Scottish Australian

Scottish Australians

John Hunter Lachlan Macquarie Ian Frazer Frank Macfarlane Burnet George Reid John Dunmore Lang Angus Houston Andrew Fisher John Simpson Kirkpatrick Joan Sutherland Angus Young Malcolm Young Andrew Inglis Clark Keith Miller John Flynn Catherine Helen Spence Peter Dodds McCormick Mary MacKillop
Total population
1,792,600-2,000,000 (by ancestry)[1][2] 130,204 (by birth, 2006).[3] 8.9% of total Australian population.
Languages
English, Scots, Gaelic
Religion
Presbyterianism, Roman Catholic
Related ethnic groups
Scottish people, Anglo Celtic Australians, Irish Australians, English Australians, Welsh Australians, Manx Australians[4]

Scottish Australians are residents of Australia who are of Scottish ancestry.

According to the 2011 Australian census 130,204 Australian residents were born in Scotland,^[3] while 1,792,600 claimed Scottish ancestry, either alone or in combination with another ancestry.^[2] This is the fourth most commonly nominated ancestry and represents over 8.9% of the total population of Australia.

History

The links between Scotland and Australia stretch back to the first British expedition of the Endeavour under command of Lieutenant James Cook who was himself the son of a Scottish ploughman. Cook navigated and charted the east coast of Australia, making first landfall at Botany Bay on 29 April 1770. His discoveries and reports by Cook's expedition would lead to British settlement of the continent, and during the voyage Cook also named two groups of Pacific islands in honour of Scotland: New Caledonia and the New Hebrides.^[5] The first European to die on Australian soil was a Scot; Forbey Sutherland from Orkney, an able seaman died on 30 April 1770 of consumption and was the first to be buried on the colony by Captain Cook, who named Sutherland Point at Botany Bay in his honour.

Colonial period

The first Scottish settlers arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788,^[6] including three of the first six Governors of New South Wales John Hunter, Lachlan Macquarie (often referred to as the father of Australia) ^[5][6] and Thomas Brisbane. The majority of Scots arriving in the early colonial period were convicts: 8,207 Scottish convicts, of the total 150,000 transported to Australia, made up about 5% of the convict population. The Scottish courts were unwilling to punish crimes deemed to be lesser offences in Scots Law by deportation to Australia. Scottish law was considered more humane for lesser offences than the English and Irish legal systems.^[5]

From 1793-1795, a group of political prisoners later called the 'Scottish Martyrs', were transported to the colonies. They were not all Scots, but had been tried in Scotland. Their plight as victims of oppression was widely reported and the subsequent escape of one of them, Thomas Muir, in 1796 caused a sensation and inspired the poetry of Robert Burns.^[5] The majority of immigrants, 'free settlers', in the late 18th century were Lowlanders from prominent wealthy families. Engineers like Andrew McDougall and John Bowman arrived with experience in building corn mills, while others were drawn to Australia by the prospects of trade. William Douglas Campbell, Robert Campbell, Charles Hook, Alexander Berry Laird of the Shoalhaven, were some of the first merchants drawn to the colonies.

19th century

Prior to 1830, most Scottish immigrants were farmers and landholders who chose to emigrate willingly due to the Scottish economic recessions of the 1820s. Economic disruption and riots caused by the Agrarian revolution resulted in a second group of Scottish radicals being deported to the colonies in 1820. All of them were educated and were esteemed by the free colonists. In the coming years Australia was one of many countries to benefit from the Scottish population exodus of the late 18th century. The majority of immigrants were predominantly from Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, which encouraged strong commercial and financial links between the Scottish east coast and Western Australia.

At this time, several Scottish regiments were recorded in the colonies: Macquarie's unit or the 73rd Regiment, the Royal North British Fusiliers, and the King's Own Scottish Borderers. Three of the Deputy Commissaries-General (the highest rank in the colony) from 1813 to 1835 were Scots: David Allan, William Lithgow, Stewart. By the 1830s a growing number of Scots from the poorer working classes joined the diaspora. Immigrants included skilled builders, tradesmen, engineers, tool-makers and printers. They settled in commercial and industrial cities, Sydney, Adelaide, Hobart and Melbourne. The migration of skilled workers increased, including bricklayers, carpenters, joiners, and stonemasons. They settled in the colonies of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania.

By 1830 15.11% of the colonies' total population were Scots, which increased by the middle of the century to 25,000, or 20-25% of the total population. The Australian Gold Rush of the 1850s provided a further impetus for Scottish migration: in the 1850s 90,000 Scots immigrated, far higher than other British or Irish populations at the time.^[6] Literacy rates of the Scottish immigrants ran at 90-95%. By 1860 Scots made up 50% of the ethnic composition of Western Victoria, Adelaide, Penola and Naracoorte. Other settlements in New south Wales included New England, the Hunter Valley and the Illawarra.

Much settlement followed the Highland Potato Famine, Highland Clearances and the Lowland Clearances of the mid-19th century.

Anzac Day parade in Melbourne, 25 April 2013

In the 1840s, Scots-born immigrants constituted 12 percent of the Australian population. Out of the 1.3 million migrants from Britain to Australia in the period from 1861-1914, 13.5 percent were Scots. Just 5.3 percent of the convicts transported to Eastern Australia between 1789 and 1852 were Scots.^[7]

20th century

A steady rate of Scottish immigration continued into the 20th century, with substantial numbers of Scots continued to arrive after 1945.^[5] From 1900 until the 1950s, Scots favoured New South Wales, as well as Western Australia and Southern Australia. A strong cultural Scottish presence is evident in the Highland games, dance, Tartan day celebrations, Clan and Gaelic speaking societies found throughout modern Australia.

Demography

People with Scottish ancestry as a percentage of the population in Australia divided geographically by statistical local area, as of the 2011 census

At the 2006 Census 130,204 Australian residents stated that they were born in Scotland.^[8] Of these 80,604 had Australian citizenship.^[9] The majority of residents, 83,503, had arrived in Australia in 1979 or earlier.^[9]

Culture

The Western Australia Police Pipe Band at Bridge of Allan Highland Games in Scotland

Some aspects of Scottish culture can be found in Australia:

• Bagpiping and pipe bands.
• Burns Supper^[10]
• Ceilidhs
• Hogmanay, the Scottish New Year^[11]
• Presbyterianism - the majority of Scottish settlers were Presbyterian, some were Roman Catholic or Episcopalian.
• Tartan, some regions of Australia have their own tartan.
• Tartan Day, in Australia, falls on 1 July,^[12] the date of the repeal proclamation in 1792 of the Act of Proscription that banned the wearing of Scottish national dress.^[13]

Highland gatherings

Highland gatherings are popular in Australia. Notable gatherings include:

• Bundanoon, New South Wales established in 1976, claimed to be one of the world's largest Highland Gatherings, and the biggest in Australia.
• Maclean, New South Wales first held in 1904. A gathering that attracts pipe bands from all over Australia and includes massed bands, dancing and a street parade.
• Maryborough, Victoria held since 1857 on New Year's Day^[14]

Scottish schools

The Scots in Australia started a number of schools, some of which are state run, and some of which are private:

• The Scots College, in Bellevue Hill, Sydney, New South Wales.
• Presbyterian Ladies College PLC In Croydon, New South Wales.
• The Scots PGC College, in Warwick, Queensland, formed by the merger of The Scots College, Warwick and The Presbyterian Girls' College.
• The Scots School Albury, in Albury, New South Wales.
• The Scots School, Bathurst, in Bathurst, New South Wales.
• Presbyterian Ladies' College, Armidale PLCA in Armidale, New South Wales.
• Scotch College, Adelaide, in Torrens Park and Mitcham, South Australia.
• Scotch College, Melbourne, in Hawthorn, Victoria.
• Scotch College, Perth, in Swanbourne, Western Australia.
• Scotch College, Launceston, in Tasmania; amalgamated with Oakburn College in 1979 to form Scotch Oakburn College.
• Seymour College, Adelaide, South Australia.
• Bagpipe Uni, Melbourne (George), in Victoria Australia

Scottish placenames

The Perth skyline viewed from the Swan River

The Balconies (formerly known as the 'Jaws of Death') - Grampians National Park, Victoria, Australia

There are Scottish placenames all over Australia.

Notable Scottish placenames in Australia include:

• New South Wales
  • Maclean
  • Ben Lomond
  • Glen Innes

• Northern Territory
  • MacDonnell Ranges

• Queensland
  • Brisbane (Thomas Brisbane)

• South Australia
  • St Kilda

• Tasmania
  • Ben Lomond
  • Suburbs of Hobart-Glenorchy-
    • Glenorchy & City of Glenorchy

• Victoria
  • St. Kilda

• Western Australia
  • Marvel Loch, Western Australia
  • Perth
  • Stirling Range

Places named after Lachlan Macquarie

Many places in Australia have been named in Macquarie's honour (some of these were named by Macquarie himself). They include:

At the time of his governorship or shortly thereafter:

• Macquarie Island between Tasmania and Antarctica.
• Lake Macquarie on the coast of New South Wales between Sydney and Newcastle renamed after Macquarie in 1826.
• Macquarie River a significant inland river in New South Wales which passes Bathurst, Wellington, Dubbo and Warren before entering the Macquarie Marshes and the Barwon River.
• Lachlan River, another significant river in New South Wales
• Port Macquarie, a city at the mouth of the Hastings River on the North Coast, New South Wales.
• Macquarie Pass, a route traversing the escarpment between the Illawarra district and the Southern Highlands district of New South Wales.
• Macquarie Rivulet, a river 23 kilometers long which rises near Robertson, New South Wales and drains into Lake Illawarra.

• In Tasmania:
• Macquarie Harbour on the west coast of Tasmania.
• Lachlan a small town named by Sir John Franklin in 1837.^[15]
• Macquarie River.
• Macquarie Hill, formerly known as Mount Macquarie, in Wingecarribee Shire, Southern Highlands, New South Wales.
• Macquarie Pass, north-east of Robertson, New South Wales.

Many years after his governorship:

• Macquarie Park and Macquarie Links, suburbs of Sydney.
• Macquarie, a suburb of Canberra, Australia.
• Division of Macquarie, one of the first 75 Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives created for the Australian Parliament in 1901.

Notable Australians of Scottish descent

See also

• Anglo-Celtic Australian
• Scottish placenames in Australia

References

Further reading

• Prentis, Malcolm D. (2008), The Scots in Australia University of New South Wales Press, Sydney.

External links

• Scottish Australian Heritage Council
• Scotland's Links with Australia and New Zealand
• Scottish Emigration Database

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