immigration museum journeys to australia

Journeys to Australia

Immigration is a vital feature of Australia’s history and national identity. Explore the journey through immigrants’ stories; discover the changing routes and travelling conditions, and find out what departure and arrival meant for those seeking a home in this distant land.

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Immigration Museum

• Heritage listed

Opened in 1998, the Immigration Museum is filled with the real stories of people who have journeyed from all over the world to make Australia their home.

Over two floors of exhibition galleries, the museum explores why people have migrated to Melbourne, how they got here, what they found, and the mark they made on the city.

The museum also explores the concept of identity and what it means to belong and not belong in Australia.

The museum is housed in the grand Customs House building, which originally looked out onto ships tied up at the adjacent Queen's Wharf. The impressive former Long Room is now the museum's central space, featuring giant Ionic colonnades.

The Immigration Museum is open daily except Good Friday and Christmas Day.

Covid-19 safety notice: Tickets must now be booked online ahead of your visit, including Members.

Immigration Museum 400 Flinders St Melbourne 3000

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• email address: [email protected]
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A Brief Guide To Australia's Immigration Museum

Established in 1998, the Immigration Museum showcases Australia’s 200-year-old story of immigration and poses the questions: ‘Why do people leave their countries of birth to live here? What is their experience in their new country? And how do communities adapt to new arrivals?’ In Victoria, 200 different countries and cultures are represented, 260 languages and dialects are spoken, and 135 religious faiths are followed. This diversity has contributed to Victoria’s multicultural identity.

The Immigration Museum is housed within Victoria’s Old Customs House on Flinders Street, which was ironically designed by Scottish immigrant Peter Kerr. Construction began in 1855, and after economic tumbles, the building was finally completed in 1876, becoming a fine example of Renaissance Revival architecture. The story of the Old Customs House can be traced in the permanent exhibition Customs Gallery .

Journeys of a Lifetime

Set within the opulent Long Room, which features giant colonnades modelled after the Erechtheion temple in Athens, high ceilings and hand-laid tessellated tiles, Journeys of a Lifetime is one of the museum’s permanent exhibitions. The room features a 17-metre replica ship which provides visitors with an insight into the living conditions at sea faced by the many immigrants who travelled to Australia by ships between the 1840s and 1950s.

Discover your family’s history and conduct genealogical research at the Immigration Museum’s Discovery Centre , located within the restored 19th-century vaults of Customs House. Browse the reference library and explore the online resources. Staff members are also on hand to assist with research.

Leaving Home

The permanent exhibition Leaving Home explores the many reasons why people have migrated to Australia, whether escaping a war-torn homeland, religious persecution, political repression, or in search of adventure and opportunity. Through audio clips, film and keepsakes, Leaving Home presents the stories of immigrants and the objects they brought with them.

Immigrant Stories and Timeline

Victoria’s history is not complete without the stories of immigrants, and in the Immigrant Stories and Timeline exhibit, visitors can learn about individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds and time periods, each with their own story to tell, and with stories changing annually, there is always a new tale to discover. Currently showing are the stories of an English ornithologist, Italian textile maker, German pastry chef, Lebanese taxi drivers and a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo .

Not every immigrant with dreams of moving to the lucky country is fortunate enough to get in. Through photographs, historical objects, and personal stories, Getting In explores the ways in which Australia’s immigration policies have changed.

Tribute Garden

Designed by Melbourne -based artist Evangelos Sakaris, this free, public artwork is a tribute to the 7,000 people who have migrated to Victoria, with names of people from more than 90 countries inscribed on the wall. Names date from the 1800s to the present day.

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The story of Australia is the story of immigration. Museums in Melbourne and Adelaide and galleries elsewhere, like the Horizons gallery in the National Museum of Australia, have told two parts of the story: the convict period (1788-1868) and postwar European migration (1947-1975). The impact on Indigenous societies has been detailed in many venues and sources.

But strangely missing is often the most important formative period created through mass migration from the British Isles during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Modern Australia was essentially a Victorian imperial creation. Those who created it came overwhelmingly from England, Ireland and Scotland and, to a lesser degree, from Wales and Cornwall. Certainly there were many others, especially Germans and Chinese, but their impact was limited, localised and, in the latter case, abruptly terminated.

This brilliant and evocative exhibition of contemporary artworks sticks tightly to its self-description. Although convict transportation lasted 30 years into Victoria's reign, this was mainly to Tasmania and Western Australia. By 1840 the south-eastern corner, then wholly within New South Wales, had ceased to take convicts. When the young queen came to the throne public funds were already being spent on bringing out suitable free immigrants, mainly from rural Britain and Ireland. This system in various forms continued from 1831 until 1983. Unlike the United States, at least half of all British immigrants in the Victorian period were deliberately selected and subsidised.

We are, then, spared the already well-worn convict images and details held mainly in the Mitchell and National libraries. Not a man is flogged or bound by chains. Drawing the line between convicts and the free is admittedly artificial. Many convicts soon gained their freedom, some prospered, some brought out their families and some even went back to the scene of their original crime. A few were transported more than once. But there is, quite rightly, no mention of this. The story being told is of the million-and-a-half who left the heartland of the world's largest and richest empire to settle at the end of the earth. Why did they come, who were they, how did they feel? Little is said about what happened to them. Nor are there portraits of those who became famous: Henry Parkes, Joseph Cook, Andrew Fisher, Billy Hughes, to mention only a few of the political leaders who arrived during Victoria's reign.

The greatest surge of emigration to Australia was in the 1850s and due to the lure of gold. Most paintings on display were produced during this decade. It was also the period when England and Scotland were becoming urban rather than rural societies and when Ireland was shattered and depopulated by the effects of the potato famine of the previous few years. Everywhere people were leaving the land. Despite some emphasis on the poverty of the major cities, the selection does not fall into the trap of showing emigration from the slums, prison and workhouses of the metropolis; these were the breeding grounds of the convicts, not of the assisted migrants. Regulations tried to ban those in workhouses or in habitual receipt of poor law assistance. Most poverty stricken city dwellers who reached Australia were sent by charities. The themes of rural poverty, Irish dispossession and the Scottish clearances were more attractive to Victorian artists and more sentimentally appealing to their public. I was especially struck by Hubert von Herkomer's 1885 painting Hard Times , showing an itinerant navvy and his wife and child. At this time my grandmother's father was just such a one: a navvy, railway fettler, farm labourer and eventually village chimney sweep. Two of his daughters worked in the notorious agricultural gangs of Fenland, made illegal in 1867.

Some outstanding works include The Last of England by Ford Madox Brown, Lochaber No More by John Watson Nicol, Lady Butler's Evicted and, of course, everyone's favourite, A Primrose from England by Edward William John Hopley. Works are grouped around themes, with a small but good selection of sailing ship portraits, pride of place being taken by the 'steam assisted' Great Britain . The passengers of Brunel's huge ship are claimed to be responsible for at least two per cent of Australia's current population, which may well be true. At the end comes Frederick McCubbin's triptych of 1904, The Pioneer . Hardship and sadness were not just the lot of the emigrant (as most other paintings suggest) but could equally strike the immigrant already settled in the colony. McCubbin is one of the few Australian-born artists here. Others, such as Charles Conder, Conrad Martens, Tom Roberts, and Eugène von Guérard, though born overseas, are regarded as Australian by adoption.

The exhibition catalogue is a significant work in its own right. Apart from the normal function of describing, reproducing and analysing each exhibit, it is almost the only comparably illustrated work on this major aspect of Australia's formative history. There are some controversial commentaries tending, like the exhibition itself, to overemphasise the poverty and desperation of immigrants, which was ceasing to be true for those from the English majority coming in the great boom of the 1880s. There are several incorrect dates, most notably for the birth of democracy at the Eureka Stockade. Like any artistic soul I was a trifle piqued that none of my own humble works were in the valuable bibliography! But two of the best recent books for this period, Eric Richards' Britannia's Children (2004) and David Fitzpatrick's Oceans of Consolation (1994), get their well-deserved place.

The catalogue, besides being beautifully presented, stands on its own as a readable and attractive account of British immigration in the Victorian period. It should become a guide to those responsible for recreating the wholly inadequate Horizons gallery at the National Museum of Australia, which almost ignores those vital years between the end of transportation and the arrival of the New Australians.

Immigration Museum

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IMMIGRATION MUSEUM: All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos)

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Immigration Museum

The Immigration Museum uses voices, images and memorabilia to tell the many stories of Australian immigration. It's symbolically housed in the old Customs House and the restored 1876 building alone is worth a visit: the Long Room is a magnificent piece of Italian Renaissance–revival architecture. Keep an eye out for workshops and special events.

After exiting the museum, head across the river via Sandridge Bridge to check out the steel Travellers sculptures , which depict the story of arrival that belongs to many Melburnians. Gayip, the only sculpture to sit on land rather than on the bridge, represents Indigenous Australians from the area.

400 Flinders St. Melbourne

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https://www.museumvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum

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Immigration Museum

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The Immigration Museum explores the stories of real people from all over the world who have migrated to Victoria. Located in the Old Customs House in the heart of the city, the museum re-creates the real-life stories of coming to Australia with a rich mix of moving images, personal and community voices, memories and memorabilia. From the reasons for making the journey, to the moment of arrival in a new country, and the impact on indigenous communities, these stories are sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but always engaging.

museumvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum

• Free general admission

Postwar immigration drive

1945: Australian Government announces postwar immigration drive

Dutch migrants on board the ship SIBAJAK arrive in Port Melbourne, Australia, 1954. National Archives of Australia A12111, 1/1954/4/53

Between 1945 and 1965, two million immigrants arrived in Australia. The decision by the Australian Government to open up the nation in this way was based on the notion of ‘populate or perish’ that emerged in the wake of the Second World War.

Among the new immigrants were the first government-sanctioned non-British migrants.

This massive influx of people transformed Australian society.

Arthur Calwell, Be Just and Fear Not , 1972:

Even in the darkest days of the awful conflict of the Pacific war, the Curtin Government gave much thought to population building. I remember Mr. Curtin telling Cabinet in 1944 that at war’s end there would have to be a Ministry for Immigration. He said we must have more people to develop and defend Australia.

First assisted passage migrant from England Tommy Smith meets Prime Minister Ben Chifley and Arthur Calwell, 1947. National Archives of Australia A12111, 3/1947/4B/1

Populate or perish

When Japan entered the Second World War in December 1941 its troops quickly moved south, occupying much of South-East Asia and the Pacific. Singapore fell in February 1942 and Darwin was bombed shortly after.

In Australia, the threat of invasion was very real and the country was more vulnerable than previously thought. These susceptibilities meant that well before the war ended on 14 August 1945, the government had begun considering policies that would boost Australia’s population and its defences.

Arthur Calwell was appointed Australia’s first Minister for Immigration in July 1945. Addressing parliament a few weeks later, he stated 'If Australians have learned one lesson from the Pacific war … it is surely that we cannot continue to hold our island continent for ourselves and our descendants unless we greatly increase our numbers … much development and settlement have yet to be undertaken. Our need to undertake it is urgent and imperative if we are to survive.'

Calwell’s call for immediate migration was significant but perhaps even more important were the final sentences of his speech: ‘The door to Australia will always be open within limits of our existing legislation to the people from the various dominions, United States of America and from European continental countries’.

For the first time, the government had declared that it was willing to accept migrants from beyond the British Isles. It was a huge step forward considering the prevalence of the White Australia policy and the underlying public attitudes.

Arthur Calwell and Mrs Calwell at the New Australian festival (Lithuanian handcraft festival held in Canberra), 1949. National Archives of Australia A12111, 1/1949/17/5A

Calwell’s immigration policy

The shift in government policy was influenced by the work of Melbourne economist, WD ‘Bill’ Forsyth.

In his 1942 book The Myth of Open Spaces , Forsyth argued that immigration and settlement should not be linked to the development of the rural sector, as had been the case after the First World War, but to the development of urban industry.

He further argued that, while postwar workforce shortages in Great Britain could limit Australia’s ability to attract British migrants, there would be reserves of labour in eastern and southern Europe.

These ideas featured in the papers of the government’s powerful Interdepartmental Committee on Post War Migration, and in Calwell’s speech.

The new policy set a target of a one per cent increase in the population as the result of immigration.

Suitable migrants

Even before the end of the war, Australia began negotiations with Britain about a migration scheme.

British politicians, including Prime Minister Winston Churchill, encouraged Britons to stay and rebuild their shattered country. Yet the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme (also known as the ‘Ten-Pound Pom’ scheme) proved extremely popular with war-weary British citizens. By 1947, more than 400,000 of them had registered.

Calwell also sought to meet immigration targets by selecting suitable migrants from Europe’s overflowing displaced persons camps.

The first shipload arrived in Australia in 1947 from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They were all young and single and quickly became known as the ‘beautiful Balts’. As Calwell later admitted, ‘It was not hard to sell immigration to the Australian people once the press published photographs of that group.’

Migrant arrivals in Sydney, 1947. National Archives of Australia 1/1947/4/2A

Changing the face of Australia

In the years that followed, policies slowly changed to accept migrants from southern and eastern Europe and, from the late 1940s and early 1950s, carefully selected temporary migrants from the Middle East and Asia.

In 1957 the Liberal government relaxed restrictions on ongoing temporary visas and made non-European migrants eligible for citizenship after 15 years’ residency (as opposed to five years for Europeans).

From 1946 to 1960 the Australian population grew by an average of 2.7 per cent per year. While this was largely due to a postwar baby boom, migration contributed to more than a third of this growth, adding 1.2 million people to Australia’s population and bringing the total population to about 10.3 million by 1960.

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More about Arthur Calwell on the Museum of Australian Democracy website

Arthur Calwell, Be Just and Fear Not , Lloyd O’Neil Ptd Ltd and Rigby, Hawthorn, Victoria and Kentish Town, South Australia, 1972.

Eric Richards, Destination Australia: Migration to Australia since 1901 , UNSW Press, Sydney, 2008.

Gwenda Tavan, The Long, Slow Death of White Australia , Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2005.

Jerzy Zubrzycki, Arthur Calwell and the Origin of Post-War Immigration Canberra , Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research, 1995.

The National Museum of Australia acknowledges First Australians and recognises their continuous connection to Country, community and culture.

This website contains names, images and voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

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Sharing our migration stories

From across the sea - the museum's migration program explores our cultural heritage.

The arrival of waves of more than ten million migrants by boat and plane is one of the major themes in Australia’s history, and a foundation narrative of modern Australia, infusing our country with more than 200 different cultural and linguistic traditions. Was your family among them? 

Nearly half of all Australians were born overseas or have at least one parent born overseas. Migrants have contributed enormously to the making of modern Australia - we believe museums sharing their stories can increase our understanding of the unique challenges many migrants face.

Image: Group of migrants on the deck of MV Castel Verde, Italy, 1950–1957. ANMM Collection Gift from Barbara Alysen. Reproduced courtesy International Organisation for Migration. ANMM Collection ANMS02014[024]

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National Monument to Migration

Australia's National Monument to Migration (previously known as 'Welcome Wall'),  honours and celebrates all who have migrated from around the world to live in Australia. The Museum collects the stories of migrants to Australia and the Wall is one of our most important and visible ways of recognising the people behind these stories. Over 35,000 names already appear on bronze panels that are joined together and run down the northern promenade of the museum, facing Pyrmont Bay.

National Monument to Migration Donation - Lebanese Panel

National Monument to Migration Donation

Welcome to the National Monument to Migration at the Australian National Maritime Museum. This monument is a testament to Australia's rich multicultural heritage, honouring and celebrating all who have migrated from around the world to live in Australia. The monument, also known as the 'Welcome Wall', is a physical embodiment of the diverse stories of migrants who have made Australia their home.

The National Monument to Migration is a significant part of the Australian National Maritime Museum. It serves as a visible reminder of the people behind the migration stories that the Museum collects and shares. The monument features over 35,000 names inscribed on bronze panels that run down the northern promenade of the museum, facing Pyrmont Bay. Each name represents a unique journey, a story of hope, courage, and resilience. The monument is not just a tribute to the past; it is a living testament to the ongoing story of migration in Australia. It continues to grow as more and more names are added, each unveiling a new chapter in Australia's multicultural narrative. The monument is a place of reflection, a place where families can come to trace their roots and where visitors can gain a deeper understanding of Australia's multicultural identity.

The National Monument to Migration is more than just a list of names. It is a story of Australia, a story of people who, despite being from different backgrounds and cultures, have one thing in common - they all chose to make Australia their home. It is a story that continues to unfold, as new migrants arrive and add their names to the monument, contributing to the rich tapestry of Australia's multicultural society. By visiting the National Monument to Migration, you are not just witnessing a piece of history; you are becoming a part of it. You are joining a community that celebrates diversity, recognises the contributions of migrants, and honours the journey they undertook to start a new life in Australia. So, come and explore the National Monument to Migration and discover the stories that make up Australia's multicultural heritage.

How to enter your inscription. You do not enter your inscription here. Once your donation has been made you will receive an email with the link to your inscription. If you do not receive your email link or would like assistance please call 02 9298 3777 during office hours or email [email protected]

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The Immigrant's Journey to Australia

By JOL Admin | 8 August 2009

The John Oxley Library collection includes an extensive range of material relating to immigration and ships, particularly 19th century immigration vessels associated with the history of Queensland.

The collection consists of photographs, newspaper cuttings, published histories, shipboard newspapers, immigration records and original shipboard diaries. Original materials are listed on the State Library's One Search catalogue at: http://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/ .

Try typing "William Smith" into Manuscripts Queensland and see an example of one of these diaries that has been fully digitised from an 1864 voyage to Australia on the ship "Young Australia".

You can also type the words "Young Australia" into our Onesearch catalogue to discover photographs of the ship and published accounts of this particular voyage: http://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/action/search.do?vid=SLQ&reset_config=true

On Friday 7 August a seminar including speakers from the Queensland State Archives and the State Library of Queensland's Reference Library and John Oxley Library was held in auditorium 1 at the State Library of Queensland.

Senior Family History Librarian Stephanie Ryan provided an excellent overview of the resources held in the State Reference Library and focused on why people decided to start a new life in Australia and what it was like on the voyage out. Information Guides such as Immigration and Shipping: getting started and Immigration and Shipping: more than lists are available on the State Library's website at:   /research-collections/family-history/family-history-research-guides

Simon Farley highlighted the rich array of resources held in the John Oxley Library collection including original shipboard journals, shipping registers, and hundreds of photographs of ships and immigrants. The audience were interested to hear excerpts from a number of these original diaries.

Louise Howard from the Queensland State Archives concentrated on the fascinating public records held at QSA including immigrant's files, photographs of new arrivals while at the immigration depot, and letters to government authorities relating to conditions on board ship during voyages to Queensland. The State Archives have a Brief Guide on this topic at: http://www.archives.qld.gov.au/downloads/BriefGuides/BG16Immigration.pdf .

Many thanks to the presenters and all who attended this interesting seminar.

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