Donaldson family aboard the FAIRSEA
Date1967
Object numberANMS1453[109]
NamePhotograph
Mediumphotographic print on paper
DimensionsOverall: 215 × 167 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection
DescriptionBlack and white image of the Donaldson family from Glasgow posing on a staircase on the deck of the FAIRSEA on its arrival in Fremantle.
A newspaper clipping attached to the back of the photograph read ‘A brother and sister who made a last-minute attempt to avoid migrating to Western Australia from Glasgow arrived in Fremantle yesterday with their parents and ten of their 13 brothers and sisters. Margaret Donaldson (15) and her brother, William (16), ran off the FAIRSEA in Southampton seven hours before she was due to sail for Australia. They said they did not ...[missing]... that letters Margaret and William had received at Cape Town had made them happier. The eight youngest children will stay at the Fairbridge farm school at Pinjarra..[missing]..’ and ‘Last year the number of new settlers fell from 147500 to 141000 and this year the number looks like falling by roughly the same amount again.’
In the 1950s the Society also introduced the Family Migration Scheme which catered for single parent families and families with five or more children. By 1960 nearly 3,580 children had been sent to Fairbridge Farm schools.HistorySince the first Fleet dropped anchor in 1788, more than 10 million people have moved from across the world to start a new life in Australia, arriving in waves, encouraged by the 1850s gold rushes or to escape adverse conditions at home in the social upheavals of C19th Britain's industrial revolution, the turmoil of revolution, two world wars, the aftermath of the Vietnam war in the 1970s and more recent conflicts.
With the catchphrase 'populate or perish' ringing through the community, Australia stepped up its immigration in the years after WWII, offering assisted passage to British migrants, encouraging migration from European countries, and finally in the 1970s repealing the restrictive white Australia policy framed after federation in 1901. More than seven million new settlers have now crossed Australia's shores since 1945 and it's estimated that one in four of Australia's population was born overseas.SignificanceThis image is one of a series of photographs taken by Fairfax photographers that provides a unique window into how immigrants were viewed and immigration policy articulated in the popular press in Australia. They represent something of the personal face to Australia's massive post-war immigration push and show immigrants from many European nations, USA and China.
1930s-1940s
1930s-1940s