Trieste migrants having their papers checked as they board the CASTELVERDE
Date1954
Object numberANMS1453[051]
NamePhotograph
Mediumphotographic print on paper
DimensionsOverall: 153 × 206 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection
DescriptionA black and white image showing emigrants at Trieste having their papers checked before boarding the CASTEL VERDE to Australia.
An attached paper slip on the back reads ‘First Trieste Emigrants leave for Australia. About 650 emigrants left Trieste a few days ago, aboard the Liner S.S. CASTEL VERDE. They are the first of about 2,100 workers from Trieste and refugees from the Giulia Region, who are leaving their country through a special agreement with the Australian authorities. The emigrants will arrive in Melbourne within 25 days to take up jobs in Agriculture and Industry. Photo Shows: Their papers have been checked and all in order they hurry aboard the liner…anxious to get started on the journey to a new life. Mar.17.54.'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.
