The authors draw upon a rich life history archive of letters, diaries, personal photographs and oral history interviews with former migrants, including those who settled in Australia and those who returned to Britain. They offer original interpretations of key historical themes, including motivations for emigration; gender relations and the family dynamics of migration; the 'very familiar and awfully strange' confrontation with the new world; the anguish of homesickness and return; and the personal and national identities of both settlers and returnees, fifty years on. --book cover.
This edited collection explores how migrants played a major role in the creation and settlement of the British Empire, by focusing on a series of Australian case studies. Despite their shared experiences of migration and settlement, migrants nonetheless often exhibited distinctive cultural identities, which could be deployed for advantage. Migration established global mobility as a defining feature of the Empire. Ethnicity, class and gender were often powerful determinants of migrant attitudes and behaviour. This volume addresses these considerations, illuminating the complexity and diversity of the British Empire’s global immigration story. Since 1788, the propensity of the populations of Britain and Ireland to immigrate to Australia varied widely, but what this volume highlights is their remarkable diversity in character and impact. The book also presents the opportunities that existed for other immigrant groups to demonstrate their loyalty as members of the (white) Australian community, along with notable exceptions which demonstrated the limits of this inclusivity.
Following the success of Australian Migrant Ships 1946-1971 Peter Plowman examines those ships and shipping companies used to transport migrants to Australia and New Zealand from 1900 to 1939.
Around 5.6 million British nationals live outside the United Kingdom: the equivalent of one in every ten Britons. However, social science research, as well as public interest, has tended to focus more on the numbers of migrants entering the UK, rather than those leaving. This book provides an important counterbalance, drawing on the latest empirical research and theoretical developments to offer a fascinating account of the lives, experiences and identities of British migrants living in a wide range of geographic locations across Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia. This collection asks: What is the shape and significance of contemporary British migration? Who are today’s British migrants and how might we understand their everyday lives? Contributions uncover important questions in the context of global and national debates about the nature of citizenships, the ‘Brexit’ vote, deliberations surrounding mobility and freedom of movement, as well as national, racial and ethnic boundaries. This book challenges conventional wisdoms about migration and enables new understandings about British migrants, their relations to historical privileges, international relations and sense of national identity. It will be valuable core reading to researchers and students across disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, Politics and International Relations.
This book focuses on the departure of Britain’s 'surplus' women to Australia and New Zealand organised by Victorian British female emigration societies. Starting with an analysis of the surplus of women question, it then explores the philanthropic nature of the organisations (the Female Middle Class Emigration Society, the Women’s Emigration Society, the British Women’s Emigration Association, and the Church Emigration Society). The study of the strict selection of distressed gentlewomen emigrants is followed by an analysis of their marketing value, and an appraisal of women’s imperialism. Finally, this work shows that the female emigrants under study partook in the consolidation of the colonial middle-class.
Each year nearly 30,000 Britons emigrate to Australia under the Assisted Passages Scheme. In return for near-free transport they are required only to stay a minimum of two years in Australia. Are these persons the ne'er-do-wells of British society, the unskilled misfits who have not been able to succeed in Britain? Do they base their decisions to emigrate on reliable information and study economic opportunities in other overseas countries before choosing Australia? To what extent do relatives and friends in Australia and the fact that it is a British country influence their decisions? Why do they leave their homeland – inequality of opportunity; a hostile class structure; the climate? What do they know about the country many of them will never leave and what do they hope to achieve by going there? In 1959 Dr Appleyard and a team of interviewers set out to find the answers to these questions. They conducted long interviews with nine hundred British families (and single persons) just before they sailed for Australia. This book contains the results of the interviews set in the background of post-war emigration to Australia, demographic and economic conditions in each country, government policies which have been formulated to meet these conditions, and actual differences in wage, social services, and the ownership of houses and consumer durables between the United Kingdom and Australia.
Kathleen Paul challenges the usual explanation for the racism of post-war British policy. According to standard historiography, British public opinion forced the Conservative government to introduce legislation stemming the flow of dark-skinned immigrants and thereby altering an expansive nationality policy that had previously allowed all British subjects free entry into the United Kingdom. Paul's extensive archival research shows, however, that the racism of ministers and senior functionaries led rather than followed public opinion. In the late 1940s, the Labour government faced a birthrate perceived to be in decline, massive economic dislocations caused by the war, a huge national debt, severe labor shortages, and the prospective loss of international preeminence. Simultaneously, it subsidized the emigration of Britons to Australia, Canada, and other parts of the Empire, recruited Irish citizens and European refugees to work in Britain, and used regulatory changes to dissuade British subjects of color from coming to the United Kingdom. Paul contends post-war concepts of citizenship were based on a contradiction between the formal definition of who had the right to enter Britain and the informal notion of who was, or could become, really British. Whitewashing Britain extends this analysis to contemporary issues, such as the fierce engagement in the Falklands War and the curtailment of citizenship options for residents of Hong Kong. Paul finds the politics of citizenship in contemporary Britain still haunted by a mixture of imperial, economic, and demographic imperatives.
In 1901 most Australians were loyal, white subjects of the British Empire with direct connections to Britain. Within a hundred years, following an unparalleled immigration program, its population was one of the most diverse on earth. No other country has achieved such radical social and demographic change in so short a time. Destination Australia tells the story of this extraordinary transformation. Against the odds, this change has caused minimal social disruption and tension. While immigration has generated some political and social anxieties, Australia has maintained a stable democracy and a coherent social fabric. One of the impressive achievements of this book is in explaining why this might be so. Eric Richards recounts the experiences of many individual migrants from all over the world, examines the dramas and challenges of officials involved in this grand experiment and ends up telling a truly remarkable story. Compelling and revealing, Destination Australia is essentially the Australian story of the twentieth century.
Originally published in 1991, this book covers an usually long time – from the 17th to the 20th Century – and considers the impact of internal migration and immigration (primarily in Britain) as well as emigration to North America, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Population movements are now recognized to be an integral part of structural change within society and this book brings together a variety of approaches. Drawing on the findings of historians, geographers and sociologists, the essays highlight areas of concern and illustrate some of the directions research on migration was taking in the early 1990s.
