Contents

Prologue

1 A lonely beach

2 Birkenhead

3 Wakefield and ‘the Board’

4 Australia 1851: Gold versus wool

5 The Scots

6 The age of the clippers

7 The Ticonderoga

8 Emigrants and numbers

9 Departure

10 Clearances and famine: The tragedy of the Highlands

11 Life at sea

12 Death at sea

13 A lonely encounter

14 The Great Circle

15 Surgeons at sea

16 The first cases

17 Typhus takes hold

18 The box with the dull pink ribbon

19 The Southern Ocean

20 Hell Ship

21 Arrival

22 Protecting the colony

23 A colonial crisis

24 The Lysander

25 Quarantine and outrage

26 A Christmas escape

27 A visit from the Governor

28 The last journey

29 The Maitland

30 Life goes on

31 The aftermath

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

A note on sources

Notes

Bibliography