Migrant ships to Australia

From about 1946 into the 1960s perhaps one million ‘boat people’ arrived in Australia aboard a range of passenger carrying ships that ranged from as low as 3000 gross tonnes to perhaps 25,000.  The displaced and dispossessed people of Europe came to Australia in great numbers and  eventually made an enormous contribution to the nation.

This eclectic collection of images ranges from ‘Box Brownie style’ pictures, surviving from the albums of the time, to professional press images. Some quite poor images have been included to ensure a particular vessel is represented in this assembly of more than 60 images.

For costs and availability of obtaining any of these photos without watermark, as an electronic file, as a print from the original negative (where available) or as some other format, contact the Maritime Records and Research Centre’s Curator on mrrc@shf.org.au or 02 9298 3850, quoting the full file name and giving details of format wanted.

Copyright for the majority of these images from the collection is vested in the Sydney Heritage Fleet. For the remaining images every attempt has been made to ensure correct attribution. If any originator of an image notes an error the Sydney Heritage Fleet would welcome any notification and will remove that image or modify its attribution.

Click on any image to enlarge

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