Life and Death in the Age of Sail: The Passage to Australia

During the nineteenth century approximately 750,000 government-assisted emigrants crossed the world from the United Kingdom to Australia. They traveled about 15,000 miles, usually without stopping en route, sometimes in cramped conditions, occasionally with over 500 people on board. This evocative book looks at the experience of emigrants in steerage on their passage to Australia, and at those charged with their care.

This wonderfully rich and moving book focuses on the voyage and, where possible, follows the course of the travelers' lives after disembarkation in Australia. We hear from the migrants' letters and diaries as they write about everyday life on board and their hopes for the future, and as they weep over children buried at sea. Robin Haines's book is a landmark volume about the experience of migration.