Brief History of Immigration to Australia

Early immigration to Australia can be divided into three main categories:
Convict - Exploration & Squatters - The Gold Rush

Convict Immigration

In the past I have spent many years researching in workhouse immigration and, eviction records from estates etc.. in Ireland and Australia and have come to draw my own conclusions of immigration to Australia being very political, economic and class driven. But not having the done the same research in Scotland I will leave that for the experts there..

European settlement of Australia began in 1788 with the establishment of a penal colony, as Britain needed to relieve its overcrowded prisons, from the famine in Ireland and the Highland clearances of Scotland, as well as some of it being due to Britains loss of her American colonies. Australia also provided a base for the Royal Navy in the eastern sea and could be used as an entry point for economic opportunities.

On May 13th, 1787, Captain Arthur Phillip, and the first Scotsman Capt John Hunter commanding eleven ships full of convicts restrained in chains, left Britain for Australia, landing at Botany Bay on January 18, 1788, and over 150,000 other convicts were to follow 8,207 being Scottish and mainly females. The ancestors of tens of thousands of today's Australians languished in rotting hulks which were ships made into prison cells, some convicts never touched land and remained there until they died, the term of serving in these or the prisons was usually seven years, a substitute for execution. On arrival, female convicts were sent directly to the female workhouse "factory" (the first was built in Parramatta Sydney in 1804) or housed nearby where they worked until they were assigned to new settlers to work as servants. Children of these women either stayed with their mothers, if their employer permitted or they were sent to an orphanage.

After some 200 years of silence, neglect and misinterpretation, the contribution by these convicts to a unique 'Australian society' is at last coming out of the closet. The shame attached to this 'convict taint' was still evident among the mid-twentieth century respectable Britishers, making Australians deny or hide that some felon could be hidden in their family tree.

The "Scottish Radicals" transported in 1820, were hardly known, yet made a significant contribution to New South Wales. Nineteen were transported as a result of the affray at Bonnymuir near Stirling on 5th April 1820. Two others, Baird and Hardie, were executed. James Clelland, one of the radicals, had been saved from execution. John Anderson was from 1823 to his death in 1858 at the age of 65, schoolmaster of the Presbyterian school at the old church of Ebenezer on the Hawkesbury.
Photo: view of Port Arthur Convict Establishment, from powder magazine. click to enlarge.

Development, exploration and the Squatters

After the development of the colony at Port Jackson, further settlements then began at Hobart (Tasmania) in 1803, on the Brisbane River (Queensland) in 1824 and on the Swan River (Perth, Western Australia) in 1829. Melbourne was established at Port Phillip Bay (Victoria) in 1835, and Adelaide at the Gulf of St Vincent (South Australia) in 1836.
Explorations began along the coast and inland looking for greener pastures. Then Captain John Macarthur brought in the Spanish merino sheep and Australia developed from a prison to a pastoral colony with the expansion of the wool growing industry coupled with a fervent desire on the part of settlers to acquire more and more land using labour from convicts and aboriginals. Some of the Scottish became large landowners, such as the Darling Downs and Gippsland squatters, also large tracts of land were bought by companies in Glasgow and Edinburgh and there was a small group drawn to Australia by the prospects of trade as merchants.
The famous 'Scottish Mechanics' comprised fifty-four adult men plus their families: stonemasons and bricklayers, carpenters, joiners, blacksmiths, and plasterers, etc., and all members of Christian churches and congregations. The Scots also became Govenor General's, Governors, and members of parliament.

The Gold Rush

The gold rush began when gold was first discovered in 1851 at Bathurst (New South Wales,) then later at Buninyong near Ballarat and Bendigo (Victoria) At first the authorities tried to keep the news quite as possible, for fear that it would seriously damage the agricultural economy by aggravating the chronic labour shortage, but with the news of the wealth that had been created by the California gold rush the government then publicized the discovery. Prospectors from all over the world rushed to Australia in the hope of making their fortune. Tent cities dotted the country side some as large as 40,000 people.

The Eureka Stockade and it's dramatic impact on Victoria is well-known. By mid-1853 there were about 60,000 diggers, plus their families, on the Victorian gold-fields; of these about 23,000 were at Bendigo. In June 1853 an Anti-Gold-Licence Association was formed at Bendigo to give voice to the diggers' many grievances about their conditions and centering on the 30 shillings monthly license fee they had to pay. The leaders of the Association were G.E. Thomson, Dr. Jones and an Irish-born American, "Captain" Edward Brown. These three drew up a petition which articulated the diggers' grievances and made a number of demands, including a reduced license fee, improved law and order, the right to vote and the right to buy land. The petition was signed by diggers at Bendigo, Ballarat, Castlemaine, McIvor (Heathcote), Mount Alexander (Stawell) and other diggings. Signatories to the Petition were also J.L. Baird, James Baird, J.L. Bairde.

Although a claim was made that over 30,000 signatures were collected, in fact the petition carried about 5,000 to 6,000 (not including those from Heathcote, which were lost in a gold escort robbery!) The petition was brought to Melbourne and presented to Lieutenant-Governor C.J. La Trobe on the 1st August 1853. Most of its demands, including the reduction in the license fee, were rejected.
The diggers continued to protest, though without violence, and the license fee was increasingly evaded. Eventually, however, their grievances erupted in the events at Ballarat which culminated in the Eureka uprising on 3rd December 1854 against British injustice's. For further information on Eureka.