Hello dogon
The best figures available say that over a million Britons migrated to
Australia in the quarter century after World War 2, most of them under
the £10 assisted passage scheme, and that a quarter of them returned.
This information comes from a reliable source: a joint project between
researchers at Sussex University in England and La Trobe University in
Melbourne, Australia on the "ten pound poms". This "British-Australian
Postwar Migration Research Project" is intended to result in a book in
the near future. The authors are Alistair Thomson of Sussex and Jim
Hammerton from La Trobe.
"An enormous number of people - more than a million - migrated from
Britain to Australia in the quarter century after 1945. Most went as
assisted migrants, paying ten pounds for the journey.
Although these people were part of one of the largest planned
migration schemes of the 20th century, historians know little about
the experiences of those who emigrated - and even less about the
quarter of them who returned to the UK."
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/information_office/media/media92.html
There is more information on this at the website of the International
Oral History Association, including:
"Migration history often ignores the experience of return migrants,
focusing instead on accounts of struggle, survival and success in the
new land. This project aims to redress that imbalance. Since early
2000, Lani Russell (Research Fellow) and Alistair Thomson (University
of Sussex, Centre for Continuing Education) have been collecting life
stories from these 'return migrants'. Our project, funded by the
British Arts and Humanities Research Board) is a collaboration with
Jim Hammerton and a team at La Trobe University in Melbourne that has
been conducting interviews with British migrants who remained in
Australia."
http://www.ioha.fgv.br/boletin_in8.htm
"Ten Pound Poms"
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/press_office/bulletin/05may00/article5.html
Some records of British migrants under the £10 assisted passage scheme
are held by the National Archives of Australia:
http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/SeriesDetail.asp?M=0&B=A1877
More facts on British migration to Australia from the Australian National Archives:
Immigration
http://www.naa.gov.au/The_Collection/Family_History/immigrants.html
Records of British migrants held in Canberra
http://www.naa.gov.au/publications/fact_sheets/fs123.html
I hope this is helpful, but please don't hesitate to ask if you would
like me to clarify something.
Best Wishes - Leli
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"ten pound poms"
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