From Penal Colony to Settler Society
The early decades of Australian colonization were marked by a profound tension between its origins as a penal outpost and its aspirations to become a respectable British settler society. Between 1788 and 1868, over 160,000 convicts were transported to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land (modern-day Tasmania), forging a distinct underclass with its own slang, moral codes, and resistance to authority. By the 1840s, British policymakers viewed this system as a failure—not just for its brutality, but for perpetuating what one contemporary called a “stronghold for the corruption of mankind.” The solution? Replace convict “scum” with “moral and industrious” free migrants from Britain’s overflowing poorhouses.
This shift reflected broader 19th-century ideologies. The British Empire saw migration as a safety valve for domestic unrest—diverting the hungry masses from Chartist revolts or socialist uprisings while supplying colonies with compliant labor. As one advocate declared, Australia needed “the pith and marrow” of Britain rather than its “convict polluters.” Yet this vision collided with harsh realities: distance, cost, and competition from North America, where passage was cheaper and freedom more assured.
The Horrors and Hopes of Migration
For those who braved the journey, the voyage to Australia was often a nightmare. Early migrant ships like the Lady McNaghten (1836) packed 185 women into 106 berths, with children dying of measles and typhus festering below decks. One account described sailors herding women into bunks at 5 PM with canes, not releasing them until morning. On the Layton in 1837, 70 of 178 migrants perished before reaching Sydney.
Reform came slowly. The 1842 Carriage of Passengers Act mandated minimum berth sizes, food rations, and medical inspections. Government depots sprang up at embarkation ports to shield migrants from swindling “runners.” By the 1850s, ships featured Bibles, daily hygiene routines, and even sago pudding—a far cry from the floating coffins of earlier decades. Yet despite these improvements, Australia struggled to compete with North America’s allure. In 1850, over 250,000 Britons chose the Americas; just 16,000 ventured to Australia.
Caroline Chisholm and the Moral Crusade
Into this landscape stepped Caroline Chisholm, a diminutive but formidable social reformer. Appalled by the exploitation of migrant women—some lured into prostitution by “fancy men” offering flash dresses—she established Sydney’s Immigrants’ Home in 1841. Over six years, she placed 11,000 migrants in jobs, often leading wagon trains into the bush where laborers could earn double city wages.
Chisholm’s work was deeply ideological. She saw women as “God’s police,” tasked with taming the frontier’s rough masculinity through domestic virtue. Bachelors wrote pleading letters (“Do be a mother to me, and give me a wife”), while critics accused her of “Romanising” Australia with Irish Catholics. Even Charles Dickens satirized her in Bleak House as the neglectful do-gooder Mrs. Jellyby. Yet her legacy endured: state-sponsored morality, from segregated migrant ships to rural homesteading schemes.
Letters from the Promised Land
Migrants’ letters home painted Australia as a land of improbable abundance. “Jane is as fat as a pig,” wrote one, boasting of beef-filled diets unimaginable in famine-ravaged Ireland. Others crowed about rising from laborer to landowner: “Next year I do intend… to go on my own hands.” This narrative of upward mobility—rooted in full bellies rather than democratic ideals—defined Australia’s version of the “good coming time.”
Yet skeptics warned of a “social cesspool” in the making. Without London’s cultural institutions, they argued, the colonies would remain a backwater of “cannibals and possums.” The truth lay somewhere in between. By mid-century, assisted migration had diluted the convict stain, but the colonies retained their rough edges: sectarian divides (especially between Irish Catholics and Scottish Presbyterians), labor strife, and a lingering anxiety about “respectability.”
A Legacy of Contradictions
Australia’s transition from penal colony to free society was neither smooth nor complete. The dream of respectability often clashed with realities of drought, isolation, and inequality. Yet the migrant wave of the 1840s-50s laid foundations for a national identity—one that prized pragmatic survival over revolutionary ideals, and where (as Chisholm insisted) a full stomach and a clean conscience were the highest aspirations.
Today, echoes of this era persist: debates over immigration policy, tensions between urban and rural life, and the enduring myth of the “fair go.” The convicts’ defiant slang may have faded, but their descendants’ hunger for dignity still shapes the nation.