IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp17926.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Migration to Australia, the Transition from Sail to Steam, and the SS Great Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Hatton, Timothy J.

    (University of Essex)

Abstract

The transition from sail to steam for emigrant ships on the route to Australia took place in the early 1880s, nearly two decades later than on the route across the Atlantic. The lag can be accounted for by the incremental improvement in steam technology and by aspects of economic and business organisation. Most of the steamship ventures that were initiated failed, but with one important exception. Brunel’s pioneering steamship the SS Great Britain made 32 voyages to Australia from 1852 to 1875 with a total of nearly 16,000 passengers. The Great Britain’s success provides a unique perspective on why steam failed to rule the emigrant trade until the 1880s. Among the key features are the characteristics of the ship and the way it was adapted for the long voyage to the antipodes. Also important was the shrewd management of its owners, and an element of luck.

Suggested Citation

  • Hatton, Timothy J., 2025. "Migration to Australia, the Transition from Sail to Steam, and the SS Great Britain," IZA Discussion Papers 17926, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17926
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17926.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    shipping organisation; steamships; colonial Australia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • N77 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - Africa; Oceania
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17926. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.