From ship to shore: excerpts from shipboard diaries 1863-1947

It is possible to hear the authors’ individual voices through the diaries selected for this exhibition – among the most intriguing in the State Library’s collection. Four of the diaries describe 19th Century immigration, another was written in the 1890s on board a South Sea Islander labour recruitment ship for Queensland’s sugar industry, and one is from a post-World War II immigration voyage.

Through the pages of these notebooks and journals, we are able to follow the lives and activities of men and women of different backgrounds, occupations and classes. We can take a glimpse of life above and below deck from the beginning of the Age of Sail to the influx of post-World War II migrants into Australia.