 Joseph Brittan's wife Elizabeth Mary had died in 1849. He remarried in a manner that was illegal at the time, socially unacceptable and causing a scandal — he took Elizabeth's sister Sophia, the fourth Chandler daughter, as his second wife. The newly-weds reacted to the scandal in a way that was not unusual at the time; they left their problems behind and emigrated, which they did a month after the ceremony. They sailed for Christchurch on the William Hyde, which left Deal, Kent on 21 October 1851 and arrived in Lyttelton on 5 February 1852. Mrs Fooks and her two daughters came to New Zealand with Joseph Brittan's family. By mid-1852, Joseph Brittan purchased RS 300, comprising rural land about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) east of Cathedral Square.
