The Martha Ridgeway

Captain: James Forbes Bissett

Surgeon Superintendent: John Frederick Knox

Sailed London 5th July 1849 - Arrived Wellington 14th November 1840

Sailed Downs on morning of 8th July 1840

Sailed Isle of Wight 6pm 11th July 1840

Shortly after the Martha Ridgway, 621 tons, Captain James Forbes Bisset, left England, smallpox broke out, and during the passage to New Zealand the ship was never wholly free from cases.

She sailed from Gravesend on July 5th 1840 with 225 emigrants, and arrived at Port Nicholson on November 14th. The first to contract the disease was a steward, who developed it soon after leaving England. It must have been of a mild type, for we do not read of any deaths. Several of the passengers were down when Port Nicholson was reached, so a quarantine ground was established on the eastern shores of the harbour. The ship was taken across, and everybody aboard was placed in strict quarantine for three weeks. Like everything else it did, the Company had seen carefully to it that the new settlement was supplied with first class medical men, and these soon had the disease stamped out.