Description
Young women as fair game? In 1832, the British government sent 400 young single women to Sydney and Hobart on two ships–the Red Rover from Cork and Princess Royal from London – to balance the male-dominated societies. Viewed as colourful butterflies alighting on the antipodean shores, the women were ‘fair game’ for employers and potential husbands. This book analyses how this migration was allowed to happen while telling the women’s stories, describing who netted them in the hiring scramble and how they ultimately spread their wings.
The Red Rover and Princess Royal women approached the challenges of migration with a diversity of abilities and attitudes. As Perry and Liz studied the women’s lives, they grew to admire the strategies the women developed to deal with the emigration experience and cope with the extraordinary difficulties encountered in their translocation to an unknown world. Perry and Liz are pleased to bring these women’s stories to light. Similarly, the work of the Emigration Commission of 1831-1832 has been a little-known aspect of early Australian history yet it was the genesis of assisted immigration to Australia. This book adds to our understanding of Australian immigration, a process which is on-going and as contentious today as it was in colonial times.
ISBN: 9780980335439
Anchor Books
239 A'Beckett Street Melbourne, Victoria, 3000 
03 9326 9288 
office@historyvictoria.org.au 
Office & Library: Weekdays 9am-5pm
Book Reviews Reviews
There are no reviews yet.