Dreams, Propaganda and Harsh Realities: Landscapes of group settlement in the forest districts of Western Australia in the 1920s

Abstract

After the First World War, opportunities for settlement in Britain's imperial territories were pursued vigorously. It is explored how early 1920s ideas about the role of colonization as a means to create ideal 'British' settlements overseas rekindled the thinking of the post-Napoleonic period. In particular, these ideas are examined in the context of the promotion in South West England of 'group settlement' schemes in Western Australia. Sophisticated promotional material, developed to persuade would-be emigrants to settle in rural areas of the dominions, is discussed, and the mismatch between the migrants' expectations and their actual experiences is examined. Although advertising was rarely deliberately inaccurate, the style and imagery employed in posters, newspaper articles, and other media presented notional landscapes that were far less arduous than proved to be the case. The disillusionment of Devon and Cornwall group settlers, once in Australia, and their complaints of having been 'misled', show the distinction between the landscapes of real empire settlement and the more fanciful landscapes of the imagination.