Immigration To Australia - Penal Transportation

Penal Transportation

Being the loser in the competition with the United States, Great Britain sought for a new penal colony with an aim to find a solution for its overflowing prisons. On 26 January 1788, a date now celebrated as Australia Day - but regarded as "Survival Day" or "Invasion Day" by some Aboriginal people and supporters, the British First Fleet of Penal transportation ships landed at Sydney Cove for the purposes of establishing a penal colony. The new colony was formally proclaimed as the Colony of New South Wales on 7 February. A group of petty criminals, second-rate soldiers and a crew of sailors were the very first European settlers of Australia. After then, from 1788 until the end of the penal transportation in 1868, there were approximately 160,000 people entering Australia.

The colony was originally mostly a penal colony with a minority of free settlers. From the very first days of settlement, it was necessary to obtain leave to migrate to Australia. Since the cost of travelling from Europe was much higher than going from there to the United States, the colonies found it difficult attracting migrants. In the 1840s this was overcome by using the ideas of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who proposed that land prices be kept high, and the money used to subsidise immigrants. This continued until self-government was achieved, when the electors refused to sanction tax money being used to provide competitors for available jobs.