European Australians


European Australians, or Australians of European descent, are citizens or residents of Australia whose ancestry, or part of it, is traced back to the peoples of the area now described as Europe. They form the largest panethnic group in the country. At the 2021 census, the number of ancestry responses categorised within European ancestral groups as a proportion of the total population amounted to more than 57.2%. It is impossible to properly quantify the precise proportion of the population with European ancestry for both definitional, scientific and mathematical reasons. For instance, many census recipients nominated two European ancestries—as well they might, given the nature of ancestry—tending towards an overcount. Conversely, 29.9% of census recipients nominated "Australian" ancestry, tending towards an undercount.
Since the early 19th century, people of European descent have formed the majority of the population in Australia. European-originating ideas, values, systems of government and law, and immigrants, have been widely adopted and influential in Australian culture, government and society, leading to the assessment of Australia as a partly European-derived country.
The majority of European Australians are of British Isles – English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh – ancestral origin. While not an official ancestral classification, they are often referred to as Anglo-Celtic Australians. Other significant ancestries include Italian, German, Greek, Dutch, European New Zealanders, Polish, Maltese, and Scandinavian.

Classification

The Australian Bureau of Statistics and its quinquennial Australian Census does not collect data based on race, at least not directly. Instead, it collects information on distinct ancestries, of which census respondents can select up to two. The notion of ancestry used by respondents to the census question—and taken up by this article—thus relies on individual self-identification of one's 'ancestry', adding further ambiguity to an already contested notion that perhaps sits closer to personal self-identification as part of a socio-cultural group than precise genetic derivation.
Nevertheless, for the purposes of aggregating data usefully, the Australian Bureau of Statistics in its Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups has grouped certain ancestries into certain categories, including the following two broad European groupings:
While officially part of the North-West European classification, Australians of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh or Cornish ancestral origins are often informally referred to as Anglo-Celtic Australians.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has stated that most people nominating "Australian" ancestry have at least partial Anglo-Celtic European ancestry, although they are officially categorised as part of the Oceanian group.

History

Early sightings by Europeans

The first records of European mariners sailing into 'Australian' waters occurs around 1606, and includes their observations of the land known as Terra Australis Incognita. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutchman, Willem Janszoon.
Between 1606 and 1770, an estimated 54 European ships from a range of nations made contact. Many of these were merchant ships from the Dutch East Indies Company and included the ships of Abel Tasman. Tasman charted parts of the north, west and south coasts of Australia which was then known as New Holland.
Seebaer van Nieuwelant, son of Willemtgen and Willem Janszoon, was born south of Dirk Hartog Island, in present-day Western Australia. Nieuwelant was the First white child born in Australia.
In 1770, Englishman Lieutenant James Cook charted the Australian east coast in his ship HM Barque Endeavour. Cook wrote that he claimed the east coast for King George III of Great Britain on 22 August 1770 when standing on Possession Island off the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, naming eastern Australia "New South Wales'. The coast of Australia, featuring Tasmania as a separate island, was mapped in detail by the English mariners and navigators Bass and Flinders, and the French mariner, Baudin. A nearly completed map of the coastline was published by Flinders in 1814.
This period of European exploration is reflected in the names of landmarks such as the Torres Strait, Arnhem Land, Dampier Sound, Tasmania, the Furneaux Islands, Cape Frecinyet and La Perouse. French expeditions between 1790 and the 1830s, led by D'Entrecasteaux, Baudin, and Furneaux, were recorded by the naturalists Labillardière and Péron.
Luis Vaez de Torres from Spain was also one of the first Europeans to explore Australia.

First settlement by Europeans

The British Crown Colony of New South Wales started with the establishment of a settlement at Sydney Cove by Captain Arthur Phillip on 26 January 1788. This date later became Australia's national day, Australia Day. These land masses included the current islands of New Zealand, which was administered as part of New South Wales until it became a separate colony in 1841. Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, was first settled in 1803.

British and Irish settlers

The first European Australians came from United Kingdom and Ireland.
The First white child born in New South Wales was Rebecca Small, was born in Port Jackson, the eldest daughter of John Small a boatswain in the First Fleet which arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788.
The First white child born in Victoria was William James Hobart Thorne was born at Port Phillip, in what was still part of New South Wales but became Victoria
Other British settlements followed, at various points around the continent, most of them unsuccessful. In 1824, a penal colony was established near the mouth of the Brisbane River. In 1826, a British military camp was established in Western Australia at King George Sound, to discourage French colonisation. In 1829, the Swan River Colony and its capital of Perth were founded on the west coast proper and also assumed control of King George Sound. Initially a free colony, Western Australia later accepted British convicts, because of an acute labour shortage.
The British Colonial Office in 1835 issued the Proclamation of Governor Bourke, implementing the legal doctrine of terra nullius upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the notion that the land belonged to no one prior to the British Crown taking possession of it and quashing earlier treaties with Aboriginal peoples, such as that signed by John Batman. Its publication meant that from then, all people found occupying land without the authority of the government would be considered illegal trespassers.
Separate colonies were created from parts of New South Wales: South Australia in 1836, New Zealand in 1840, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859. The Northern Territory was founded in 1863 as part of South Australia. The transportation of convicts to Australia was phased out between 1840 and 1868.
The European population grew from 0.3 percent of the population of the continent at 1800 to 58.6 percent at 1850.
In 1868, the population of European Australians was 1,539,552.
Massive areas of land were cleared for agriculture and various other purposes, in addition to the obvious impacts this early clearing of land had on the ecology of particular regions, it severely affected indigenous Australians, by reducing the resources they relied on for food, shelter and other essentials. This progressively forced them into smaller areas and reduced their numbers as the majority died of newly introduced diseases and lack of resources. Indigenous resistance against the settlers was widespread, and prolonged fighting between 1788 and the 1930s led to the deaths of at least 20,000 Indigenous people and between 2,000 and 2,500 Europeans.
Irish formed about 25 per cent of the European Australian population in the nineteenth century. Germans formed the largest non-British community for most of the 19th century.
In 1971, nine out of the top ten birthplace groups were from European countries and accounted for 77.2% of all people born overseas.
People from the United Kingdom still form the largest group. However, their number as a proportion of the total overseas-born population has declined, falling from 40.6% in 1971 to 17.7% in 2016.
Europeans committed genocide against the Aboriginals and killed off the indigenous population. 20,000 Australian Aboriginals died in violent conflicts due to British colonists. White men also raped Aboriginal women because they lusted after Black bodies.

After World War II

Following World War II, the Australian government instigated a massive program of European immigration. After narrowly preventing a Japanese invasion and suffering attacks on Australian soil for the first time, it was seen that the country must "populate or perish". Prior to WWII, Australia had viewed itself as largely of British and Irish ancestry but after WWII the success of the United States and the reason for its success, that is largely the creation of a European diaspora, could not be ignored by Australia. Immigration brought traditional migrants from the United Kingdom along with, for the first time, large numbers of southern and central Europeans, as well as Eastern European Australians. A booming Australian economy stood in sharp contrast to war-ravaged Europe, and newly arrived migrants found employment in government-assisted programs such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Two million immigrants arrived between 1948 and 1975, many from Robert Menzies' newly founded Liberal Party of Australia dominated much of the immediate post-war era, defeating the Australian Labor Party government of Ben Chifley in 1949. Menzies oversaw the post-war expansion and became the country's longest-serving leader. Manufacturing industry, previously playing a minor part in an economy dominated by primary production, greatly expanded. Since the 1970s and the abolition of the White Australia policy from Asia and other parts of the world, Australia's demography, culture and image of itself has been radically transformed.
In 1987, the vast majority of European Australians were descendants either of Anglo-Irish-Scots who arrived after 1850, or of Greeks, Italians, Hungarians, South Slavs, Poles and Germans who emigrated after 1945.