She is unique in that she is the "only intact hull of a wooden deep water sailing ship built to British specifications surviving in the world outside the Falkland Islands".

In 1867 she was converted from a full-rigged ship to a barque, and from 1873 served on the emigrant route to New Zealand, making four voyages carrying a total of 751 settlers to the distant new colony.

Edwin Fox was overtaken by the age of steam, and in the 1880s she was refitted as a floating freezer hulk for the booming sheep industry in New Zealand.

She was towed to Picton in the South Island on 12 January 1897 where she initially continued as a freezer ship, before being further dismembered in 1905 when converted into a coal store hulk.

The ship and museum were taken over by the newly formed Marlborough Heritage Trust (supported by the local council) in 2015 in order to help safeguard her for future generations.

Between 2016 and 2021, the ship was recorded as part of a wider nautical archaeological study into late-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century British colonial-built vessels.