RMS Niagara - the 1918 influenza pandemic

The Union Steam Ship Company's trans-Pacific liner Niagara in Auckland.

Was the Niagara to blame?

Many people believed the deadly flu virus came to New Zealand aboard the Royal Mail liner Niagara, which arrived in Auckland from Vancouver and San Francisco on 12 October 1918. This is now no longer believed to be the case.

Among the ship's passengers were Prime Minister William Massey and his deputy Joseph Ward, who were returning from a war conference. False rumours circulated that Massey had personally rebuffed quarantine measures; in fact, he insisted that he and Ward be treated the same as other passengers. Twenty-nine Niagara crew members and several passengers were hospitalised in Auckland, but doctors reported that their cases were no more severe than others already seen in the city. Indeed, six people had died of the flu in Auckland in the three days before the Niagara arrived. And the great upsurge in cases in the city occurred two weeks later, well outside the 48-hour incubation period. Although no one knows exactly how or when the flu reached New Zealand, it is misleading to blame the Niagara, which was only one of dozens of ships (many of them carrying returning soldiers and war invalids) to arrive from Europe and North America in October 1918.