From a Place of 'Horrible Destitution' to a Paradise of the Working Class. The Transformation of British Working Class Attitudes to Australia, 1841-1851

Abstract

British working-class attitudes towards Australia in the 1840s, as indicated by working-class newspapers,1 reflected not only the flow of news from Australia, but also the contemporary problems of the British working class. The latter, in what was an extraordinary eventful and turbulent decade, had a profound influence on verdicts about Australia. They were a major factor in a quite dramatic change from virtual contempt to enormous enthusiasm. The emergence of this strongly favourable image appears to have been very important in the revival of emigration in the late 1840s and in the great wave of emigration which occurred in the 1850s, and inasmuch as the image was produced by developments largely external to Australia the traditionally neglected 'push* factor in emigration seems to have been of great significance. The present study is based on an examination of eight working-class newspapers,2 particularly Northern Star and Lloyds Weekly London Newspaper. Northern Star was the principal mouthpiece of the Chartist movement, with a circulation far ahead of any other working-class news paper for most of the decade. After 1848 it declined in importance (and circulation) and by 1852 had degenerated to almost 'rat-bag' status. Lloyds, established in 1842, was less militant than Northern Star, but well attuned to working-class needs and wishes. By 1851 Lloyds had emerged as the working-class newspaper with the greatest circulation, and it main tained that position for many decades. Of the other newspapers, News of the World, examined closely from 1846, was closest to Lloyds in its views. Among working-class newspapers, it most resembled the establishment press. Glasgow Sentinel, although started in 1850, is particularly valuable as a vigorous regional represen tative of the working class. The more militant Reynolds Weekly News paper dates from the same year and is perhaps the most important of the 'post-Chartist' newspapers. Finally, there are three newspapers more akin to magazines and not so clearly aimed at working-class readers, but offering strong expositions of working-class interests: Douglas Jerrold's Weekly (1846-8), edited by this popular playwright and novelist who, later in the 1850s, became editor of Lloyds; Spirit of the Age, later renamed Spirit of the Times (1848-9), a journal of vigorous, broadly Chartist views; and the Leader, from 1850 perhaps the most 'intellectual'