journey through mysterious wales, learn its history, places of battle, its holy sites, castles and ghosts

Although the first Welsh emigrants to Australia may have wished they could find a better life than the one they had in Wales at the time, they were probably just as keen to escape from the land they found themselves forcibly removed to. They were not really emigrants at all, but convicts, four men and two women, who arrived with the First Fleet at Botany Bay, Australia, in 1788.
By 1852 a total of about 1800 of the convicts in Australia had been tried in Wales - about 1.2 per cent of the total number of convicts transported to Australia by that time. Of these, only about 300 were women. Poverty, dire living conditions and overcrowding in the industrialised southern counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire forced many into a life of crime to survive. Many who were transported could speak only Welsh so they were doubly damned - forced into exile in a strange land they were often unable to communicate with the majority of convicts who spoke only English.

The roll-call of Welsh transportees in the first half of the nineteenth century includes some familiar figures from the history of the trade union movement in Wales. Lewis Lewis and his partner Richard Lewis (aka Dic Penderyn) were sentenced to death for their part in the Merthyr Riots in 1831. Dic Penderyn, widely recognised today as Lewis Lewis's 'fall-guy', was subsequently hanged, but Lewis himself had his sentence commuted to transportation and was sent to New South Wales. The Chartist leaders John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones joined Lewis in Australia after bringing about the siege of the Westgate Hotel in Newport in 1839. Frost was later pardoned and returned to Newport a hero.

The numbers of true Welsh emigrants to Australia throughout the early stages of the colony's development were relatively small, repeating the pattern of Welsh emigration to other countries. But the number of 'free' Welsh settlers before the gold-rushes of the 1850s can't be accurately assessed.

There is a lack of reliable official evidence since Wales was swallowed up in the category of 'England and Wales' used in official documentation and procedures at the time. However, other sources can provide reasonably reliable information. For instance, fourteen young members of Bethlehem Chapel, Blaenavon, Monmouthshire, are recorded as leaving for Australia during the ministry of Morgan Morgans, between 1828 and 1836. Australian census records indicate that there were about 1800 Welsh-born settlers in Australia by 1851, a very small number of which were 'free' settlers.

It was mining that brought significant numbers of Welsh settlers to Australia in the mid nineteenth century. Initially, the discovery of copper in South Australia at Kapunda in 1843 and Burra in 1845 drew people from Wales; but it was the discovery of gold in the Ballarat-Sebastapol area of Victoria in the early 1850s which caused the Welsh population of the province to rise dramatically. In 1851 about 400 of the settlers were Welsh-born, and by 1871 there were almost 7,000 in Victoria. Although the population declined later, in the other provinces of Australia it continued to increase and, by the turn of the century there 12000 settlers of Welsh descent spread throughout the colony. Not all settlers came from the industrialised areas of South Wales to find work in the mines though; Joseph Jenkins, a Cardiganshire farmer fled to Australia in 1868 at age of 51 to escape a nagging wife! His larger than life exploits as a swagman in rural Victoria were recorded in a series of diaries.

New South Wales is (predictably) the province which most conspicuously bears the mark of its old world namesake, with place names like Cardiff, Swansea, Neath and Aberdare amongst many others. It was the chapel and the Welsh language which provided a sense of cohesion and identity to these emerging Welsh communities at this time, not only in New South Wales, but in all the provinces of Australia. Many of the chapels were interdenominational at first, but gradually split into Methodist, Independent and Baptist denominations as they had in Wales. The leaders of these chapels were also the leaders of these new communities; they organised Cymanfa Ganu which, in the boomtown years of the 1860s and 1870s, attracted crowds of 800 or more and lasted for several days in Victoria. The leading Welsh-Australian journal of the day, Yr Australydd, records weekday meetings and occasions such as Tea Meetings, Band of Hope, Literary Society, Fellowship Meeting and Preaching Assembly as well as details of the typical Welsh Nonconformist Sunday worship.

But it was the other great legacy of the late eighteenth century Welsh revival, the Eisteddfod, which formed the cornerstone of Welsh cultural traditions in Australia. Its roots in Australia lie in the weekly Literary Society meetings, where proceedings were conducted solely in Welsh. In 1863 the first true Welsh-Australian Eisteddfod was held in Victoria. It proved so popular that it was given the status of a National Eisteddfod and it was rotated annually through some of the larger Victoria towns. Welsh communities in the other provinces also held Eisteddfodau in the 1870s, although they came under increasing pressure to 'anglicise' proceedings. But the Eisteddfod was in decline by the end of the decade: once again, a relatively small Welsh population, dispersed across a new land into an alien society was unable to resist the pressures of assimilation on its second generation.

This decline was also visible in the chapels. By the end of the century all denominations had introduced English into their services. Yr Australydd promoted the establishment of a Welsh colony based on the Patagonian model, but there was an unenthusiastic response from the Welsh community. The truth was that the rot had set in Patagonia as well and, in 1910, an exodus began from the Welsh colony there to Australia. These immigrants were anxious to escape conscription into the Argentine army; increasing pressure from the government to assume Argentine nationality by ensuring all teaching was in Spanish; and a shortage of suitable farming land in the Chubut Valley.

Despite these pressures, the Welsh Culture and culture has survived in Australia. The modern countrywide Eisteddfod movement has its origins in the early cultural traditions maintained and brought to life by the early Welsh settlers. In particular, the City of Sydney Eisteddfod and the Ballarat South Street Festival have provided a breeding ground for excellence in music,

There was no sizeable Welsh emigration to Australia before the gold-rush departures of the 1850s, although reliable figures on free settlement are blurred by the umbrella category 'England and Wales' used in official records. Birthplace statistics in Australia are more helpful, but here, too, some colonies combined the figures. Statistics on convict transportation are reasonably accurate as the place of trial of each convict is known.
There were Welshmen amongst Cook's crew on his early voyages. Francis Wilkinson of Bangor in Caernarfon was master's mate on the Endeavour, and, although there is no evidence that he came to Australia, David Samwell (poet and physician with the bardic name of Dafydd Ddu Feddyg- Black David the Doctor) was the medical officer aboard the Discovery who witnessed Cook's death in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) in 1779. Of the convicts who arrived with the First Fleet in 1788, four had been tried in Wales. Man Watkins, aged 19 years, on the transport Friendship had been tried for burglary at Glamorgan Quarter Sessions and sentenced to seven years. Frances Williams, age not recorded, on the transport Prince of Wales had been tried at Mold at the Great Sessions of the county of Flint, also for burglary, and had also been sentenced to transportation for seven years. William Davis, age not recorded, on the transport Alexander had been tried at the Brecon Quarter Sessions and sentenced to transportation for life. William Edmunds, age not recorded, on the transport Alexander had been tried at Monmouth Lent Assizes 'for stealing one Heifer'. He was first sentenced to death but was later reprieved and transported for seven years. These were the first Welsh settlers, albeit unwillingly, in Australia. Between 1788 and 1852 some 1800 of the convict arrivals, of whom 283 were women, were tried in Wales, representing 1.2 per cent of the total. The majority were from the industrialised and densely populated counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, areas with great social problems at that time. Many of those transported spoke only Welsh, so that the pain of enforced exile was often exacerbated by communication difficulties.
mong the Welsh convict arrivals of the 1830s were leaders of the emerging trade union movement in South Wales. Lewis Lewis, known as Lewsyn yr Heliwr (Lewsyn the Haulier), and his accomplice Richard Lewis (Dic Penderyn) were sentenced to death for their roles as leaders ofthe Merthyr Riots of 1831. The latter went to the gallows, but Lewsyn was reprieved and transported to New South Wales with several of the other ringleaders. Later arrivals included the Chartist leaders John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones, who were transported to Van Diemen's Land for instigating the assault on Newport in 1839. Frost was eventually pardoned in old age and returned to Newport in triumph, while Williams ended his career as a highly regarded industrial magnate in Launceston.
The number of free Welsh settlers in Australia before the goldrushes of the 1850s is difficult to assess, but it was undoubtedly small. One source refers to 14 of the young members of Bethlehem Chapel, Blaenavon, Monmouthshire, leaving for Australia during the ministry of Morgan Morgans, sometime between 1828 and 1836. Reliable evidence is scanty, but group departures of this nature must have been rare. Early census records indicate that there were about 1800 Welshborn in the colonies by 1851. These would have included a number of free settlers.

The Welsh in South Australia
With the discovery of copper at Kapunda in 1843 and at Burra in 1845, the newly founded colony of South Australia attracted substantial numbers of Welsh miners and smeltermen, increasing the Welsh-born population from about 300 in 1846 to 900 by 1851. By the late 1840s Burra had its own Welsh quarter named Llwchwr, with street names such as Llanelly, Llysnewydd and Penclawdd. By 1859 there were two Welsh chapels in the town, one Baptist and the other Independent (Congregationalist)-early symbols of the denominational diversity that marked Welsh religious life. Later discoveries of copper at Moonta and Wallaroo greatly swelled the numbers of Welsh miners and their families, and it is possible to recognise the outline of a Welsh community in these northern South Australian towns in the 1860s and 1870s.
One of the Welshmen working in the Burra Burra copper-mines by 1849 was 21-year-old William Meirion Evans (1826-83) of Llanfrothen in Merionethshire. Although not an ordained minister at this stage, he is credited with being the first person to hold religious services in the Welsh language on the Australian continent when he preached to his compatriots in Burra in 1849. In later years he became the prime mover in establishing the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Connexion in Victoria. Under its auspices, he was also the founder and editor of two Welsh-language periodicals-Yr Australydd (the Australian) in 1866-72, and Yr Ymwelydd (the Visitor) in 1874-76. Published in Victoria, these two monthly journals, which were circulated throughout the Australian colonies and New Zealand, acted as a focus for the widely dispersed Welsh population and kept them in touch with developments in Wales. Victims eventually of what the editorials ceaselessly condemned as the apathy of the Welsh community, they nevertheless served for a number of years as the voices of a Welsh network in the colonies. Replete with detailed accounts of the numerous events in the Welsh religious calendar, especially the numerous Eisteddfodau (musical and literary festivals) and Cymanfaoedd Canu (hymn-singing assemblies), they provide an invaluable insight into the cultural and social milieu of Welsh Australia in the second half of the nineteenth century.