Steam engines and the Suez shortcut in the late 19th and early 20th centuries reduced the journey to about 40 days. In the 1950s, the last liners were able to do so in about 25 days.
A ship sailing from Plymouth to Sydney, for example, would cover around 13,750 miles (22,130 km); a fast time for this passage would be around 100 days. Cutty Sark made the fastest passage on this route by a clipper, in 72 days.
A Long and Dangerous Journey. For those who travelled to Australia in the nineteenth century, the journey was often long and dangerous. In calm weather a sailing ship might take as long as four months, while a well-run clipper ship with favourable winds could make the journey in a little over half this time.
The SS Great Britain often carried more than 600 passengers and crew between Liverpool and Melbourne, Australia. The ship made this journey 32 times between 1852 and 1875. Each journey lasted around 60 days, with the ship often battling rough seas and storms on the way.
The First Fleet left Portsmouth, England on 13 May 1787. The entire journey took 252 days (a little over 8 months). From England, the fleet sailed to Australia making stops in Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town. They arrived in Botany Bay in mid-January 1788.
The voyage lasted almost three years.
182,159 people were sponsored by the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) from the end of World War II up to the end of 1954 to resettle in Australia from Europe—more than the number of convicts transported to Australia in the first 80 years after European settlement.
The first European Australians came from United Kingdom and Ireland. Other British settlements followed, at various points around the continent, most of them unsuccessful. In 1824, a penal colony was established near the mouth of the Brisbane River (the basis of the later colony of Queensland).
During the decade of the 1950s, many Australians worked to build homes and families and enjoy the good times, keen to move on from the distress and struggle of the Great Depression and the Second World War. Cars were now affordable for the average family.
Steam engines and the Suez shortcut in the late 19th and early 20th centuries reduced the journey to about 40 days. In the 1950s, the last liners were able to do so in about 25 days.
After Dutch navigators charted the northern, western and southern coasts of Australia during the 17th Century this newly found continent became known as 'New Holland'. It was the English explorer Matthew Flinders who made the suggestion of the name we use today.
While Indigenous Australians have inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years, and traded with nearby islanders, the first documented landing on Australia by a European was in 1606. The Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula and charted about 300 km of coastline.
Those who were taken to Australia had committed a range of different crimes including theft, assault, robbery and fraud. As part of their punishment they were sentenced to penal transportation for seven years, fourteen years or even life, despite the crimes that they had committed being generally low-grade.
This is John Hudson, the youngest convict on the First Fleet. At the age of 9 he was convicted of 'breaking and entering' and sentenced to 7 years in Australia, along with 34 other child convicts.
On 3 February 1954, the steamship Gothic arrived in Sydney Harbour, carrying the first reigning monarch to visit Australia – Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip. In just under 2 months, the royal couple would travel around Australia by train, car, and plane.
After a voyage of three months the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay on 24 January 1788.
20 Jan 1788 - First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay | NSW State Archives.
In 1945, the Australian government introduced the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme to attract immigrants from Britain. Those who came to the country under the scheme were charged a £10 fare for their travel, more than 10 times less than the price of a normal fare.
The journey took from six to eight weeks via the Suez Canal and the first stop in Australia was Perth, followed by Melbourne and Sydney. Family, Italian priests and representative from Italian organisations were often waiting at disembarkation points when migrant ships arrived.
For example, sailing from San Francisco, California to Sydney, Australia is estimated to take between 45 and 60 days to complete. This assumes perfect conditions and averaging 10 knots, so it could become longer depending on the weather and how long stops take.
In the 1850s tens of thousands of Chinese people flocked to Victoria, joining people from nations around the world who came here chasing the lure of gold. Fleeing violence, famine and poverty in their homeland Chinese goldseekers sought fortune for their families in the place they called 'New Gold Mountain'.
The voyage took between 40 and 90 days, depending on the wind and weather. In steerage, ships were crowded (each passenger having about two square feet of space) and dirty (lice and rats abounded), and passengers had little food and ventilation.
Between 1788 and 1868, about 162,000 convicts were transported from Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia.
The 1950s were a decade marked by the post-World War II boom, the dawn of the Cold War and the civil rights movement in the United States.