Background to Italian migration
The first recorded Italian ‘visitor’ to New South Wales was a Venetian, Antonio Ponto, who was on board the Endeavour when Captain Cook explored the east coast of Australia in 1770.[1]
While Alessandro Malaspina (1793), who was accompanied by two Italian artists, Ferdinando Brambilla and Giovanni Ravenet, and an Italian missionary, Francisco De Prata, (1822) are mentioned in early colonial records, there were only a few Italian-born settlers in NSW before the 1850s.[2]
Among these early ‘settlers’ were some convicts — notably Dominico Papalio (Indian in 1810); Vincenzo Bucchieri and Angelo Farrugia (Guildford in 1812); Vincenzo Gatto (Marquis of Wellington in 1815) and Joseph Laberbiera (Elizabeth in 1816).
The first time the number of Italian born immigrants in NSW was reported was in the 1871 Census, when 772 Italians were recorded. Successive census reports recorded an increase over the next thirty years — 1,359 in 1881, 1,477 in 1891 and 1,577 in 1901. In the twentieth century the figure rose from 29,940 in 1954[3] to 66,090 in 1996.[4] The majority of the Italian immigrants came from Sicily, Calabria and Veneto, settling in metropolitan areas and ‘enlivening inner-city suburbs’ such as Kings Cross.[5]
In the report on the 1891 Census, Coghlan notes that the 600 Italians in Sydney are ‘for the most part engaged in fruit-vending, while those employed in the country were mainly occupied in vine dressing and wine making, as well as working as ordinary day-labourers’.[6]
A key event in the history of Italian immigration to NSW was the Marquis de Ray’s ill-conceived scheme to colonise New Ireland (New Guinea). The survivors — mostly from the Veneto region — arrived in Sydney on the James Patterson in 1881. They settled in the Richmond River District, known as New Italy. The settlement thrived for the first few years and by 1888 there were 250 residents. Community numbers began to decline however, following the end of World War I.[7]
During World War I (after 1916), Italians living in Australia were subject to the Commonwealth Government requirement that they register with local authorities as ‘aliens’. Many Italians were interned during World War II.
Today, the contribution made by Italian immigrants and their descendants to the business, political and cultural life of New South Wales is celebrated.
New Italy settlement
Information about New Italy may be found in the Colonial Secretary’s correspondence and the Special Bundle listings. One example is Colonial Secretary; NRS 905, Main series of letters received, 1892, letter no. 92/3497 [5/6069]. This reference relates to bonds for advances to plant mulberry trees and begin a silk industry. The file for the New Italy School is included in the Index to Schools and related records, available on our website.
Specific records relating to Italians
NRS 906 Complaints of foreign immigrants on voyage — the Swiss and Italian immigrants on the Ledunia; the Americans on the Georges; and the Germans on the Marbs and Aurora. Bill to regulate foreign immigration, 1855–56, [4/7170]
This bundle contains material that relates to complaints by the German passengers who arrived at Moreton Bay (Queensland) on the Marbs and the Aurora in March 1855.
NRS 906 Complaints of foreign immigrants on voyage — the Swiss and Italian immigrants on the Ledunia; the Americans on the Georges; and the Germans on the Marbs and Aurora. Bill to regulate foreign immigration, 1855–56, [4/7170]
The Ledunia arrived in October 1855.
NRS 906 Demography of Italy — Italian publication, 1854–56, 1872–76, [4/1085]
NRS 906 Purchase of statues from G. Fontana for public buildings, 1880–84 [4/847.3]
This bundle contains correspondence from G. Fontana.
Italian arrivals on the Saint Ludwina
On 8 October 1855 the Antwerp steamer Saint Ludwina arrived in Sydney. Aboard were 176 Italian passengers, many from the Swiss Italian canton of Ticino. These people had arrived, by their own description in a statement made to the Reverend P.O’Farrell of Saint Patrick’s, Church Hill within days of disembarkation, ‘in a state of misery…without money’. Their voyage under the supervision of the Master, Captain Lammers, had been a ‘history of hardships and sufferings and unworthy treatment’. Their complaint had been passed promptly to the Agent for Immigration by Father O’Farrell.
Their embarkation in Antwerp had not been promising: left without food for 22 hours, a delegation of the group had finally approached the Chief Mate to request sustenance. An altercation had broken out which left two of the passengers hospitalised with knife wounds, and the Mate and another seaman in custody in an Antwerp gaol.
The Italians recounted how, for the rest of the voyage, they were deprived of adequate food, or given inedible and mouldy biscuit, and finally, were forced to pay the Captain extortionate amounts of money for food he had in his own stores. Even the sick were made to pay for broth and the final weeks’ sustenance consisted of ‘uncooked Indian corn and water’, the Captain having refused to supply any fuel by which means they could cook.
The immigrants having exhausted their reserves of money through the Captain’s cruel scheme, proceeded to exchange clothing, hats and scarves for any small portion of food he was willing to give them.
H.H.Browne, the Agent for Immigration acted on Father O’Farrell’s report and required from Captain Lammers a response to the allegations. Lammers denied the bulk of the complaints and instead accused the Italians of being ‘violent and unruly’ and coming to him ‘in numbers and with clenched fists and violent gestures demanding…..what they wanted instantly and conducted themselves with such violence that during the latter part of the voyage neither the Captain nor the Doctor ever dared to undress or go to bed but slept with loaded pistols on the Benches’.
Lammers named a certain Baccegolopo (Bacigalupo) as having been throughout the voyage a ‘dangerous person’. But Father O’Farrell pointed out that this same individual had been recommended by the shipping company agent, Rebera, in Antwerp as a good person and one ‘in whom he (Rebera) had confidence’ and who had been given a free passage for acting as under-agent on the company’s behalf.
Finally the relevant documents ,charge and counter charge were reviewed by the colony’s law officers and laid before the Governor but, due to ‘the lateness of the session’ were not attended to, but noted for a the next session of the Governor in council.
Nothing further is recorded. The Agent for Immigration noted however, in his covering letter to the Colonial Secretary, that the exemption of foreign passenger ships from the operation of the Passenger Acts prevented him from giving any redress to the complainants and that some law which would bring vessels like the Saint Ludwina within the law was urgent.
Francesco Bacigalupo married Mary Anne Thomson at Hartley in 1856. He was naturalised in 1867 and is listed in the Sands Directory for that year as a tile-maker, resident in Unwins Bridge Road, Marrickville. He has descendants today in Coonamble and other parts of New South Wales.
Another of the Saint Ludwina immigrants was Antonio Bondietti, a native of Ticino. He was naturalised in 1859 giving his address as Hunters Hill. The following year he married Margaret Curry. The Sands Directory of 1876 lists Antonio Bondietti as a builder, residing in Church Street, Hunters Hill. Antonio faced insolvency proceedings in 1876 (SRNSW: NRS 13654, [2/9578], file 12519).
Documents sourced
State Records NSW: Colonial Secretary; NRS 906, Special Bundles, 1826-1982; [4/7170]Complaints of foreign immigrants on voyage,1855-56
State Records NSW: Shipping Master’s Office; NRS 13278, Passenger Lists, 1854-1922; [X 93] Reel 402
State Records NSW: Colonial Secretary; NRS 1040, Registers of Certificates of Naturalisation, 1849-1903; [4/1202] Volume 3, folio 80, Reel 130
State Records NSW: Colonial Secretary; NRS 1039, Certificates of Naturalisation, 1849-76; [4/1180] number 59/134.Reel 2691
State Records NSW: online indexes
Sands Directories, Sydney and New South Wales, 1858-1933.
New South Wales Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages: online indexes.
Other sources
A history of Italian Settlement in New South Wales, Roslyn Pesman and Catherine Kevin www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/docs/italianhistory.pdf for the NSW Heritage Office, [1998?]
Footnotes
[1] James Jupp, The Australian People: An Encyclopaedia of the Nation. Its People and their Origins, Cambridge University Press Cambridge, 2001, p. 486
[2] ibid. p. 487
[3] The Australian Encyclopaedia, Volume 5, Angus and Roberson, Sydney, 195, p. 113
[4] Australian Bureau of Statistics, http://www.abs.gov.au/
[5] http://www.immi.gov.au/statistics/infosummary/textversion/italy.htm
[6] T. A. Coghlan, General Report on the Eleventh Census of New South Wales, Government Printer, Sydney, 1894, p. 183
[7] op. cit p. 489