urville Island where they would be told of their final destination. It made six voyages to New Zealand.