[3] The ship was launched for A. Chapman and Company and named by Katherine Stewart, the daughter of Charles Forbes MP in 1818, on 31 October or 5 November.

She anchored in Plymouth Sound but was ordered to put to sea again after receiving medical supplies and the services of an assistant surgeon from the Royal Navy.

Of the 222 convicts aboard, 30 men developed cholera and 13 died before Captain John Anderson finally set sail from Plymouth on 23 March 1832 bound for Van Dieman's Land, where she arrived on 16 July.

On Katherine Stewart Forbes's arrival at Adelaide a public proclamation was made regarding the death of King William IV and the accession of Queen Victoria.

Katherine Stewart Forbes departed Port Adelaide on 11 April 1840, carrying with her the former Governor of South Australia, George Gawler, his aide-de-camp, James Collins Hawker and his gardener and Derbyshire botanist, Joseph Whittaker.

Pressed plant specimens collected by Joseph Whittaker from the island stops that Katherine Steward Forbes made en route were subsequently supplied to Kew Gardens.

[20][21] Under Captain John Hobbs, Katherine Stewart Forbes left Gravesend on 5 February 1841 and arrived at Port Nicholson on 24 June with 176 emigrants.

[22][23] Between 1841 and 1843, J.S.Hobbs, hydrographer, of Katharine Stewart Forbes, master John Hobbs, made a 'Sketch of part of the N.W.Coast of Borneo showing the approaches to and entrances of the Sarawak River'.

[25] Under Captain William Wright, Katharine Stewart Forbes left St Katherine's Dock on 22 October 1851 and arrived at Auckland on 9 March with 65 emigrants.