Remembering 'Australia's glorious League': The Historiography of Anti-Transportation

Abstract

The history and historiography of the mid-nineteenth century movements to abolish convict transportation to Australia have been thrust back on the agenda by recent research and publications. The most assertive of these is Babette Smith's 'Australia's Birthstain' which engaged directly and forcefully with the character and legacy of 'the anti' campaigns, and Alison Alexander's 'Tasmania's Convicts', which treated the topic somewhat more tangentially as part of a wide-ranging discussion of the history and heritage of Tasmania's convict past. Further research is currently in progress under the aegis of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant titled 'Liberty, Anti-Transportation and the Empire of Morality', awarded to Professor Hilary M. Carey (University of Newcastle) and myself (University of New England), which is reinvestigating the mid-nineteenth century movements for moral reform and colonial independence through particular focus on the contribution of churchmen and the dissenting middle class. An early outcome of that project was a symposium titled 'Beyond the Stain', hosted by the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies at King's College London, in September 2010, to consider emerging developments in the study of Australian convict history. The London symposium was supplemented by a panel at the Australian Historical Association Conference in Launceston in July 2011, titled 'Anti Transportation: In its Home City' - the possessive subtitle added by the conference organisers! This Discussion Forum is intended to advocate the importance and relevance of the topic, and to showcase and share some of the ideas circulating and developing around it. ... The result brings together a variety of scholars from an array of institutions, testifying to the ongoing interest in the study of convict Australia. By way of introduction, I offer some brief remarks on the historiography of the anti-transportation movement, setting foundations for the various contributors who proffer a range of reflections and new ideas on the subject.