Australia’s migration history
The nineteenth century
In 1788, when European settlement began, Australia’s Aboriginal population was about 400,000. Today, over 20 million people live here. Migration has been the main driver for this change. In New South Wales, four out of every ten people are either migrants or the children of migrants.
Clearly Australia has a rich migration history. However attitudes to migration and particularly to the ideal source of migrants have changed considerably over these 218 years. The first migrants were decidedly involuntary, the convicts transported from Britain, Ireland and, to a lesser degree, other British colonies. Altogether 80,000 arrived in New South Wales between 1788 and 1840. From the 1830s they were joined by small numbers of voluntary migrants, again principally from Britain and Ireland. Some came under their own resources, others with assistance from one of the public or private schemes then available.
However, with the discovery of gold just outside Bathurst in 1851, the nature of Australian migration changed completely. People arrived in far greater numbers and from more varied backgrounds than ever before. Between 1851 and 1861 over 600,000 came and while the majority were from Britain and Ireland, 60,000 came from Continental Europe, 42,000 from China, 10,000 from the United States and just over 5,000 from New Zealand and the South Pacific. Although Australia never again saw such a rush of new immigrants, the heightened interest in settling here remained. By the time of Federation the total population was close to four million of whom one in four was born overseas. Many had been given assisted passages. Whilst the majority were of British or Irish extraction, there were significant numbers of Europeans, particularly Germans, and Chinese.
