Old Friends, New Chums and those in between

: How places and spaces influenced migration to Australia in the nineteenth century.

Abstract

From the parish to the colonies, this thesis considers a range of literal and conceptual places and spaces, exploring how migrants’ agency varied when migrating to Australia during the nineteenth century. It employs a range of methodologies in order to examine the diverse migrant experience, considering the structural constraints migrants experienced as well as the structures that enabled migration. It considers imperial policy, such as the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1835 and the Passenger Acts, to analyse how places and spaces have been politicised, affecting the way migratory decisions took place within them.

This thesis builds upon the theory of chain migration, arguing that migration to Australia was not primarily driven by enduring kinship or social networks, but that it was shaped by the flow of information and the distinct places and spaces migrants inhabited. It explores the different degrees of agency migrants had in making migratory decisions within these localities. By analysing migratory networks, this thesis explores the role active feedback loops played in encouraging and facilitating migration and examines whether potential migrants had the agency to act on the information they received.

This thesis considers how big colonial interventions materialised in small spaces, utilising the interactions between potential migrants and those who had already migrated to the colonies, as well as undertaking a quantitative study of assisted migrants. Taking a spatial approach, this thesis examines how migration operated on a granular level. By centring the voyage experience within the migratory process, the ship is presented as a colonial space where migrants experienced freedom from the emigration business, providing agency in making subsequent migratory decisions. It also places the return migrant as key facilitators of knowledge exchange, providing unfiltered information in both Britain and during the voyage.

This thesis argues that the places and spaces in which potential migrants to Australia during the nineteenth century found themselves in heavily informed decisions towards and once in Australia. By considering the places and spaces which migrates occupied and made migratory decisions in, this thesis explores how migrants’ agency varied based on the kind of information they had access to and the sources in which they received this information.

Date of Award	17 Mar 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Sponsors	South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership
Supervisor	Simon J Potter (Supervisor), John McAleer (Supervisor) & James Boyd (Supervisor)