A three-masted full-rigged ship of the type commonly known as a Blackwall Frigate, Hougoumont was constructed at Moulmein, Burma in 1852.

In September 1863, ten men and five women were removed from the ship to the St Georges infirmary, Wapping, diagnosed with "Insanity".

After a largely uneventful voyage of 89 days, during which time one convict died, Hougoumont docked at Fremantle, Western Australia on 10 January 1868.

Consequently, a number of journals of the voyage are extant: that of Denis Cashman has been known of for many years, and that of John Casey and the memoirs of Thomas McCarthy Fennell have recently[when?]

Also, during the voyage a number of the Fenians entertained themselves by producing seven editions of a shipboard newspaper entitled The Wild Goose, which survive in the State Library of New South Wales.

Many pictures purporting to be "the" Hougoumont are in fact of a later steel four-masted barque also named Hougomont, 2428 tons, built at Greenock in 1897, and hulked at Stenhouse Bay in South Australia in 1932.