[South Australian Immigration]

British Isles. [A large cased map with annotations by the South Australian Crown Lands and Immigration Office regarding immigration to the colony]

London, Smith & Son, [1860s].

A hand-coloured engraved map (printed surface 792 × 614 mm, external dimensions 842 × 668 mm), dissected into 24 panels and mounted on linen (as issued), folding down to approximately 212 × 113 mm; outer panels (when folded) with marbled paper on the reverse.

Map lightly tanned, spotted and offset; a few marks and patches of light soiling; several pinholes along the top edge; in very good condition nevertheless, complete with the publisher's original cloth-covered slipcase with paper label (slightly marked and worn).

This map appears to have hung in the South Australian Crown Lands and Immigration Office in the late 1860s, serving as a record of the network of British emigration agents sending settlers to the rapidly expanding colony. This provenance and date are evidenced by neat ink dockets on the case and on the verso of the map, reading 'Enclosure C. L. & I. / 2414/66' (or similar). A manuscript key at the top right-hand corner states: 'H.M. Emigrn. Bo.'s Selecting Agts. marked thus [next to a solid black circle] | Agents for So. Australia only [a solid black circle inside a purple circle] | Towns in which there are two Agents' [combinations of the above markings]. Approximately 80 towns are marked accordingly on the map across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom (including three in Ireland). Derby, Northampton, Woodbridge, Brighton, and Shapwick show exclusive agents for South Australia (the last of these, in Somerset, is added in ink, not being printed on the map). Two small marginal notes show that there were eight agents in Middlesex (i.e. London) and two in Brighton.

The map was received by the Crown Lands and Immigration Office at a turning point in South Australia's immigration policy, where the colony moved from large-scale subsidised migration to a more selective intake. 'In 1862 the Waste Lands Appropriation Act, often termed "Sutherland's Act", laid down that two-thirds of the proceeds of waste-land sales should be devoted to public works and the remaining one-third to immigration. Directing funds to immigration enabled more than 13,000 assisted migrants to arrive from 1862 until 1867, with a minority going to the Yorke Peninsula mines. By the drought time of 1866, however, a labour surplus was causing rumblings inside and outside parliament. With jobs becoming scarce, public meetings and petitions revealed a rising hostility to immigration at public expense, with some recent immigrants still unemployed. The renewed economic difficulties led to assisted immigration being suspended again late in 1866. The suspension lasted until 1872, when Sutherland's Act was repealed...' (R.M. Gibbs: 'Under the Burning Sun: A History of Colonial South Australia, 1836-1900', page 232).

The annotations by the Crown Lands and Immigration Office may date either from the period of restriction (circa 1866) or from the reopening in the early 1870s, when better economic conditions and rapid expansion required reestablishment of assisted migration, particularly for agricultural labourers and domestic servants.

Item #146668

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