WDYTYA is coming to SBSTV in OZ

[downside]

Out of curiosity when did Australians start regarding themselves as Australian?

I guess most of the early settlers regarded themselves as British living in a foreign land.  Then they were succeeded by generations of European migrants.

I guess most of the Australian WDYTYA series participants end up back in Europe as they trace their family trees?

[redmr2red]

Hi Downside, of course the true Australians are those with aboriginal ancestors, these days most Aussies would consider themselves Australian if they were born here.  How far back that would go I don't know, but my guess would be around the early 1900s when Australia became a Federation. 

I am looking forward to watching the Cathy Freeman WDYTYA to see how far back they can go, I would think it would be only until white settlement recording.  The others would be back in Europe within a few generations.

I know when I started my family tree, I was shocked to find out I was only a second generation Australian on my father's side.       On my mother's side I go back to 1803 and the first (failed) settlement in Sorrento, Victoria and then the establishment of Hobart Town in Tasmania.   

There is an ongoing debate here about "Australian Values" and what makes an Australian, so perhaps the truth is we don't know!!!   

Red

[boggabarrett]

Kathy Freeman will be interesting methinks, I beleive she has a fair bit of Irish and some Chinese in her make up and just a wee bit of Aboriginal.

[MarieC]

Interesting question you raise there, downside!  Red is right, of course, but talking about Australians with British ancestry...

There probably wasn't a defining moment, rather a process which began in the late nineteenth century, was strengthened by Federation in 1901 and became firmly established with the Anzac experience in WWI.

For example, the poetry of Adam Lindsay Gordon (d. 1870) and Charles Harpur (d. 1868) reads like that of transplanted Englishmen.  But Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, who came along a little later, show in their writings a genuine sense of understanding the country and belonging.

The same with early artists, whose landscapes were painted through European eyes, before later artists captured the essence of Australian landscapes.

BTW, there is a thread about WDYTYA on the Emigrants to Australia board!

MarieC

[silvery]

I've just watched the Nigella repeat on English tv  (boxing day morning) hadn't seen that one.   I wonder if we'll get to see the Australian series.  I would love to see it.   
Who is producing the series, perhaps I could drop them and email.

[downside]

The only name I vaguely recognise is Geoffry Robertson QC who regularly appears on British television as a host and inquisitor of What If scenarios mainly on the BBC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Robertson

Like a lot of emininent Australians he spends a lot of his time over here so we have at least heard of him.

[trish251]

Out of curiosity when did Australians start regarding themselves as Australian?

I guess most of the early settlers regarded themselves as British living in a foreign land.  Then they were succeeded by generations of European migrants.

I guess most of the Australian WDYTYA series participants end up back in Europe as they trace their family trees?

Hi Downside

Not sure why but I have memories from my youth that said if you were at least 3rd generation Australian on both sides you were an "Australian" otherwise you belonged to the country of your forebears! 

I grew up in NSW and always thought I was an Australian, but when I moved to Queensland I discovered I was just a b...y Southerner  & only if you were born in Queensland did you belong here.

So I have an identity crisis that will probably not be resolved in my lifetime   

Trish

[JAP]

Out of curiosity when did Australians start regarding themselves as Australian?  ... 

Well, downside, I guess a formal lower limit is 1901 - when the Commonwealth of Australia formally came into being (i.e. at Federation).  Before that - from settlement/invasion in 1788 - we (officially) lived in the (British) Colony of NSW, and later there was also the (British) Colony of Victoria, etc, etc.  But, well before Federation - as MarieC explained - the idea of being Australian (regardless of the official position) became very strong round the 1870s and thenceforth.

How we have regarded ourselves (and there was - and is - anything but unanimity on this), how others have regarded us, and what we have been under our Law were (and still are) far from the same!

At Federation in 1901, ‘British subject’ was the sole civic status noted in the Australian Constitution!  Even up until 1969, we Australians were still officially required to declare our nationality as British! The term ‘Australian nationality’ had no official recognition until 1969; and it wasn't until an Act of 1984 came into effect in 1987 that we ceased to be British subjects!

Our Head of State remained the Monarch of Great Britain & Northern Ireland.  Inter alia this means, I believe, that (under the UK Act of Settlement) our Head of State must be a natural legitimate descendant (and the rules of male primogeniture apply) of Sophia, Electress of Hanover (1630–1714), a granddaughter of James I (hmmm); must be a Protestant: must not be, or ever have been a Roman Catholic or have been married to a Roman Catholic; etc, etc, etc ...!  Crazy stuff!

So even today, when we are just about to enter 2008, our Head of State is not an Australian  - we still have Elizabeth II as our Head of State!

Given this, one might well ask whether we even yet regard ourselves as Australian 

Weird and wonderful are the ways of the world ...

JAP

[boggabarrett]

I have to point out that not only is The Queen, Queen of Britain and Northern Island but also the Queen of Australia, New Zealand and about a dozen other countries.

We are in fact a republic, albeit a Royal republic, and I for one work under the old maxim "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" I reckon we are better off as we are, we have a head of state who doesn't live here, doesn't have any real say in the running of the place, and we don't have to keep spending money on electing some pompous jumped up free loader every few years, t'is only my opinion but when we did have a vote on it some years ago we voted to stay as we are, and I think that lame duck president across the Atlantic has turned a few more people away from the idea.

I was rather chuffed on Christmas day when she beamed her message straight into my home, just for me.