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advertising campaigns of the travel agents. Gaetano Tomasetti and two other members
of his family were among those who departed for Australia in the mid 1850s.
Gaetano Tomasetti was bom on 7 January 1831,^ his father Gaetano Antonio
recordmg his arrival in a birthday book which became a treasured relic of the family's
descendants in Australia. His two travel companions were Battista and Giovan
Tomasetti, both of whom had also been named after their fathers, came from different
branches of the family and may have been his cousins. At the time of their departure,
the youngest, Battista was nineteen and a carpenter, Giovan was 20 and a stonecutter
and Gaetano, also a stonecutter, was 23. Unable to make a living from their trades,
the boys had applied for loans from the Avegno council and, being successful, made
the final arrangements for their joumey to Australia. Like most citizens, they had each
borrowed 1,000 francs in councU loans,' an indication of the extent of poverty within
the viUage and the lack of wealthy citizens able to advance private loans. Those
departing for AustraUa were mostly farmers aged between fifteen and 24 years, and all
were male. Several were skilled stonecutters or stonemasons.* Gaetano's departure
brought an end to his line of the Tomasetti name in the village, his father having died
some time previously.
Though the three boys all departed from Avegno some time after July 1854, it
is possible they did not sail together to Australia.' Gaetano was a passenger aboard
the Mindora which departed from Liverpool and arrived in Melboume on 23 October
1854; two more Ticinesi were recorded aboard this vessel but, as the ship's passenger
Ust has since been lost or destroyed, it is impossible to know their identity.^" A family
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