The First Balts to Canberra

'First Balts to Canberra' was the title of a talk given by Ann Tundern-Smith to the Canberra and District Historical Society on 14 February 2017.  The talk focussed on the first large group of non-British European migrants to reach Canberra in 1947.  It represented a valuable contribution to scholarship on Australian migration and the results will hopefully be published sometime during this 70th anniversary year. 

Who were the 'Balts'?  Well, that was a colloquial title given to the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian refugees in Australia immediately after the Second World War. The Minister for Immigration at the time, Arthur Calwell, had decided that the first shipment of post-war non British immigrants should be made up solely of young and single Baltic refugees as they were held in high regard by most countries selecting displaced persons for immigration. In fact, the warm reception given to the first shipload of Baltic refugees resulted in the term "Balt' being used for most non-British and non-Mediteranean European immigrants for many years, long after other nationalities had been included in Australia's intake (Egon F. Kunz, Displaced Persons; Calwell's New Australians, Australian National University Press, 1988, p42).

The first transport of Baltic displaced persons to Australia was carried by the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, a former WW2 troop ship chartered by the International Refugee Organisation to help resettle the millions of displaced persons stranded in Europe after the end of the war.  The ship carried over 800 Baltic displaced persons (including 112 women), arriving at Fremantle on 28 November 1947.  Most passengers were then transported to the Bonegilla migrant centre in northern Victoria, and from there to various jobs to begin working off their 2 year labour commitment to the Australian government.



853 Balt Migrants Happy To Be Here (1947, December 25). Catholic Weekly (Sydney, NSW : 1942 - 1954), p. 1. Retrieved February 19, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146600514
 [NB: Ann Tundern-Smith has advised that the newspaper headline was incorrect, the number was closer to 840, and that the young woman in the photo was Konstancija Brundzaitė (later Jurskis)] 

Ann Tundern-Smith is the daughter of one of the Estonian refugees who arrived aboard the first transport in 1947 and also the editor of Canberra History News  She has invested much effort in tracing the various stories of displaced people who came to Australia from 1947 to 1951 (see her website here ).  Ann's talk included a short historical introduction touching on how these Baltic people had become refugees, the history of migration policy in Australia in the 1940s, and then looked at 60 women who made up the first group of Balts to be sent to Canberra, in December 1947.

Canberra, in 1947, had a population of only a little over 15,000 but was growing fast with a new emphasis on nation building.  However the post-war labour shortage was felt as much here as in most parts of the country.  It was perhaps not surprising that given an additional source of employees the new Commonwealth Employment Service (established in 1946) should quickly select the best available for the national capital. The young Baltic women who had just arrived at Bonegilla were not given much time to acclimatise and half of them soon found themselves offered jobs as domestics, cleaners, waitresses, typists and trainee nurses in Canberra.
 

BALT MIGRANTS IN CANBERRA (1947, December 18). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 20. Retrieved February 19, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46825085

Ann Tundern-Smith's presentation analysed this first group of Baltic migrant workers (including by age, nationality, intended occupation prior to reaching Australia, occupation once they were employed in Canberra, and final place of residence after having worked in Canberra) as well as providing a few interesting biographical stories about the women involved. The discussion following Ann's talk brought out other aspects of the migration story, for example that by 1947 other western countries were also actively competing for Baltic refugees and that the target of 150 women set by the Aiustralian government for the first transport could not be met.  Nevertheless by 1952 Australia had resettled over 170,000 displaced persons, including 35,000 Balts.           


  

   

Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians

Neighbouring Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are often collectively called the 'Baltic States'.

By Hayden120 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

While the three countries have had similar recent histories (all were part of the Russian Empire during the nineteenth century and independent republics 1918-1940) their early migration patterns were not identical. Here are a few sources which provide some comparative insights into early migration from these countries:

1. The Baltic Peoples: Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians in Australia (by Betty and Antanas Birškys, Aldis L Putninš and Inno Salasoo, AE Press, Melbourne 1986)

Putninš advises that the earliest person from Latvia to arrive in Australia may have been a convict named Aaron Woolf who had been born in Riga in 1793 and was transported from England in 1829. Many Latvian sailors are recorded as having visited Australia during the second half of the nineteenth century, and the 'Baltic Wharf' at Port Pirie (South Australia) - named for the Baltic Pine - is a remnant of the early timber trade.  One estimate claims as many as 158 Latvian-born residents in Australia in 1891, but a stronger immigration flow began after the 1905 revolution in the Russian Empire, when "all shades of the political spectrum were represented". The Lettish Association of Sydney was founded in 1913, with club rooms in Argyle Place, Millers Point.

Salasoo writes that the earliest known Estonian immigrant was Alfred Julius Siekler, from Tallinn, who arrived in 1853, lived in Dubbo (New South Wales) and was naturalised in 1859.  By 1899 there were at least 9 Estonians living in Australia, all males. And by 1904 the number had grown to 21.  Like the Latvians, "the predominance of men may imply that the settlers were mainly seamen" while some "had been involved in the 1905 revolution in one way or another".  By 1914 the known number had risen to 126, including 4 women. However the first wave of Estonian emigration to Australia really started only after the First World War: "some decided to emigrate for economic, others for political reasons".  Around 700 Estonians emigrated to Australia during the period 1924-29, while arrivals during the 1930s averaged 30 per year.

As for the Lithuanians, Birškys noted that there were Lithuanians among the internees/political exiles from the failed 1831 insurrection who had found their way to Australia. They continued trickling in during the late 1800s and early 1900s, with several serving in the First AIF.  Of the several hundred living in Australia by the early 1930s, "around 70-75% came while Tsarist Russia controlled Lithuania", while over 150 had arrived after independence  in 1918.

2. The 1933 Census

The 1933 National Census in Australia was the first census to record Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as a place of birth:

• There were 997 people recorded as born in Estonia;
• 427 had been born in Latvia; and
• 235 had been born in Lithuania.

66% of these respondents were resident in New South Wales, with smaller proportions throughout each of the states.   The proportion of females to males was highest for the Estonians (36%), followed by the Lithuanians (34%), and the Latvians (25%).  

3. Russian Anzacs in Australian History (by Elena Govor, UNSW Press, 2005) and updated at http://russiananzacs.net/

Govor has identified over 240 'Baltic Anzacs' - men from the Baltic provinces of the Russian empire who were mostly ethnic Estonians, Latvians or Lithuanians - who served in the First AIF (1914-18); of these, 41% had been born in present-day Estonia, 53% in Latvia and 6%  in Lithuania.  Most had left the Russian empire as young men and been employed as seafarers (59%) before stopping in Australia. Govor noted that "Beyond the 'call of the sea' - or at least the prospects it held out for work - economic hardship was probably the greatest push factor for emigration" (p.47).

In addition to the ethnic Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, there was also a significant migration of Jews from the Baltic provinces, in particular from Lithuania. However, Jewish migration followed a different pattern with family groups being most common.

Govor's analysis of the 'Russian Anzacs' concluded that at least a quarter of all male immigrants from the Russian empire had joined the AIF during World War One.