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Australian History

Australia's modern history began with an influx of people who did not want to go there. The first Europeans who came to live and work in Australia were convicts and their guardians. Australia, so alluring nowadays as a place to live and work, was a giant jail for the criminal elements of Georgian and Victorian England. Old-fashioned histories politely refer to its first decades as 'colourful'. At first, starvation was a threat when crops failed repeatedly, then the imbalance of convicts to free settlers and a gold rush in many colonies meant crime was rife and social conditions even rougher than for pioneers of America's wild west. More modern, X-rated versions demonstrate that from 1787 to 1868 the colony was little more than Britain 's social sewer. According to the experts, between half and two-thirds of the convict transportees were violent criminals while four out of five were thieves. Australian historian Robert Hughes wrote: 'People used to suppress convict history in the nineteenth century because it was thought to be a disgusting stain and an inherent disgrace on the Australian genes.'

Today some Australians will tell you that they descend from convicts and are proud of it, because their ancestors were freethinkers sent from Mother England as political prisoners. In truth, the first transports of people deported for political reasons did not arrive in Australia until well into the nineteenth century.

New Frontiers

Eventually the lower and middle classes back in England got wind that Australia was not such a bad place. Newspaper and personal reports soon spread the word that adventurers as well as convicts who had finished their sentences were doing very nicely, thank you, on their own bits of bush or in fledgling townships. Though distant as the moon, and despite its rough social fabric, the colonial settlements around Australia gained a reputation as a fine place to make a fresh start and even a fortune. In 1851 gold was discovered in Victoria and New South Wales. Some 600,000 immigrants came to try their luck, bringing a blast of prosperity for a few and untold poverty for many more since most able-bodied men, including soldiers and shopkeepers left their jobs and families to try their luck. The gold rush over, a new breed of 'free' Australian settle was starting to dominate. An interest in improving the fabric of society resulted in 'anti-transportation' leagues, which sprang up with the aim of persuading Britain to dump its criminals elsewhere. The last convict transport ship arrived in 1868, at Fremantle in Western Australia.