The Charlotte Gladstone was a fine clipper ship of 1 304 tons, built at New Brunswick in 1865. She was a good comfortable ship and during her three voyages to New Zealand she brought out about 900 government-assisted immigrants. On her second voyage to the Dominion she left London on 5 November 1871, and arrived at Lyttelton on the 2nd February 1872. Among her passengers on this voyage was Richard Bills, who was carrying birds for the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society. The Society was so pleased with Bills and the success of this venture, that they sent him straight back to England for more birds, when the Charlotte Gladstone left Lyttelton three months later. They were equally pleased with this next shipment, which included nine green plover.

Richard Bills used to trap his small English birds with large folding nets in the streets of London, in the early mornings. The London residents, he said were surprised that any country would want such birds. So Richard explained to them, no doubt with a perfectly straight face, that the caterpillars in New Zealand were so numerous and huge that farmers had to dig trenches round their houses to trap and bury the voracious creatures, lest after eating up all the crops, they should turn to and eat up the farmers themselves.

The Bills family, Richard and son Charles, and his other son Henry, were all well-liked. They were considered real rough diamonds, but of cheery and happy dispositions. They were highly respected for their integrity—although Mr Binnie, who was Richard's assistant, gossiped that when Richard brought out robin red-breasts, he made sure that the birds were all cocks—as who would buy the drab little wrens?