More than 200,000 Brits emigrated to Australia under the famous the Ten Pound Scheme, an Australian government initiative that allowed them to settle in the land down under for just ten pounds. It was an opportunity for a fresh start, a new life, and a future in a promising, vibrant country.
But who were the people that migrated and what lay in store for them?
Who were the real Ten Pound Poms?
The 'Ten Pound Poms' were ordinary British subjects who took up the Australian government’s Assisted Passage Migration Scheme set up in 1945. Many came from the north of England and Wales, from mining communities and factory towns.
They were not just from Britain; anyone who was born in Ireland, or were British subjects from Malta or Cyprus, for instance, were eligible. And the scheme operated in other European countries such as Germany and the Netherlands.
The £10, or equivalent in other currencies, covered processing fees for anyone who was prepared to up sticks and move to the southern hemisphere.
Running alongside it was the Big Brother Movement that brought youths from Britain to work on farms in the Outback. The title came from the fact that each ‘little brother’ from overseas was paired up with an Australian ‘big brother’ to teach him the ropes.
Why was did the assisted passage scheme set up?
Australia’s economy in the late 1940s was growing but it lacked manpower to serve its booming industries. The aim of the scheme was to greatly enlarge the small 10 million population with skilled workers and child-bearing aged women. The slogan at the time was “populate or perish”.
However, in the greater global freedom of movement following World War Two, the country was seeing the arrival of many people from the Pacific Islands and China and these were not necessarily the migrants existing Australians wanted.
The 1901 Immigration Restriction Act had been passed to allow British people to migrate to Australia but to limit all other migration. There was a strong feeling of White Australia, so the government of the day reached out to its historic roots in Britain and Europe to find suitable candidates.
How long did the assistance last?
The £10 fee (£500 in today’s terms) rose through the years but the scheme and various other initiatives such as Bring Out A Briton in the late 1950s, lasted until 1982, by which time the cost was £75 (£1,160 today).
Why was it attractive to Britons?
Post-war Britain was still subject to rationing and suffering from a flood of working age men being demobbed from the services. In the 50s, 60s and 70s coal mines were closing all over Britain and manufacturing was moving abroad. So there was a lack of decent choice of job opportunities and people saw a move to Australia as a way of building a better life for themselves and their families.
This push to find prosperity and happiness was enhanced by the Australian migration publicity that promised good employment prospects, attractive, affordable housing, the prospect of buying a car, great weather and a relaxed lifestyle.
What was the deal?
Skilled working class men and their families, and single young women, got their trip to Australia for just £10 per person at a time when the actual fare was about £120 (£6,000 today). Their children travelled for free. Anyone who took up the offer had to agree to remain in the country a minimum of two years, otherwise they were obliged to compensate the government by paying what would have been the full fare.
How many people took up the Australian offer?
In the two years between 1947 and 1949, some 210,000 Britons left for Australia. In 1956, the Australian government set its London Migration Office a target of processing 25,000 British emigrants that year, which it more than met. The offer was so enticing, in all more than a million people made the trip Down Under between 1945 and 1972.
Did Australians welcome the 'Ten Pound Poms' with open arms?
Not exactly. Many of the promised advantages of migrating did not materialise. There were often not the skilled jobs and career prospects available that had been anticipated.
At first many were housed in temporary camps in shelters left over from the war. And the lifestyle depicted in the UK posters – spending lazy days at the beach and earning enough to buy their own large and modern home and a car – was not reality for the vast majority.
The free and easy attitude of the Australians was also difficult to get used to, but they were mostly generous to the Poms. Frictions arose more between the Brits and other immigrants, especially the Germans in the early days because the war was still fresh in everyone’s memory.
For some it worked out very well. They did get an opportunity to buy land and build their own home – a relatively rare thing in Britain. And other families in the same situation pitched in and they helped each other to get established. If they were prepared to adapt and adopt the Australian way, they generally got on OK. A newspaper columnist who visited in 1956 wrote: “Australians cannot do enough for the visiting Englishman, so long as he is not stuffed, starched and suffering from delusions of superiority.”
Did the Poms settle easily, or did they miss home?
Many struggled with the climate in the days before airconditioning. They found the heat oppressive in summer and missed the traditional cold and snow for Christmas, if not the rain. They found the cost of living higher than at home but, if they did manage to secure a long-term job, wages were also mainly higher and taxes lower.
That didn’t stop the homesickness, though, and nostalgia for things they had grown up with. Catherine Cole, the daughter of two Ten Pound Poms, who has written the book Slipstream about her family’s experiences, recalled what kept them in touch with their old lives. “My parents were homesick… and that feeling remained for decades. My father loved to sing, especially old fashioned and sad songs like I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen and Danny Boy so these acted as a vehicle for his nostalgia and sense of loss.
“Our family outings and celebrations were full of Northern dialect and sayings. We got parcels from England with Pomfret cakes and rock and parkin and Beano and The Dalesmanand the Barnsley Chronicle.”
What percentage of Ten Pound Poms returned to the UK?
Many of the Ten Pound Poms stayed in Australia, but over the years around a quarter returned. The reality of coming back home, however, did not always lead to a successful reintegration, and a half of that quarter became what was termed ‘Boomerang Poms’ who ended up back in Australia.
How true to life is the recent television series Ten Pound Poms?
Like all TV dramas, historical truth is embellished to make an entertaining programme and for practical reasons the focus can only be on a handful of people’s experiences. What was portrayed in this recent production certainly had truth at the core but there has been a feeling that some important issues were sacrificed for the sake of a more romantic, and perhaps sensational, narrative.
Nevertheless, the series brought the migrations to life for many people who had no idea that these events occurred in British and Australian history.
Have there been any famous Ten Pound Poms?
The Prime Minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013, Julia Gillard, was a four-year-old when her parents took up assisted passage from Wales. The man who followed her into office in 2013, Tony Abbott, migrated to the country in 1960 under the scheme.
In the entertainment field, the Gibbs brothers, who became the Bee Gees, were taken to Australia as children and began their musical careers there, as did three on the members of rock band AC/DC. Singer Kylie Minogue was born to a Ten Pound Pom mother, and actor Hugh Jackman was the son of two assisted migrants. England cricket fast bowlers, Harold Larwood and Frank Tyson, took advantage of the scheme when they retired from the game, the former in 1950 and the latter ten years later.
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