Ten Pound Poms

Ten Pound Poms were British citizens who migrated to Australia and New Zealand after the Second World War.

[4] The Assisted Passage Migration Scheme was created in 1945 by the Chifley government and its first Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, as part of the "Populate or Perish" policy.

As well as subsidising the cost of travelling to Australia, the Government promised employment prospects, affordable housing, and a generally more optimistic lifestyle.

Australia also operated schemes to assist selected migrants from other countries, notably the Netherlands (1951), Italy (1951), Greece (1952), West Germany (1952) and Turkey (1967).

If they chose to travel back to Britain, the cost of the journey was at least £120 (in 1945 pounds, equivalent to £6,541 in 2023), a large sum in those days and one that most could not afford.

An estimated quarter of British migrants returned to the UK within the qualifying period; however, half of these—the so-called "Boomerang Poms"—returned to Australia.

[17] England fast bowlers Harold Larwood (in 1950)[18] and Frank Tyson (in 1960) also took advantage of the scheme when they retired from cricket.

[19] The Bee Gees (Gibb brothers), born on the Isle of Man, spent their first few years in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, England, then moved in the late 1950s to Redcliffe in Queensland, where they began their musical careers.

John Paul Young, Colin Hay of Men at Work,[24] Jon English and Cheetah, while Kylie Minogue is the daughter of two Ten Pound Poms: her mother was on the same boat as the Gibbs and Red Symons.

[27] Actor Nicholas Hope, best known for his role in the 1994 film Bad Boy Bubby, was born in Manchester on Christmas Day 1958 and migrated to Whyalla soon afterwards.