European Australians

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

History

Early sightings by Europeans

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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 (unknown southern land). The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutchman, Willem Janszoon.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

Seebaer van Nieuwelant (born 27 July 1623), 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

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.^[citation needed]

First settlement by Europeans

The British

The first European Australians came from United Kingdom and Ireland.^[14][15]

The First white child born in New South Wales was Rebecca Small (22 September 1789 – 30 January 1883), was born in Port Jackson, the eldest daughter of John Small^[16] a boatswain in the First Fleet which arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788.

The

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

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.^[18]

Separate colonies were created from parts of New South Wales:

The European population grew from 0.3 percent of the population of the continent at 1800 to 58.6 percent at 1850.[19] In 1868, the population of European Australians was 1,539,552.^[20]

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.

Irish formed about 25 per cent of the European Australian population in the nineteenth century.[15] Germans formed the largest non-British community for most of the 19th century.^[22]

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% (1,046,356) in 1971 to 17.7% (1,078,064) in 2016.^[23]

After World War II

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Following

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.^[25]

Demographics

Notably, Australia does not collect statistics on the racial origins of its residents, instead collecting data at each five-yearly census on distinct ancestries, of which each census respondent may choose up to two.

At the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated European ancestries were as set out in the following table.[1]

Historical demographics

Australia enumerated its population by race between 1911 and 1966, by racial-origin in 1971 and 1976, and by self-declared ancestry since 1986.^[27] From 1986 onwards, only estimates can be obtained from ancestry. The 1991 and 1996 census did not include a question on ancestry.^[28]

The following table shows the proportion of Australian residents nominating European race or ancestry at various points in history.

Ancestral origins

The following table shows the numbers of Australians claiming various European ancestries at selected national census historical intervals.

Ancestral origins	1986 / %		2001 / %		2006 / %		2011 / %		2016	2011-16
Albanian					11,313		13,142	0.1%	15,907
Australian	3,402,407	21.8%	6,739,594	35.9%	7,371,823	37.1%	7,098,486	33.0%	7,298,243	+2.81%
Austrian					41,490		42,341	0.2%	44,411
Basque					541	0.0%	612	0.0%
Belarusian					1,560	0.0%	1,664	0.0%
Belgian					8,896	0.0%	10,022	0.0%	11,968
Bosnian					18,463	0.1%	20,247	0.1%	23,630
British					5,681	0.0%	6,262	0.0%	9,385
Bulgarian					4,898	0.0%	5,436	0.0%	6,766
Catalan					112	0.0%	171	0.0%
Channel Islander					1,160	0.0%	1,127	0.0%
Croatian					118,049	0.6%	126,270	0.6%	133,268
Cypriot					10,722	0.0%	22,680	0.1%
Czech					21,194	0.1%	22,772	0.1%	24,475
Danish					50,414	0.3%	54,026	0.3%	59,293	+9.75%
Dutch					310,082		335,493	1.6%	339,549	+1.21%
English[40]	6,607,228	42.4%	6,358,880	33.9%	6,283,647	31.6%	7,238,533	33.7%[41]-36.1%[42]	7,852,224	+8.48%
Estonian					8,234	0.0%	8,551	0.0%	9,580	+12.03%
Finnish					20,987	0.1%	22,420	0.1%	24,144	+7.69%
French					98,333		110,399	0.5%	135,382	+22.63%
French Canadian					1,686	0.0%	1,836	0.0%
German					811,543		898,674	4.2%	982,226	+9.3%
Gibraltarian					184	0.0%	177	0.0%
Greek					365,150	1.8%	378,270	1.8%	397,431	+5.07%
Hungarian					67,623	0.3%	69,160	0.3%	73,614	+6.44%
Icelandic					759	0.0%	929	0.0%	1,088	+17.12%
Irish	902,679	5.8%	1,919,727	10.2%	1,803,736	9.1%	2,087,758	9.7%[41]-10.4%[43]	2,388,058	+14.38%
Italian					852,421		916,121	4.3%	1,000,006	+9.16%
Latvian					20,061	0.1%	20,124	0.1%	20,509	+1.91%
Lithuanian					13,275	0.1%	13,594	0.1%	16,295	+19.87%
Luxembourg					167	0.0%	212	0.0%	236	+11.32%
Macedonian					83,983		93,570	0.4%	98,441
Maltese					153,802		163,990	0.8%	175,555	+7.05%
Moldovan					231	0.0%	374	0.0%
Montenegrin					1,168	0.0%	1,554	0.0%
Norwegian					20,442	0.1%	23,037	0.1%	26,258	+13.98%
Polish					163,802	0.8%	170,354	0.8%	183,974	+8%
Portuguese					41,226	0.2%	46,519	0.2%	61,885	+33.03%
Romanian					18,325	0.1%	20,998	0.1%	24,558
Russian					67,056		74,317	0.3%	85,657	+15.26%
Scottish	740,522	4.7%	540,046	2.9%	1,501,200	7.6%[41][44]	1,792,622	8.3%	2,023,470	+12.88%
Serbian					95,362		69,544	0.3%	73,901
Slovak					8,504	0.0%	10,053	0.0%	46,186
Slovene					16,085	0.1%	17,150	0.1%
Spanish					84,327		92,952	0.4%	119,956
Swedish					30,378		34,029	0.2%	40,214	+18.18%
Swiss					26,512	0.1%	28,947	0.1%	31,567	+9.05%
Ukrainian					37,584	0.2%	38,791	0.2%
Welsh	no data	no data	84,246	no data	113,244	0.6%	125,597	0.6%	144,582	+15.12%
European					9,037		12,504	0.1%
Total
Source:1986,[45] 2016[46]

European born population

The following table shows the proportions of European-born and British Isles-born residents at various points in history.

Political involvement

Colonial period

As the earliest colonists of Australia, settlers from England and their descendants often held positions of power and made or helped make laws often because many had been involved in government back in England. In the original six separate

Sir Henry Parkes.

Edmund Barton

.

The lineage of most of the national founders was British (especially English) such as:

• Sir Henry Parkes is often regarded as the "Father of Federation" in Australia. During the late 19th century, he was the strongest proponent for a federation of Australian territories. Parkes died before Australia federated, and was never able to see his plan come to fruition.^[58]

• Captain James Cook
  , the Englishman who claimed Australia
• Captain Arthur Phillip (Englishman), was the first governor of New South Wales and founder of the first colony
• Sir Edmund Barton
  (English parents), the first Australian Prime Minister.
• Scotsman Lachlan Macquarie is considered by historians to have had a crucial influence on the transition of New South Wales from a penal colony to a free settlement and therefore to have played a major role in the shaping of Australian society in the early nineteenth century.^[59][60] An inscription on his tomb on the Isle of Mull, Scotland describes him as "The Father of Australia".^[61]

Culture

European-Australian culture is integral to the

Australian English is a major variety of the English language and is used throughout Australia. Although English has no official status in the Constitution, Australian English is the country's de facto official language and is the first language of the majority of the population.

Australian English began to diverge from British English after the founding of the colony of New South Wales in 1788 and was recognised as being different from British English by 1820. It arose from the intermingling of early settlers from a great variety of mutually intelligible dialectal regions of the British Isles and quickly developed into a distinct variety of English.^[65] Australian English differs from other varieties of English in vocabulary, accent, pronunciation, register, grammar and spelling.^{[citation needed]}

The earliest form of Australian English was first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the colony of New South Wales. This first generation of children created a new dialect that was to become the language of the nation. The Australian-born children in the new colony were exposed to a wide range of dialects from all over the British Isles, in particular from Ireland and South East England.^[66]

The native-born children of the colony created the new dialect from the speech they heard around them, and with it expressed mateship. Even when new settlers arrived, this new dialect was strong enough to blunt other patterns of speech.^{[citation needed]}

A quarter of the convicts were Irish. Many had been arrested in Ireland, and some in Great Britain. Many, if not most, of the Irish convicts spoke either no English at all, or spoke it poorly and rarely. There were other significant populations of convicts from non-English speaking part of Britain, such as the Scottish Highlands and Wales.^{[citation needed]}

The most commonly spoken European languages other than English in Australia are Italian, Greek and German.^{[citation needed]}

Music

Another area of cultural influence are Australian Patriotic songs:

• "
  plebiscite to choose the national song in 1977.^{[citation needed}
  ]
• "
  Christina Macpherson,^[68]
  one of the family members at the station.
• "The Song of Australia" - An English-born poet Caroline Carleton wrote the lyrics in 1859 for a competition sponsored by the Gawler Institute. The music for the song was composed by the German-born Carl Linger (1810-1862).^{[citation needed]}