Immigration to Australia
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The Australian continent was first settled when ancestors of Indigenous Australians arrived via the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and New Guinea over 50,000 years ago.
Women in England mourning their loved ones who are to be transported to the penal colony at Botany Bay, 1792
Migrants disembarking from a ship, c. 1885
Australian Government poster issued by the Overseas Settlement Office to attract immigrants (1928).
In 1954, 50,000 Dutch migrants arrived in Australia.
English Australians
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English Australians, also known as Anglo-Australians, are Australians whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England. In the 2021 census, 8,385,928 people, or 33% of the Australian population, stated that they had English ancestry. It is the largest self-identified ancestry in Australia. People of ethnic English origin have been the largest group to migrate to Australia since the establishment of the Colony of New South Wales in 1788.
Statue of English-born Arthur Phillip, first colonial Governor of New South Wales
Image: Alfred Deakin
Image: Portrait Menzies 1950s
Image: John Gorton 1968