Colonial Despatches

Norman Morison was a 529-tonne Hudson's Bay Company ship.1 It arrived on the west coast in 1850, bringing supplies for both the Russian American Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, as well as labourers and their families.2 It made the trip from England to Victoria two more times between 1850-53.3

According to Pelly, Sir John Henry to Grey, Right Honorable Second Baronet Sir George 11 February 1851, CO 305:3, no. 1322, 360, in 1850, three British seamen deserted from the Hudson's Bay Company and left Norman Morison while it was anchored in Victoria. They fled to Fort Rupert and were eventually caught and murdered by natives of the northern part of Vancouver's Island who had mistakenly been told by George Blenkinsop that there would be a reward for the white mens[sic] heads.

• 1. Judith Hudson Beattie and Helen M. Buss, eds., Undelivered Letters to Hudson's Bay Company Men on the Northwest Coast of America, 1830-57 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2003), 413.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Ibid.