Made in Lancashire

At the height of the Victorian gold rush, between July 1852 and June 1853, hundreds of government-assisted migrants from Lancashire, England, made their way to Australia and disembarked in Victoria. They were part of a huge flood of such migrants who poured into the new-born colony as the colonial administration scrabbled to cope with the gold rush. The scheme was an unprecedented achievement in government-organised migration. Yet most historians have tended to dismiss these assisted migrants as the unskilled poorest-of-the-poor, and not of the same calibre as the working-class and middle-class unassisted migrants also arriving at the colony in great numbers. However, far from being the dross of England, these migrants were intelligent, highly motivated risk-takers, many of whom went on to experience success as gold diggers, selectors, tradespeople and entrepreneurs. Made in Lancashire is a collective biography that explores in detail who these Lancashire assisted migrants were: their origins, why they migrated, where they went on arrival in Victoria, and what they made of their lives.