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Passenger Stories
If you have a story about travel on the SS Asturias we would love to publish it. Some people kept a diary of their voyage from the UK - others have stories about how they came to be on board, for example as children who believed they were orphaned only to find out later that they had a family in the UK. |
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Ten Pound Poms*
.More than one and a half million Britons left for Australia in the quarter century following the Second World War. Most of the migrants came under an assisted passage scheme through which adults travelled to Australia for just £10 whilst children travelled free. These British immigrants comprised one of the largest planned planned migrations of the twentieth century, and they become known to most Australians as the "ten pound Poms" (the term was misleading since, as Scottish and Welsh migrants are quick to insist, the word 'Pom", whether used in a derogatory or affectionate sense, refers to English migrants exclusively). Throughout the postwar period more Australian immigrants came from Britain than from any other country (it was not until 1996 that Britain was pushed into second place by settlers from New Zealand) and though Australia's massive postwar immigration scheme included large numbers of migrants from other, non-English speaking countries, through the 1950s and 1960s the British comprised never less than a third, and at times more than a half of all settler arrivals. |
The Lost
Children
After World War II the British Government
devised a plan
to
unburden 'overflowing' childrens' homes. Children were
shipped to
Australia 'to be adopted by loving families' only to find that they
were used as cheap labour. The first vessel to transport
these
children was the SS
Asturias in 1947 with a 'cargo' of 147 boys and
girls. Many of them were told (falsely) that they were orphans and
consequently never saw their
families again.. A number of documentaries have been produced about these unfortunate children - most famously "The Leaving of Liverpool'. The 60 minutes program in the USA screened "The Lost Children" in 2002. A copy of the transcript can be read at their website. The Child Migrants' Trust has been established to assist former child migrants to find relatives. Details of the Trust can be found in our section "Looking for Friends". |
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And
yet the
British
were to become 'invisible migrants' in a number of ways. The
British
had controlled and dominated the European settlement of Australia
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and thus ensured the
predominance of the English language and the adaptation of Australian
cultural and political life to British ways. It was assumed
that
twentieth-century British immigrants would assimilate easily and thus
'disappear' into such a familiar society. Immigration Minister Harold Holt claimed in 1950 "this is a British community, and we want to keep it a British community'. It was assumed that the British migrants would fit easily into Australia's "British Way of Life". |
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How to Submit A
Story
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*Ten pound Poms: Australia's Invisible Migrants, by A. James Hammerton and Alistair Thomson. Published by Manchester University Press RRP $49.95. Distributed by major booksellers. Launched by Julia Gillard on 3rd July 2005. A transcript of the launch can be read here. |
Likely Lads and Lasses
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| PASSENGER | MY STORY | CONTACT ME | |||
| DOYLE, Sr Angela Mary AO | Sister Angela Mary Doyle was born in Cranny, County Clare Ireland. In 1947, at the age of 21, she journeyed to Australia to join the Brisbane Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy. She travelled on the Asturias, together with nine professed Sisters and five girls. Her early work was in teaching, but within 1 year of arriving in Brisbane she had commenced nursing at the Mater Hospitals in Brisbane. Sr Angela Mary has been awarded the Order of Australia (1993), was Queenslander of the Year (1989) and has received numerous other awards for her contribution to society. She kept a highly detailed and entertaining diary of her 5 week voyage and has kindly agreed to its publishing on this site. .... more | c/-info@ssasturias.net | |||
| FORBES, William and Grace | In January 1949 the Forbes
family from Mansfield, England, departed Southampton for Australia on
the SS Asturias. During their 37 day voyage the family were often
seasick and their son Ian (22 months old) was unwell for most of the
time. William Forbes kept a diary during the family's voyage to Australia. From cheerful entries "lovely boat, lovely food" to less happy entries "heavy seas, stormy passage - all feeling crocky", the diary gives a wonderful insight into life at sea for 5 weeks. William, Winifred Grace, and their children, Jean, Wendy and Ian, arrived in Sydney on March 5th 1949, to begin their new life. ... more |
c/- info@ssasturias.net | |||
| FLOWERS, Frank and Ida | Frank and
Ada Flowers and their four daughters migrated to Australia
under the '£10 pom'
scheme and they arrived in Melbourne in March 1950.
Their brother Donald sailed on the ship “TSS
Cameronia” from Glasgow. He was required to stay in England
to finish his two year compulsory national service in the air force. He
joined the family in 1951. The
Flowers family lived with their sponsored family on a berry farm at
Wandin Yallock, Victoria, for a short time. "It was a real culture shock; we had never seen an outside “dunny” let alone used one and there were only rain water tanks. Water was scarce at that time and we had to use the same bath water as other family members. The bathroom was outside in a shed along with two troughs for washing clothes...." more |
c/- info@ssasturias.net | |||
| SCOTT, Ronald (Bon) | In
1952 a family from the Scottish town of Kirriemuir left on the SS
Asturias for a new life in Australia. Mr Charles Scott and his wife Mrs
Isa Scott along with their sons Derek and Ronald (Bon) set sail for
Australia on the SS Asturias. At the time no one was to know that one
of their sons Ronald (then aged 6) would later go on to front one of
the biggest Rock bands of all time - AC/DC. Thanks to Glenn Robertson for permission to use this information: his site devoted to AC/DC is at: http://www.crabsodyinblue.com |
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| HERD, Andrew Clark | Andrew "Sandy" Clark Herd (born 28 June 1902 in Torryburn, Fife) was a Scottish professional footballer. A miner by trade, he started his senior career with Dundee in 1923. He was signed by Hearts in 1927 in a 250 Pound transfer deal. He spent ten seasons with the Tynecastle club, making 229 first team appearances. His half-back combination with Alex Massie and John Johnstone proved successful for Hearts, the trio proving a constant part of the side between 1930 and 1935 and eventually all three gained selection for the Scottish national team. Herd retired in 1939 and emigrated to Melbourne, Australia (arriving with his family on the Asturias 16 November 1946). [Source: Wikipedia] | Wikipedia entry | |||
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