Shades of white: were the Irish historical victims of racism?

An Irishman Looks at a Poster Advertising Voyages to New York and Resolves to Emigrate. Coloured Lithograph after E. Nicol, ca. 1840/1860

Public domain via Jstor, Open Artstor Collection (i)

During the Nineteenth Century and specifically following the Great Famine, 'dark', 'hairy', 'odious', 'simian', 'ugly' and worse, became common terms used to describe the Irish in America (1). Certainly, during the same period and well into the Twentieth Century, the Irish were often portrayed in English political cartoons as not only ugly subhumans but also hopeless and stupid. In his review of Liz Curtis' Nothing But the Same Old Story: The Roots of anti-Irish racsim, John Darby referred to a notorious cartoon by JAK published in the Evening Standard in 1981, which presented a mock movie poster entitled 'Showing Now: the Ultimate in Psychopathic Horror The Irish XXX'. Although purporting to be a commentary on the latest troubles of that time, it was interpreted as a continuation of a tradition of representing the Irish as inherently violent (2). This raises the intriguing question then: have the Irish historically been the victims of racism? 

Irish Emigrants in America: A Woman with Two Children, and a Man Sitting Outside an Inn Smoking a Pipe. Coloured Etching after William Heath, date unknown.

Public domain via Jstor, Open Artstor Collection (ii)

Bryan Fanning has argued that racism as a concept has 'always drawn on the dominant paradigms of knowledge and truth'. He proposed that while in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century racism largely relied on assumptions of racial superiority, increasingly there has been a shift in rationale towards arguments based around the necessity of exclusion to preserve cultural purity (3). If nothing else then, this suggests that racism is a malleable concept. In contrast, Amy Martin has perhaps provided a more nuanced view of traditional racism and its philosophical foundations suggesting that there were in fact two strains: one was indeed 'epidermal' in nature and the other was reliant on a 'more fluid understanding of racial hierarchy'. Indeed, this might explain Charles Kingsley's reference in a letter to his wife about witnessing 'human chimpanzees' on a visit to Ireland! This is perhaps an indication that British racism in the Victorian period was based less around a bias for 'whiteness' and relied more heavily on a complex, hierarchy of perceived physical and cultural traits (4). But does that mean that the idea that the Irish have been victims of active racial discrimination has merit?

Children Play a Game with Potatoes and a Rag Hanging from the Beam. Process Print after Erskine Nicol, date unknown.

Public domain via Jstor, Open Artstor Collection (iii)

To some extent negative perceptions of the Irish were driven by the displacement triggered by the famine. The Great Famine of the 1840s triggered a Malthusian response from the British that sought to avoid the effort and cost involved in any relief by blaming the victims with accusations of 'indolence and backwardness' (5). Dale T. Knobel, who wrote Paddy and the Republic: Ethnicity and Nationality in Antebellum America in 1985, later noted that of the forty immigrant ships arriving in New York Harbour daily by 1851, most were carrying Irish immigrants; therefore established Americans were very conscious of both their numbers and their 'haggard' presentation on arrival (6). At the time, American nativists were prone to attributing their condition on arrival to their nature rather than their experiences. Such nativists were defined by Knobel as settled Americans with anxieties concerning a national identity during a period of great economic and demographic change who tended to a convenient scapegoat for their varied problems in migrant populations. Among the subjects for derision were their religion, their impact on the labour market, even their politics. Many Irish were accused of undermining the labour market for working for low wages. They were also collectively known to support the then current pro-slavery platform of the Democratic Party. At the same time, the American nativists were concerned to some extent with all migrant groups including the Chinese. As a result, fraternal organisations tended to limit their membership to American born - although it would be interesting to know what percentage of their current membership were themselves descendants of earlier Irish migrants! (7)

A Well-Dressed Black Couple in New York City Are Being Offered a Coat by a Poor Irish Immigrant Outside a Laundry. Coloured Lithograph, artist and date unknown.

Public domain via Jstor, Open Artstor Collection (iv)

Regardless, the Irish were probably historically treated worst of all in their own land under Norman, English and later British rule. The Norman invasion of Ireland was initiated because of an indigenous civil war in the 12th Century and only eventually sanctioned by Henry II on account of political rather than truly colonial motives. The Statutes of Kilkenny that were enacted in 1366, were the foundation of a more 'defensive colonial policy' adopted by the government of Edward III. While they provided practical measures to ensure peace and trade, they were also a vehicle of segregation. The settler population were forbidden to form alliances with the natives through marriage or fostering, speak the Irish language or adopt Irish customs. The native Irish were themselves forbidden to speak Gaelic around the settlers and excluded from ecclesiastical positions. Regardless of whether they were intentioned as defensive or derogatory, they were J. C. Beckett's admission 'aimed at setting a permanent barrier between the two races in Ireland.' Ultimately though - despite their cruelty - the statutes were based on cultural differences and political interests rather than any obvious notions of racism. After all, this form of hierarchical, feudal society was the 'norm' in Europe; the native populations of England were themselves ruled by the Normans. Even so, widespread assimilation occurred in both England and Ireland and the Lordship of Ireland was increasingly left to its own devices until the middle Tudor period (8).

Resistance against colonialism also ironically provided a basis for the development of a view that the Irish were inherently troublesome (9). The worst excesses of the plantation system were to some extent an opportunistic response by the English to the Flight of the Earls in 1607. The corrupt system of confiscation that developed was likely fueled again by a defensive colonial policy which feared a coalition of the 'old English' (ie. the descendants of Norman invaders) and the natives. The confiscations inevitably led to the uprising in 1641. The English response was itself brutal and was largely justified by exaggerated claims of massacres of Protestants. Once English authority has been fully reasserted, the Irish Parliament of 1697 instituted laws that were designed to be specifically degrading to Catholics, which incorporated virtually the entirety of the native population. Catholics were excluded from Parliament, military service, civil service, municipal corporations and the legal profession. Alterations to laws relating to land ownership and inheritance were designed to make it virtually impossible for Catholics to accumulate land. Many of the 'old English' were also Catholic though, and were also impacted, probably more by the restrictions on educating their children abroad and change to rules of inheritance which encouraged conversions. These discriminatory laws were not repealed until 1829. These new laws were clearly an official strategy to deprive the native Irish population of any political power (10). The conflicts in Ireland from 1641 have traditionally been framed within the wider contests between Protestants and Catholics or Loyalists and Parliamentarians rather than one that on the ground may have been for the participants, more essentially between colonisers and natives. 

From 1641 then, the Irish character was characterised as inherently treacherous and violent. The thousands of Irish that were sold into Carribean slavery under Cromwell after the defeat of the rebellion in 1649 were by his own admission meant to serve as examples to the rest of the native population and not treated so because of their 'race'. (11). Later conflicts appeared to consolidate the treacherous and violent characterisation of the Irish which helped justify their heavy handed responses. Two attempted revolutions in 1798 and 1803 led to the institution of martial law. (12) The British reaction to the Easter uprising in 1916 for instance involved imposing martial law across Ireland although most resistance was centred around Dublin. The arbitrary British reprisals against the Irish during the War for Independence included such atrocities as the sacking of Balbriggan and the burning of Cork. (13) This pattern of brutality demonstrated a dogged colonial mindset rather than a racist agenda. General Nevil Macready who accepted Irish Command in 1920 and was apparently more sensitive towards the Irish situation than most of his counterparts, reportedly hated the Irish 'with a depth deeper than the sea and more violent than that which I feel against the Boche.' (14)  However, the Victorian and Edwardians tended to emphasise their Anglo-Saxon heritage at the expense of their Celtic, Roman and Scandanavian roots. (15) The 'Boche' of the day were likely despised because they represented a rival empire with which the Commonwealth had recently been at war, not from sense of racial superiority. It had been widely recognised by the British, that among the wider population of Ireland in 1916 there had been sympathy with the allied cause and most were content to wait to the end of hostilities before terminating the legislative union. The impatience and poor judgment of a small number of separatists (republicans, socialists and Sinn Fein) was not claimed to be proof of some kind of inherent racial propensity for treachery. (16) 

Author Unknown, advertisement for the position of a Nanny, Boston Transcript, 1868.

Public domain via wikimedia commons (v)

The Australian colonial experience for the Irish raises the same caveats to the proposition. Just as in the United States, there were a plethora of Nineteenth Century job advertisements evident in Australian colonial newspapers specifying that the Irish need not apply! (17) And while there is some evidence that the Celtic ritual practice of Halloween was suppressed in the Australian colonies, it has been noted that both the St. Patrick's and St. Valentine's feast day celebrations were better accepted on account of their Christian rather than pagan origins. (18) Certainly, there was discrimination, but it often appears to have emanated from a sectarian rather than a racial basis. Until the middle of the Twentieth Century at least, Australia was regarded as homogenous Anglo-Saxon society. The adoption of the term 'Anglo-Celtic' has only become evident in response to recent lobbying by descendants of Irish and Scottish migrants who desired recognition for their ancestors' contribution to the nation's cultural development.  But there is little or no evidence that this Celtic amnesia was motivated by anything other than an official desire to cultivate a more homogenous society. It may be significant to note however that the shift from Australia identifying as an 'Anglo' to an 'Anglo-Celtic' society though followed the upsurge of non-British emigration after 1945. (19)

A Potato Shaking Hands with Edward Jenner, Claiming Him as a Fellow Vaccinator. Watercolour by John Leech, date unknown. Note the name of the potato: 'Paddy Fluke'.

Public Domain via Jstor, Open Artstor Collection (vi)

Ironically in recent decades, Ireland itself has demonstrated increasing opposition to migrants, particularly asylum seekers. Bryan Fanning has argued that while this populism has great 'political currency' it is nevertheless 'grounded in racism and xenophobia'. Like the objections the American nativists expressed to Irish immigration in the Nineteenth Century, this resistance Fanning explains 'provides exceedingly simple explanations for complex societal problems' (20). 

Therefore, while the Irish were arguably vilified and discriminated against during the Nineteenth and into the Twentieth Centuries it should not be considered to have been a form of racism. In a colonial context, their 'whiteness' likely allowed for a swifter assimilation into European colonial societies than non-white immigrants. There were also major structural differences, both legislative and cultural, that would have mitigated their experiences; for instance, however equal their treatment with their black counterparts in the Caribbean, they were not assigned to become a kind of hereditary property in perpetuity. Furthermore, their typically pro-slavery stance during the Nineteenth Century was actually evidence of the privilege of suffrage, a liberty not universally enjoyed at the time by the Afro-American population. The subjugation of Ireland by the Normans, English and later British, occurred over several centuries. The conflicts that ensued have probably been correctly framed by historians as sectarian or native resistance movements rather than having been explained by racism. Subsequent to the Great Famine at least, it's clear that the Irish experienced prolonged periods of active discrimination in the New World by nativists but perhaps never as extreme as that inflicted by foreign invaders in their own occupied country. Ironically, there are some 'nativist' Irish voices today that could be accused of expressing anti-migrant sentiments that might be more accurately explained by racism.

-  Colin Mallett, 17 March 2026. 

Endnotes

(1) Dale T. Knobel, 'Celtic Exodus: The Famine Irish, Ethnic Stereotypes, and the Cultivation of         American Racial Nationalism', Radharc, 2001, 2:3-25, p. 5, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25122316, accessed 17 March 2025.

(2) John Darby, 'The Problem of English Racism', Fortnight, 1984, 211:19-19, p. 19, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25547631, accessed 17 March 2025. 

(3) Bryan Fanning, 'The Political Currency of Irish Racism: 1997-2002', Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 2002, 364(91):319-27, p. 320, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30095578, accessed 17 March 2025. 

(4) Amy E. Martin, 'Victorian Ireland: Race and the Category of the Human', Victorian Review, 2014, 1(40): 52-7, p. 52, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24497037, accessed 17 March 2025. 

(5) Martin, "Victorian Ireland', p. 53. 

(6) Knobel, 'Celtic Exodus', pp. 3-4.

(7) Kevin Kenny, 'Race, Labor, and Nativism: A Response to Dale T. Knobel', Radharc, 2001, 2:27-33, pp. 27-30, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25122317 accessed on 17 March 2025. 

(8) J. C. Beckett, A Short History of Ireland, Cressant Library, Sydney, 1986, pp. 16, 27, 31-6.

(9) Martin, "Victorian Ireland', p. 53.     

(10) Beckett, Short History, pp. 62, 64-5, 71-5, 92-3, 127.

(11) It must be acknowledged as John Donoghue argues that Atlantic slavery based on race was in fact an historical abberation. See: John Donaghue, 'The Curse of Cromwell: revisting the Irish slavery debate', History Ireland, 2017, 4(25):24-8, pp. 24-5, http://www.jstor.org/stable/90014565, accessed on 19 March 2025. This view is reinforced by the trade in a million European slaves among the Ottoman Barbary states from the Seventeenth Century the early Nineteenth Century. Refer to: Giles Milton, White Gold, Hodder and Stoughton, 2005, passim.

(12) Charles Townshend, ' Martial Law: legal and administrative problems of civil emergency in Britain and the Empire, 1800-1940', The Historical Journal, 1982, 1(25):167-95, p. 167, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638811, accessed 21 March 2025. 

(13) M. A. Doherty, 'Kevin Barry and the Anglo-Irish Propaganda War', Irish Historical Studies, 2000 126(32):217-31, p. 228, http://www.jstor.org/stable/300006997, accessed 21 March 2025; Martin Frederick Seedorf, 'The Lloyd George Government and the Strickland Report on the burning of Cork, 1920', Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies', 1972, 2(4):59-66, pp. 59-60, https:doi.org./10.2307/4048122, accessed 21 March 2025. 

(14) Ian Roxborough, '6. The Military: The mutual determination of strategy of Ireland, 1912-1921', in Breaking Down the State: Protestors Engaged, Jan Willem Duyvendak & James M. Jasper (eds), Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2015, pp. 142-4, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt.196315k.9., accessed 21 March 2025.

(15) Joanne Parker, '6. The Victorians, the Dark Ages and the English National Identity', in The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Low Countries, pp. 132-3, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004241862_088, accessed 11 August 2025. 

(16) Beckett, Short History, pp. 151-2. Ultimatley, sixteen of the insurgents were tried and shot. 

(17) A phrase search for 'No Irish Need Apply' on the digitisation resource TROVE in the category of Newspapers and Gazettes produces 1, 181 results: https://trove.nla.gov.au/search/advanced/category/newspapers?keyword.phrase=No%20Irish%20Need%20Apply&startPos=0&sortBy=dateAsc The source newspapers cover the period from early settlement to the 1950s: the earliest example is from 1832 and the most recent from 1953. See: "English Wants', Launceston Advertiser (Tasmania), 18 January 1832, p 23, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article84775136, accessed 19 March 2025 & 'Irish insulted', Tribune (Sydney), 25 February 1953, p 9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212468776, accessed 19 March 2025.

(18) Colin Mallett, 'Halloween in Australia', The Write Side of History blog, 29 October 2022, https://thewrite5ideofhistory.blogspot.com/2022/10/halloween-in-australia.html, accessed 19 March 2025.

(19) Miriam Dixson, The Imaginary Australian: Anglo-Celts and Identity, 1788 to the present, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1999, p. 9.

(20) Fanning, 'Irish Racism', p. 319. 

Figures and Illustrations

(i) Nicol, Erskine, 1825-1904. An Irishman Looks at a Poster Advertising Voyages to New York and Resolves to Emigrate. Coloured Lithograph after E. Nicol, ca. 1840/1860. 1 print : lithograph, with watercolour, [not after 1867]. Wellcome Collection, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24750461, accessed 19 March 2025.

(ii) Heath, William, 1795-1840. Irish Emigrants in America: A Woman with Two Children, and a Man Sitting Outside an Inn Smoking a Pipe. Coloured Etching after William Heath. 1 print : etching. Wellcome Collection, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24885469, accessed 19 March 2025.

(iii) Nicol, Erskine, 1825-1904. Children Play a Game with Potatoes and a Rag Hanging from the Beam. Process Print after Erskine Nicol. 1 print : process print, 4 July 1891. Wellcome Collection, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24884706, accessed 19 March 2025.

(iv) A Well-Dressed Black Couple in New York City Are Being Offered a Coat by a Poor Irish Immigrant Outside a Laundry. Coloured Lithograph. 1 print : lithograph, with watercolour, 1800-1899. Wellcome Collection, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24885523, accessed 19 March 2025.

(v) Unknown, Author. Advertisement for a nanny that appeared in the Boston Transcript in 1868, stating "Positively no Irish need apply." Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:No_Irish_Need_Apply.jpg#Licensing. Reprinted in "A Journey Through Boston Irish History" by Dennis P. Ryan, Arcadia Publishing, 1999, accessed 19 March 2025. 

(vi) Leech, John, 1817-1864. A Potato Shaking Hands with Edward Jenner, Claiming Him as a Fellow Vaccinator. Watercolour by John Leech. 1 drawing : watercolour, with pen and brown ink, [between 1800 and 1899]. Wellcome Collection, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24742788, accessed 19 March 2025.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Launceston Advertiser (Tasmania)

Tribune (Sydney)

Secondary Sources:

Beckett, J. C. A Short History of Ireland, Cressant Library, Sydney, 1986.

Darby, John, 'The Problem of English Racism', Fortnight, 1984, 211:19-19, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25547631.

Dixson, Miriam, The Imaginary Australian: Anglo-Celts and Identity, 1788 to the present, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1999.

Doherty, M. A., 'Kevin Barry and the Anglo-Irish Propaganda War', Irish Historical Studies, 2000 126(32):217-31, http://www.jstor.org/stable/300006997.

Donaghue, John, 'The Curse of Cromwell: revisting the Irish slavery debate', History Ireland, 2017, 4(25):24-8, http://www.jstor.org/stable/90014565.

Fanning, Bryan, 'The Political Currency of Irish Racism: 1997-2002', Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 2002, 364(91):319-27, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30095578.

Kenny, Kenny, 'Race, Labor, and Nativism: A Response to Dale T. Knobel', Radharc, 2001, 2:27-33,  http://www.jstor.org/stable/25122317. 

Knobel, Dale T., 'Celtic Exodus: The Famine Irish, Ethnic Stereotypes, and the Cultivation of American Racial Nationalism', Radharc, 2001, 2:3-25, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25122316.

Mallett, Colin, 'Halloween in Australia', The Write Side of History blog, 29 October 2022, https://thewrite5ideofhistory.blogspot.com/2022/10/halloween-in-australia.html.

Milton, Giles, White Gold, Hodder and Stoughton, 2005.

Parker, Joanne, '6. The Victorians, the Dark Ages and English National Identity', in The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Low Countries, Hugh Dunthorne & Michael Wintle (eds), Brill, Netherlands, 2013, pp. 133-50, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004241862_008.

Roxborough, Ian, '6. The Military: The mutual determination of strategy of Ireland, 1912-1921', in Breaking Down the State: Protestors Engaged, Jan Willem Duyvendak & James M. Jasper (eds), Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2015, pp. 133-56, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638811. 

Seedorf, Martin Frederick, 'The Lloyd George Government and the Strickland Report on the burning of Cork, 1920', Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, 1972, 2(4):59-66, https:doi.org./10.2307/4048122. 

Townshend, Charles, ' Martial Law: legal and administrative problems of civil emergency in Britain and the Empire, 1800-1940', The Historical Journal, 1982, 1(25):167-95, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638811. 

Online Sources:

Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, accessed 2 April 2025.

*

Many thanx to Kylie for always proofreading my scribbles!

Away to Zion! Early Mormon proselytisation in Australia

During the Nineteenth Century thousands of converts to the Church of Latter-day saints travelled from Europe to America. This represented an enormous transfer of human capital to the new world, facilitated by the lure of an emerging faith and perhaps the tempting promise of a new start. Less is known about those that travelled the pacific route, some even coming from the Australian colonies. While the Church of Jesus Chirst of Latter-day saints first began to establish a presence in the colony of Van Diemen's Land, later Tasmania, during the 1850s, the religion did not establish a strong footing there for another century. So, how and why was Mormon proselytisation so successful during the Nineteenth Century? And what challenges did the Mormon movement face in the Australian colonies, specifically Tasmania?

The Mormon story began with a 'divine restoration ' that occurred at the village Palmyra, Manchester, New York in 1820. A young prophet named Joseph Smith Jnr (1805-1844) had a vision of Jesus who forgave him his sins and instructed him not to join any established church. In 1822, he claimed to experience three visits by an angel named Moroni, who tasked him with finding and translating a trove of ancient records in the form of golden plates. This archive detailed the history of a group of Israelites (the Nephites and Lamanites) who had left Jerusalem around 600 BCE only to become extinct around 400 CE. This history had been written by the last Nephite prophet, Mormon. Smith's translation was published in 1830 as The Book of Mormon. Naturally the ideas of Smith and his followers attracted criticism and persecution, one incident even leading to their prophet's premature demise. Originally based in Illinois, Mormons began to seek their independence, crossing the Great Plains and settling in the Salt Lake Valley.  Under the leadership of their second President, Brigham Young, they attempted to form their own state 'Deseret' (partly across the territory that had already been designated by the US government to be Utah). The 'democratic theocracy' of the Mormons clashed multiple times with US administrations, particularly on the practice of polygamy. Regardless, this new faith endured and the commitment by the Mormon church to proselytise has continued through the Twentieth and into the Twenty First centuries, to the extent that today there are 14 million members of the church, two thirds of which live outside the United States. (1)

C. C. A. Christensen, The Hill Cumorah, Before 1912.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (i)

Between 1840 and 1890, approximately 90, 000 Mormon converts were transported from Europe to the American territories. (2) In the 1840s the former President of the British Mission, Thomas Ward, proposed the formation of a joint stock company; it's purpose was to provide a commercial service to trade goods between Britain and the United States and at the same time provide free - or at least subsidised - passage for European Mormons to migrate. This proposal survived many iterations but eventually failed, causing many British Mormons to lose their savings but their desperation and disappointment reflected the difficulty many converts experienced in arranging passage in pursuit not only of salvation but also of a better life. (3)  But many converts did find a way to migrate. A hostile editorial commentary on Mormonism copied from the Globe and published in the Louisville Commercial in 1880 argued that 'the vast majority of converts come from the ranks of dissent', adding that 1500 of the 'poor ignorant creatures'.... departed from Liverpool that year alone and as many from Glasgow'. The accusation was made that '...before embarkation, converts have fancy pictures sketched for them of a happy land where...all is fraternity...', although it's noted that '...Poverty of a very stern order exists in Utah as elsewhere...'. The point is also made that a migrant would have as a good of a chance as making a success as a farmer in Australia, New Zealand or Canada. (4) The allure experienced by these converts must have been strong enough to resolve the cost but also the very real risks of continental migration. Even so, the only known voyage carrying Mormon pioneers to be shipwrecked was the Julia Ann that departed from Sydney under the command of Captain Benjamin F. Pond in September 1855. (5)

Recruitment to the church was also drawn from the recent European diaspora of the time. The life story of Samuel Rose Parkinson preserved by his journal reflects the often-complex migratory journey of many converts to Mormonism. Born in 1831, a native of Lancashire, Samuel first migrated to the Australian colony of New South Wales in 1839 but returned in 1846. He and his parents migrated to St. Louis, Missouri in 1848 (soon after assisting his sister and her own family in a classic pattern of chain migration). It was there he joined the church after marrying a convert in 1852 and finally travelling with his own family and sister to Utah in 1854. (6) Recruitment was often a source of controversy, particularly when converts were young and even married women. Martha Maria Humphreys (nee Bucknell) a married woman living in the Hunter Valley, was converted in 1852 by young minister of church named John McCarthy. A letter she wrote to her parents in December 1853 is still extant in archives of the Mitchell Library; Marjorie Newton explains that the letter reveals the 'millennialism' evident among converts, a sense of urgency to remove to 'Zion' before the day of final judgment. The letter also betrays and awareness and support for the doctrine of polygamy. It is also clear that at least at the time of composing the letter, her husband was engaged elsewhere and was unaware of her plans - although it is not known if he and the older sons planned to join the rest of the family at a later date. Martha departed aboard the ill-fated Julia Ann with two daughters and younger son on 7 September 1855. She and her daughter Mary were drowned although the other two children survived. There was a subsequent scandal involving Martha's brother William Wentworth Bucknell another convert who along with his wife and family were intending to emigrate on the Jenny Ford in September 1856. However, an attachment to a servant he intended to bring with them led to a dispute, the ultimate result of which was Bucknell's excommunication. Bucknell's wife and two sons subsequently emigrated as converts and he duly complained to the Governor that they had been seduced away! (7)

Joseph Keppler. In Memorium Brigham Young, 1877.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (ii)

There were other serious challenges to the establishment of the Mormon church in the Australian colonies. The primary one was of course, remained the issue of polygamy.  In 1873 on the occasion of a Mormon minister coming to conduct sermons in Sydney, the Melbourne's Advocate reported that: '...we scarcely think that many fair Australians will be found willing to exchange even the chance of a whole husband, all to herself here, for a mere fraction of a husband at Salt Lake.' (8) The practice of polygamy combined with the habit of recruiting converts was to long remain a fixation for the local media: the following year the Tasmanian Tribune noted that regarding a tour by Elder Geddes he defended plural marriage on 'material and Scriptural grounds' although it is noted, perhaps with some relief, that '...no rumour has yet floated abroad as to his having made converts...' (9) As a reult of pressure and persecution from the US government, the church effectively ceased the practice of polygamy following a general conference in 1890. (10) Despite segments of the media afterwards continuing to focus on the persistence of the practice outside of the mainstream church, interest and respect for the faith among the general Australian population seemed to improve from that time. (11) Anti-Mormon activists succeeded in having entry banned for all Mormon missionaries across the British Empire following the end of World War One, but it was lifted by 1920. A decade later, the onset of the Great Depression made it more difficult for missiony work to be supported. Despite these challenges, the church continued to find acceptence and expand. The first Australian state to recognise the Mormon church as an official religious denomination was Victoria in 1923. (12) 

As previously noted, it took a century for the Mormon movement to become frimly established in Tasmania. While, the Church of Latter-day Saints began to establish a presence in Tasmania from 1854, progress was slow and there was active resistance to their mission. Regardless, congregations were first established in the 1890s. (13) Resistance to early missionaries were apparently strongest in Launceston and Elders Burr Frost and Robert Owens experienced 'considerable opposition' on their arrival there in 1854. Permission was eventually obtained from the local Mayor for Mormons to hold street meetings in 1897. The Tasmanian region first became known as the 'Tasmanian Conference' led by a 'presiding elder' based in Hobart. Local members worked as Sunday School teachers, secretaries and organists. The first local member to be ordained an Elder was Tracy William Watkins in 1894. The church was finally recognised by the state in 1931 allowing its priesthood to perform such functions as marriages and funerals. The same year the term conference was changed to district. Between 1926 and 1951, the membership grew from 1169 to 2187. In 1937 the standing of the district was raised when the formation of a 'stake of Zion' in Tasmania was approved by church authroities. Membership more than doubled in the decades between 1955 and 1976 from 3506 to 7071. Two of the more progressive initiatives institued by the church were a local branch of the Mormon Women's organisation, the State Relief Society during the depression and a welfare farm in the early post-war period. (14)

Sydney Australia Temple (Carlingford), 2010.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (iii)

The mass migration of Mormon converts to the United States likely reflects several push/pull factors among them: poverty, fraternity and perhaps most importantly of all, a compelling, 'new' christian faith. Certainly for many British converts if the motivations were purely material, it probably would have been a more practical  to simply migrate to one of the promising colonies such as Australia, New Zealand or Canada. It hard to reconcile the contemporary argument that the new faith was only a convenience for the dispossesed as the process of conversion was clearly most often a heartfelt and genuine one; for instance, many early missionaries faced many hardships including open hostility and poverty away from their families in order to proselytise their faith. Among the converts there was in fact, an underlying sense of urgency among converts to escape 'Babylon' and find 'Zion' before the impending day of judgement. In truth, the church itself was established during a age of great migration and drew on various European diaspora, including the British and Irish colonials. The missionary experience in Tasmania reflects many of the broader challenges the church faced in its first century or more of development. It was most of all, a threat to the established christian denominations and the hostile reception in Launceston was particularly notable. The practice of polygamy, which had in truth been effectively dropped by 1890, was used as a tool of derision and to some extent negative propaganda. Other challenges - such as the ban against missionaries entering in the British Empire following the First World War and then the Great Depression from 1929 - stunted the development of the church in the newly federated country. However the strong contribution and model behaviour of the church's menbership eventually saw it win mainstream acceptance, offical recognition and growth. 

- Colin Mallett, 19 December 2025.

Endnotes

(1)  D. Michael Quinn, 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons)' in The Columbia Guide to Mormonism in American History, Paul Harvey, Edward J. Blum & Randall Stephens (eds), Columbia University Press, 2012, pp. 352-64, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/harv14020.23, accessed 30 September 2025.

(2) Keith L. Brown, 'As they sailed to Zion: The Voyage of the Julia Ann', History of Mormonism website, https://historyofmormonism.com/2014/10/12/sailed-zion-voyage-julia-ann/, accessed 30 September 2025. There were in fact 593 known voyages that carried converts from Europe to America.
(3) Ronald D. Watt, 'Mission to Britain' in The Mormon Passage of George D. Watt: first Britsh convert, scribe for Zion, University Press of Colorado, 2009, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt4cgrhc.8, accessed 30 September 2025, pp. 60, 64. 

(4) Author Unknown, 'The Mormons in England', Louisville Commercial, 31 October 1880, p. 7, https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.31322241, accessed 30 September 2025.

(5) Fred. E. Woods, 'The unbelievable true story of Saints shipwrecked on their way to Zion', Latter-day Saint Life website, https://www.ldsliving.com/the-unbelievable-true-story-of-saints-shipwrecked-on-their-way-to-zion/s/78234, accessed 30 September 2025. Although five lives were lost, the surviving passengers and crew were rescued and continued their voyage.

(6) William C. Parkinson, 'Biography of Samuel Rose Parkinson', Hagan Family History Website, https://www.hagan.me/fhist/parkinson/SamuelRoseParkinson.html, accessed 30 September 2025.

(7) Marjorie Newton. ' "Seduced Away": Early Mormon Documents in Australia', Brigham Young University Studies, 35 (3), 1995-6, pp. 152, 154, 163, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43042071?seq=1, accessed 30 September 2025. Ironically, while it appears Bucknell went on and married the servant girl, his first wife later returned with her sons to the colony making him effectively, a bigamist.

(8)  'A Mormon Minister in Sydney', Advocate, 26 April 1873, p. 13,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article170298808, accessed 26 September 2025.

(9) 'A Mormon in Tasmania', Tasmanian Tribune, 29 December 1874, p. 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201483955, accessed 26 September 2025.

(10) 'About the Mormons', Tasmanian News, 12 January 1895, p. 4., http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173870258, accessed 26 September 2025, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173870258, accessed 26 September 2026.  According to Elder Pond in the interview, no more than 2% of their people ever engaged in the practice. Men remained married to their first wives and provision was made for the disenfranchised wives. 

(11) An example of a typical salacious headline being: 'Harems in Mexico', Tasmanian News, 23 January 1896, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article177536945, accessed 26 September 20206. Indeed, the publication of a clipping from New York's Independant in 1898 claiming that polygamy was still flourishing in Utah, prompted a visiting missionary to Tasmania, William Harvey, to write a letter to the editor explaining that the practice was indeed formally abandoned with the publication of a manifesto by their president Wilfred Woodruff dated 24 September 1890 after a legal challenge had been lost and to ensure that the Mormon population conformed with the 'law of the land'. He added that any Mormons still engaging in the practice were doing so in defiance of the teachings of the church. See: 'The Mormons and Polygamy', Mercury, 4 June 1898, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9423641, accessed 26 September 2026. The film, 'The Mormon Maid, 1917,  was released in Australia in 1918 and presented a negative view of the church, emphasising the banned practice of polygamy. Refer to: Preben Villy Scott & Donald Arthur Woolley, The History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: Tasmania 1854-2001 (2nd Edition), self--published, Ulverstone, 2001, p.5.

(12) Scott & Woolley, The History of the Church, pp. 4-5.Subsequent to the lifting of the ban, in 1921, Elder David O. McKay of the Council of Twelve toured Australia, visiting all conferences except Perth. This perhaps marked a turning point in the long process of the Mormon faith becoming mainstream in Australia.

(13) Neil Chick, 'Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints', Companion to Tasmanian History website, https://www.utas.edu.au/tasmanian-companion/biogs/E000207b.htm, accessed 30 September 2025. In fact the first Mormon missionaires believed to have arrived in the colony were John Murdoch and Charles Wandel in 1851. The first Elder to visit was Robert Owen in 1854 on his return home from a mission to India. See: Scott & Woolley, The History of the Church, p. 4.

(14) Scott & Woolley, The History of the Church, pp. 4-6, 8, 11, 86, 92, 123, 127.

Figures and Illustrations

(i) C. C. A. Christensen, The Hill Cumorah, before 1912, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Hill_Cumorah_by_C.C.A._Christensen.jpeg, accessed 8 October 2025.

(ii) Joseph Keppler, In Memoriam Brigham Young, 1877, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:In_memoriam_brigham_young_3.jpg, accessed 8 October 2025. 

(iii) Scott Contini, Sydney Australia Temple (Carlingford), 2010, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sydney_Australia_Temple_(Carlingford).jpg, accessed 8 October 2025. 

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Advocate (Melbourne)

Mercury (Hobart)

Tasmanian News (Hobart)

Tasmanian Tribune (Hobart)

Secondary Sources

Newton, Marjorie. ' "Seduced Away": Early Mormon Documents in Australia', Brigham Young University Studies, 35 (3), 1995-6, pp. 149-65.

Quinn, D. Michael. 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons)' in The Columbia Guide to Mormonism in American History, Paul Harvey, Edward J. Blum & Randall Stephens (eds), Columbia University Press, 2012, pp. 352-64, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/harv14020.23, accessed 30 September 2025.

Scott, P. V. & Woolley, D. A. The History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: Tasmania 1854-2001 (2nd Edition), self--published, Ulverstone, 2001.

Watt, Ronald D. 'Mission to Britain' in The Mormon Passage of George D. Watt: first British convert, scribe for Zion, University Press of Colorado, 2009, pp. 58-81, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt4cgrhc.8, accessed 30 September 2025. 

Online Sources

Author Unknown, 'The Mormons in England', Louisville Commercial, 31 October 1880, p. 7, https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.31322241, accessed 30 September 2025.

Brown, Keith L. 'As they sailed to Zion: The Voyage of the Julia Ann', History of Mormonism website, https://historyofmormonism.com/2014/10/12/sailed-zion-voyage-julia-ann/, accessed 30 September 2025.

Chick, Neil. 'Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints', Companion to Tasmanian History website, https://www.utas.edu.au/tasmanian-companion/biogs/E000207b.htm, accessed 30 September 2025.

Parkinson, William C. 'Biography of Samuel Rose Parkinson', Hagan Family History Website, https://www.hagan.me/fhist/parkinson/SamuelRoseParkinson.html, accessed 30 September 2025. 

Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.

Woods, Fred, E. 'The unbelievable true story of Saints shipwrecked on their way to Zion', Latter-day Saint Life website, https://www.ldsliving.com/the-unbelievable-true-story-of-saints-shipwrecked-on-their-way-to-zion/s/78234, accessed 30 September 2025. 

'A new career of usefulness': Anglo-Indians in Tasmania

William Fullerton of Rosemount, EIC, Surgeon in Patna, and Mayor of Calcutta, receiving a visitor, attended by servants with fly-whisks (chauri),1764.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (i)

During its long history, the East India Company developed from a minor Seventeenth Century maritime trading enterprise into a Nineteenth Century imperial power that transformed both the British economy as well as the social and political landscape of the emerging nation of India.  Following the decisive Battle of Plassey in 1757, concerns were raised over its capacity to maintain its dual role as both sovereign and trader while resisting the temptations of self-interest. Reforms both legislative and cultural were implemented from that time that helped shaped its workforce overwhelmingly from one comprised of ambitious grifters into a class that prided itself on its ethic of public service (and arguably a flawed belief in their role as civilisers!). Some Anglo-Indians were even to retire to the colony of Van Diemen's Land, later Tasmania. So then, what connections were maintained between the East India Company and the most remote of all British colonies, Tasmania and what role and legacy, if any, did these Anglo-Indians have its development?

The Mugal Emperor Akbar receiving Sir John Mildenhall, Queen Elizabeth I's ambassador, 1599. 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (ii)

William Dalrymple sharply noted in his book The Anarchy that when the East India Company was formed in September 1599, Shakespeare was still writing his play Hamlet! The company was formed in part as an opportunistic reaction to the success of the Dutch in the new world. Under the leadership of Thomas Smythe, an auditor for the City of London who had experience trading with the Greek Islands and Allepo, sufficient capital was raised by subscription and Elizabeth I was presented with a petition for a charter to allow trading in the East Indies (1) During its earliest history, the Company was a minor participant in trade to the East, experiencing decided obstruction from both the Dutch and the Portuguese. The first company ship arrived in 1608 but did not receive an edict to trade until 1612 when the defeat of four Portuguese galleons by two company ships, impressed the emperor. (2) The company persisted during its first century of operation, establishing forts, building alliances and fostering trade. The Glorious Revolution in 1688 established the English stock market and this energised its fortunes alongside the wider British economy. (3) The separation of the company's management from its share ownership led to the creation of an elected Court of Directors answerable to the stockholders. The company acquired a territorial empire after 1757 and was transformed into an Imperial power. In short, H. V. Bowen has observed that the company '...played an important part in tying together the City of London, the state, the Empire in a series of entangling relationships that enabled resources to be mobilised at home and abroad, thereby helping to facilitate the emergence of Britain as the greatest financial, imperial, industrial and military power on the world stage.' (4)

India House, the Sale Room, 1809.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (iii)

To a certain degree, the tyranny of distance between the United Kingdom and India both tested and tempted, providing impetus and latitude for abuses. For much of its history there was as much of a delay as several months in communication. There was often tension between East India House and the presidencies when discrepancies between official reports and direct observations became evident - even if it wasn't clear if they could be attributed to incompetence or corruption! (5) A Parliamentary enquiry in 1695 into bribery and insider trading led to the imprisonment of its Governor. (6) Many in established English society, despised the 'nabobs' or Britons who had made fortunes in the region. In their estimation at least, some returned to marry above their station, buy seats in parliament and generally destabilise the economy! Robert Clive, during his second Governorship, recognised that poor compensation and adverse conditions encouraged the pursuit of self-interest. (7) The Regulatory Act of 1773 insisted that all gifts were to be declared to the company and mostly returned. The later Pitt Act of 1784 further sought to reform company behaviour. However, the impeachment of Governor General William Hastings in 1786 - who had been elected to implement reforms and establish a supreme court - suggested there were lingering concerns over company practices and the discipline of its workforce. (8) 

Haileybury College, 1894.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (iv)

A key component of reform was a focus on the proper training and general preparation for a career in either administrative or military service within the company. Until the close of the Eighteenth Century, appointments had always been based on patronage; the assumption being that class itself was evidence of both education and capacity. The Marquess Wellesley was the first to pitch the concept of a structured education for recruits. Subsequently the College of Fort William was established at Calcutta in 1800 - attendance being mandatory for all writers regardless of their assigned presidency. This innovation was deeply resented by the Directors of the Company who preferred the idea of an English based college where greater selectivity of candidates could be exercised. (9) An English college, Haileybury, was established in 1809.  The Charter of 1813 made it mandatory for all trainee 'writers' to attend. (10) While open to youths aged between 15 and 22, there were persistent accusations of elitism. Entrance was dependent on a nomination from a director and the fees were notoriously expensive. The college operated for over half a century and often serviced multiple generations of the same families. The curriculum was a blend of economics and languages. The academic staff were poached from Oxford and Cambridge and included Thomas Robert Malthus, who taught there for over three decades. The company also established a military training college at Addiscombe. Brian Gardner in his history of the company argued that this reform was largely successful in its ambition noting that in retrospect the 'Haileybury and Addiscombe men ran India not just for themselves and their careers, as their predecessors had mainly done, but for the company, and with a sense of duty towards the Crown, and often towards India itself.' (11)

A View of East India House, Leadenhall Street, London, 1802.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (v)

As the early Nineteenth Century progressed, the situation in India for young men pursuing a career became both more socially palatable and fiscally rewarding for those who operated affairs by the book. Gardner acknowledges that previous to those reforms, many men became alcoholics or opium addicts in an attempt to meet the challenges of India. The length of the journey was gradually diminished: down to four months with the introduction of the steamship route by the 1820s, and two months via the overland, Mediterranean express route in the 1830s. Slowly pay and leave benefits improved. Social life also improved with many women travelling to India to find potential husbands who could eventually look forward to a retirement back in England with a healthy pension. (12) Indeed, by the early Nineteenth Century, the Anglo-Indians had become to be regarded as a distinct social group later defined by Malcolm Allbrook in An Anglo-Indian Community in Britain as 'Britons born in India of British parents or Britons who spent long periods in India, many of whom self-identified as Anglo-Indian.' Many believed that India had benefited from their presence, and they adopted the label with pride, and it often came to influence their family, social and business networks. A central tenant of that society appears to have been the ideal of colonial service, particularly in India. (13) 

James Prinsep, pencil sketch of Augustus Prinsep by his brother James Prinsep, 1816.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (vi)

The colony of Van Diemen's Land proved to be a popular destination for Anglo-Indian servants of the company on furlough. (14) Between 1829 and 1830 Augustus Prinsep and his family visited the island colony and an account titled A Journey from Calcutta to Van Diemen's Land, was published posthumously by his wife in 1833. Prinsep's Journal, made up of letters composed between 1829 and 1830, reflected an increasing interest in the colony, he particularly saw it as both a place of opportunity to own land and simultaneously make a significant contribution to the Empire. (15) Although the island was initially intended as a stop-over on their way to New South Wales, by the end of their stay it was clear that both he and his wife Elizabeth were considering settlement there and explained their reasoning:

...we have almost come to a determination, that it will be preferable to come hither three or four years hence, with a little money, than to stay, and dare disease and death in Bengal; indeed, there are here so many advantages, that were any calamity to fall upon any of our hitherto lucky family, the sufferers might still have a chance of happiness, and plenty, by coming to Van Diemen's Land.

The advantages Prinsep listed throughout his correspondence are both economic and natural. He argued that the island offered many industries to invest in including 'building-land, sheep, cattle, bank-stock, or whale fishery shares', In addition, he observed everywhere the natural beauty, the fertility of the land and the ample cheap labour available to settlers with a modest amount of capital. While he admits that 'most of our new friends have sprung from the lowest democracy' he significantly qualifies the colony's long-term potential by emphasising the importance that a '...little more respectability may perhaps be imported from England or from India....'. (16) Prinsep's experiences firstly reflect the increased flexibility and benefits available to company servants from the 1820s. After a decade's service it was firstly possible to claim home leave. With a medical certificate it was possible to be granted a leave of absence with no restrictions on where it might be spent. Furthermore, wages up to a thousand pounds per annum was payable for at least fifteen months. (17) His account also inadvertently indicates a sense of an obligation for colonial service on the part of the educated and landed classes to benefit the expanding empire. (18) 

Augustus Prinsep, panoramic view of Hobarton, 1829/30.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (vii)

Most company servants retired back to England, but some chose the colonies, and specifically Tasmania to settle. Several notable Anglo-Indians who eventually selected Tasmania as their place of settlement included Charles Fenton, Charles Swanston, and Edward Braddon. (19) Also among them was Edward Dumaresq, who after accepting a cadetship in the East India Company's service, became a junior officer in the Bombay Native Infantry as well as gaining some experience as a Surveyor in Gujarat. When his health broke down in 1823, he initially took sick leave in Mauritius. It was when voyaging to the Australian colonies during his recovery that he first became familiar with the island.  After being invalided out of the service and briefly returning home, he soon after emigrated with relatives and personally selected Van Diemen's Land to settle. (20) Most if not all of these Anglo-Indians who settled in the colony appear to have joined the company after 1800, by which time it had instituted levels of mandatory and standardised training; this may help to explain why they shared a common appreciation of the importance of colonial service.

Johan Joseph Zoffany RN, Patrick Heatly, c. 1783-89.

Public domain via JSTOR (viii)

The first scheme to attract Anglo-Indians to settle in the colony known as the 'Indiana Institution' and launched in 1824, failed. The proposal was aimed at Anglo-Indian Englishmen who had married Indian wives and their descendants. But instead, the colony largely remained a place of investment in property for servants of the company who had an eye on their future. (21)  Still the standards necessary to secure a land grant were clearly high, as Prinsep himself was refused. (22) Another official scheme to facilitate Anglo-Indian migration to the colony was established in 1867. Its innovator was a Colonel Andrew Crawford (1815-1899), an East Indian Company military officer who had furloughed there in the 1840s with his wife and her family at Richmond and had purchased land before returning to India. Tasmanian Parliament amended the Immigration Act to allow the Governor to set aside 9, 700 acres of land for Anglo-Indian migrants around Castra near Ulverstone; concurrently a committee named Castra and Co. was established in the Bombay Presidency for the purpose of recruitment. It was estimated that the Crawford scheme would inject 10, 000 pounds into the local economy per annum. (23) 

Colonel Michel Maxwell Shaw, an Anglo-Indian who arrived in Tasmania in 1868 as a part of Crawford's scheme, had a letter he had written to the Indian Times republished in the Mercury describing his 150-acre property and recommending the colony as a place where small fortunes might become large while 'farms are awaiting owners'.  He expressed the sentiment that settlement by quality migrants was almost a patriotic duty, noting that the presence of a hundred or more gentlemen in the district would not only increase land values but also help to act as a brake on a wasteful colonial government (24).  While still enlisted in the Queen's Indian Army, Shaw had published a pamphlet entitled 'Tasmania and Missionary Emigration in Joint Stock and Co. and Co-operative Action' extolling the virtues of Tasmania as a 'superior field for British emigrants'. (25) Responding in a letter home to an enquiry from a cousin about opportunities in the colony in 1878, Shaw related that it was '...astonishing how comfortable a small farm can make one.' He explained that properties could be bought for a modest sum and developed easily to a point where they could be largely self-sufficient thanks to plentiful natural resources and operated by local labour, perhaps to be later sold at a profit. Significantly though, almost as an afterthought reflected on the good one of an appropriate class and skill set could achieve: 'There is a great opening for pious families out here. They become great centres of usefulness.' (26) Regardless, of the forty-three Anglo-Indians who purchased land under the Crawford scheme, only twenty were still resident in the colony by 1880. Many did not even clear their properties! While their economic impact was limited, their overall influence on the political, social and cultural development of the colony was likely considerable. (27)

Edward Braddon attending the last meeting of the Federal Council of Australasia, 1899.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (ix)

Yet the ethic of colonial service was not exclusive to servants of the East India Company. Perhaps the most famous of all Anglo-Indian migrants to the island was Edward Braddon. Braddon had travelled to India in 1847 to work in a cousin's merchant firm and afterwards managed indigo plantations, served during the Indian Mutiny and then spent almost two decades as a civil servant. (28) Forced into an early retirement, Braddon migrated to Tasmania later recalling: 'I went to Tasmanian in 1879 with the full intention of becoming a farmer, not because I knew anything whatever about agricultural matters, but because I believed there was nothing much in them to learn.' Inevitably then, he shifted his focus away from his meagre 50 acres towards civic engagement culminating in his election to the House of Assembly. (29) In early 1893 as Agent-General of Tasmania, Braddon delivered a paper to the Indian section of the Society of Arts in London titled 'Australasia for Anglo-Indian Colonisation' spelling out the advantages of migration to the Australasian colonies for Anglo-Indians following years of service or residence in India. Braddon was of the view that while many were ready for 'a new career of usefulness', many were disadvantaged by the depreciation of the rupee and that colonial migration opened far more opportunities than a return to the homeland, both for themselves and their sons. (30) Setting out to prove both his points concerning the potential for self-improvement and colonial service, Braddon became Premier of the colony in 1894. He also became a prominent federalist who made a considerable contribution towards the achievement of federation among the Australasian colonies. (31)

The remarkable rise of the East India Company opened up opportunities not only for the economic and military expansion of the British empire but also for individuals to develop both skills and fortunes which they often reinvested in the colonies. In response to early corruption and self-interest, a doctrine of colonial service was instilled in the final generations of the company's workforce. Initially a place of furlough and modest investment, the opportunities available attracted a small number of Anglo-Indians to settle there. While arguably of a class more used to managing labour than engaging in it, these Anglo-Indian migrants were to have a lasting impact on the social, political and economic development of the island colony and later state. It is somehow comforting to consider that despite all the suffering and damage caused by colonialism, some degree of good may have finally come of it all. 

-  Colin Mallett, 19 September 2025.

Endnotes

(1) William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, Bloomsbury Publishing, Sydney, 2019, pp. 1-2 & 6. 

(2) Brian Gardner, The East India Company: A History, Granada Publishing Limited, London, 1971, pp. 28-39.

(3) Nicholas P. Dirks, The Scandal of Empire and the Creation of Imperial Britain, Belknap Press of Havard University Press, Cambridge & London, 2006, p. 8.

(4) H. V. Bowen, The Business of Empire: the East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1736-1833, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006, pp. 20, 28. In fact, it could be argued that holding the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company was analogous in prestige and responsibility to that of a government minister. 

(5) H. V. Bowen, The Business of Empire, pp. 157-8.

(6) Dirks, The Scandal of Empire, p. 8.

(7) Gardner, A History, p. 101. Robert Clive began his colourful career for the company aged only 17 and built a reputation for bravery. He returned to England in 1860 but returned in 1864 to help reform operations. He was investigated himself for corruption in accepting bribes but exonerated in 1772. See: Dirks, The Scandal of Empire, p. 16. 

(8) Dirks, The Scandal of Empire, p. 9-20. Hastings had arrived as a writer himself in his teens and risen through the ranks to become Governor or Fort William at Calcutta in 1772 following Clive's departure. See: Gardner, A History, p. 104. 

(9) Gardner, A History, pp. 188-9. Fittingly the property selected, 'Hailey Bury' in 1806 had previously been owned by a director.

(10) John Bowen, 'The East India Company's Education of its own servants', The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1955, 4(3):105—23, pp. 5-7, 114-5.

(11) Gardner, A History, pp. 188-192. While closed in 1858, Haileybury reopened four years later as a public school with no links with the East India Company but retaining a strong association with India, see specifically p. 291. The intergenerational character of the company is reflected in the fact that the father of utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill, followed his own father by joining the company aged 17 in 1823. See: p. 194. The company lost control of India following the 1857 mutiny, the final meeting of its Court of Directors taking place on 1 September 1858 and was finally dissolved when its last charter expired in 1874. Refer to pp. 291-2, 296.  

(12) Gardner, A History, pp. 182-7.

(13) Malcolm Allbrook, Henry Prinsep's Empire: Framing a Distant Colony, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 2014, pp. 82, 85, 96. 

(14) For instance, in February 1825 Major Tod and Captain Wilson of the Company arrived in Hobart via the Philip Dundas and it was observed in a local paper that the town would be soon '...much thronged with the fashionable sick of India and Mauritius...'. Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser, 'Hobart Town', 25 February 1825, p.2,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1090565, accessed 4 June 2025.

(15) Elizabeth Mercer, 'Anglo-Indians', the Companion to Tasmanian History online, 2006, https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/A/Anglo-Indians.htm, accessed 23 May 2025. 

(16) Augustus Prinsep, The Journal of a voyage from Calcutta to Van Diemen's Land: comprising a description of that colony during a six month's residence, Tasmanian Facsimile Editions no. 3, Melanie Publications, Hobart, 1981, pp. 106-7, 117). Balancing that enthusiasm, on his journey to Launceston Prinsep observed that between Hobart and Launceston '...not a single grant of fresh land is to be had...' and also warned that as the population inevitably grew that there would be a possibility of a housing shortage that would push rents up. Refer to pp. 82, 115.

(17) Gardner, A History, p. 183. 

(18) Prinsep, Journal, pp, i-v. Augustus Prinsep (1803-1830), a son of the Vicar of Bicester, was admitted to Haileybury in July 1819. He graduated in 1821, third in his class and was appointed as a writer, arriving in Calcutta in July 1822. He advanced rapidly, eventually becoming Commissioner of Pergunnah Palamow in 1826. He was no less than the seventh child among his siblings to work in India indicating that there was indeed a strong sense of colonial service evident in the family. His health never recovered, and he died at sea on another voyage in October 1830. Anglo-Indians were certainly seen to be beneficial to colonial society; when the Prinsep family decided to remain on the island rather than moving on to mainland it was reported in the Australian that 'Mr. Prinsep, of Calcutta, it is said, proposes settling in Van Diemen's Land. He had already enriched the island with two high bred horses.' Refer to: Australian, 'Shipping News', 10 February 1829, p. 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36865531, accessed 4 June 2025. 

(19) Allbrook, Framing a Distant Colony, p. 97.

(20) Roger Page, 'Edward Dumaresq (1802-1906)', Australian Dictionary of Biography online, n.d., https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dumaresq-edward-2002, accessed 23 May 2025.

(21) Mercer, 'Anglo-Indians'. Augustus Prinsep 

(22) Prinsep, Journal, p. v. This was despite that on his application to Surveyor-General George Frankland, Prinsep indicated that he had an income of 1600 per annum, had an inclination to farm and cited Michael Fenton and John Henderson as character referees! 

(23) G. T. Stilwell, 'Andrew Crawford (1815-1899)', Australian Dictionary of Biography online, n.d., https://adb.anu.eu.au/biography/crawford-andrew-3285/, accessed 21 May 2025. 

(24) Mercury, 'A Settler's Opinion of Tasmania', 10 November 1868, p. 3. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8855548, accessed 21 May 2025.

(25) The pamphlet was based on Colonel Crawford's research but 'confirmed by reference to other authorities'. Refer to: Launceston Examiner, 'Review', 29 August 1866, p.2,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36637633, accessed 23 May 2025.

(26) Col. Michael Maxwell Shaw of Dean's Point, Latrobe (retired) to relatives abroad [letter], 17 December 1877, Correspondence (NS163), Shaw Family (NG163), Tasmanian Archives, NS 159/1, 163/1/1.

(27) Shaw for instance, was a prolific contributor of correspondence to the local press particularly on the topic of temperance and even original poetry. For the first see these examples: Weekly Examiner, 'Col. Shaw upon Temperance', 10 February 1872, p. 4 , http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article233098467, accessed 23 May 2025 & Daily Telegraph, 'Col. Shaw's Opinion', 24 May 1888, p. 3,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article149496661, accessed 23 May 2025. For the second refer to: Devon Herald, 'Babylon', 8 October 1879, p. 3,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173146720, accessed 23 May 2025 & Devon Herald, 'Two Lovely Girls', 19 November 1879, p. 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173146893, accessed 23 May 2025.

(28) Scott Bennett, 'Edward Braddon', the Companion to Tasmanian History online, 2006, https://utas.edu.au/library/conpanion_to_tasmanian_history/B/Edward%20Braddon.htm, accessed 23 May 2025.

(29) Australian Star, 'Australasia and Anglo-Indians', 17 May 1893, p. 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article227185651, accessed 23 May 2025. 

(30) Tasmanian, 'Australasia as a field for Anglo-Indian colonisation', 27 May 1873, p. 23, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201155926, accessed 23 May 2025. 

(31) Scott Bennett, 'Sir Nicholas Edward Coventry Braddon (1829-1904)', Australian Dictionary of Biography online, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/braddon_sir_edward_nicholas_coventr-5330, accessed 23 May 2025.

Figures and Illustrations

(i) Dip Chand, Portrait of East India Company Official, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_East_India_Company_official.jpg, accessed 22 May 2025.

(ii) English School (20th Century), The Origin of the East India Company, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_origin_of_the_East_India_Company_(colour_litho)_by_English_School.jpg, accessed 22 May 2025.

(iii) Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762-1832) after John Buck (fl. 1791-1819), Joseph Constantine Stadler (fl. 1780-1812), Thomas Sutherland (1785-1838), J. Hill and Harraden (aquatint engravers), Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Microcosm_of_London_Plate_045_-_India_House,_the_Sale_Room_(tone).jpg, accessed 22 May 2025.

(iv) Unknown artist, Haileybury College, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haileybury_college.jpg, accessed 22 May 2025. 

(v) Yale Centre for British Art, CCO, A View of East India House, Leadenhall Street, London by Anonymous, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anonymous_-_A_View_of_the_East-India_House,_Leadenhall_Street,_London_-_B1977.14.17469_-_Yale_Center_for_British_Art.jpg, accessed 22 May 2025. 

(vi) James Prinsep, pencil sketch of Augustus Prinsep by his brother James Prinsep, 1816, Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Augustus_Prinsep_by_James_Prinsep_1816.jpg, accessed 30 May 2025. 

(vii) Augustus Prinsep, panoramic view of Hobarton, 1829/30, Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Panoramic_view_of_Hobarton_%28S3446%29.png, accessed 30 May 2025.

(viii) Johan Joseph Zoffany RN, Patrick Healty (1783-9), JSTOR via Yales' Visual Resources of the Middle East Collection, https:/jstor.org./stable/community/.28498053, accessed 22 May 2025. 

(ix) National Library of Australia, Edward Braddon 1899, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Braddon_1899.jpg, accessed 22 May 2025.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Australian (Sydney)

Australian Star (Sydney)

Daily Telegraph (Launceston)

Devon Herald (Latrobe)

Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser

Launceston Examiner (Launceston)

Mercury (Hobart)

Prinsep, A., The Journal of a voyage from Calcutta to Van Diemen's Land: comprising a description of that colony during a six month's residence, Tasmanian Facsimile Editions no. 3, Melanie Publications, Hobart, 1981. [Originally published by Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill, London, 1833.  Fergusson no. 1695]

Tasmanian (Launceston)

Weekly Examiner (Launceston)

Tasmanian Archives, Correspondence, Shaw Family, NS 159/1, 163/1/1

Secondary Sources:

Allbrook, Malcolm, Henry Prinsep's Empire: Framing a Distant Colony, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 2014.

Bowen, H. V., The Business of Empire: the East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1736-1833, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006.

Bowen, John, 'The East India Company's Education of its own servants', The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1955, 4(3):105—23.

Dalrymple, William, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, Bloomsbury Publishing, Sydney, 2019. 

Dirks, Nicholas P., The Scandal of Empire and the Creation of Imperial Britain, Belknap Press of Havard University Press, Cambridge & London, 2006.

Gardner, Brian, The East India Company: A History, Granada Publishing Limited, London, 1971.

Online Sources:

Bennett, S., 'Sir Nicholas Edward Coventry Braddon (1829-1904)', Australian Dictionary of Biography online, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/braddon_sir_edward_nicholas_coventr-5330, n.d., accessed 23 May 2025.

Bennett, S., 'Edward Braddon', the Companion to Tasmanian History online, https://utas.edu.au/library/conpanion_to_tasmanian_history/B/Edward%20Braddon.htm, 2006, accessed 23 May 2025.

Jstor, https://jstor.org

Mercer, E., 'Anglo-Indians', the Companion to Tasmanian History online, 2006, https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/A/Anglo-Indians.htm.

Page, R., 'Edward Dumareaq (1802-1906)', Australian Dictionary of Biography online, n.d., https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dumaresq-edward-2002.

Stilwell, G. T., 'Andrew Crawford (1815-1899)', Australian Dictionary of Biography online, n.d.,  https://adb.anu.eu.au/biography/crawford-andrew-3285/.

Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.