Transportation to Australia

During the Great Hunger, the British sent thousands of Irish orphan girls to Australia. The reason?

The famine in Ireland created countless numbers of orphans and, of course, half of them were girls. Ireland was considered by the British to be overpopulated, and the famine – and the resulting starvation, famine-related disease, and emigration – had the positive effect of reducing Irish population. But still, the British needed to find a way to deal with the huge number of orphans.

Australia, in contrast, was a vast continent with few people. And Australia was not only short of laborers, it was also short of women. There were far more men in Australia than women.

To the British, this was all too easy. It could simultaneously help alleviate Australia’s shortage of workers and shortage of women and alleviate Ireland’s surplus of poor orphan girls. All it needed to do was ship Irish orphan girls to Australia.

You can read the story of this British scheme on the pdf link below, entitled Transportation, Australia, and The Workhouse Orphans.