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
Chartered by the New Zealand Company, the first of the New Plymouth's settlers arrived on the "William Bryan" under Captain Alexander McLean, which anchored off the coast on 31 March 1841 having sailed from Plymouth on 18 November 1840. In steerage were 21 married couples, 22 single adults and 70 children. George Cutfield was the head of the expedition.