Very few passengers of the many hundreds who came out in the Bebington had a good word to say for her. In addition to being one of the slowest ships afloat in the early days, she was constantly dogged by ill-fortune. the Bebington, a ship of 924 tons, was built in 1859, and later purchased by the Shaw, Savill Co. the Bebington was spoken of as an "old tub" by many of the settlers who arrived by her in New Zealand. To say the least of it, conditions on board were rough. The ship made unusually long passages, as will be seen from her records. On her run out to Port Chalmers in 1873 Captain Bruce reported favourable winds almost throughout the passage, and she took 106 days to reach port under these conditions.

Two of the passengers, Mr. H. Jones, of Onehunga, and Mr. T. Buckton, of Mount Albert, Auckland, have supplied me with some details of the remarkably unfortunate voyage out to Auckland in 1876, when the ship took 160 days from London docks to the Waitemata.