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Download (14Mb) - VUIR - Victoria University

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immigrant communities. The emigratory traditions of the Italian speakers, which had<br />

involved temporary excursions mto nearby countries in search of work had fostered,<br />

however, the conviction that retum was possible and that AustraUa presented no more<br />

permanent a destination than had others. At least one third of the Ticinesi"* ~ a high<br />

proportion considering the distance and travel difficulties ~ did eventually repatriate<br />

and the majority of those who remained did so wdth regret.<br />

It has already been noted that at least six Ticinesi arrived on the goldfields in<br />

the very early years of the 1850s. The stonemasons Giovanni Giovannini and Antonio<br />

Palla had emigrated in 1851, presumably in search of labouring jobs, and were already<br />

in Australia when the news of the <strong>Victoria</strong>n discoveries broke. One year later, having<br />

only been informed of the gold finds after July 1851, the other four adventurers ~<br />

Tomaso Pozzi, Battista Borsa, Giacomo Bmni and Luigi Caporgni ~ arrived in the<br />

Colony. Pozzi and Palla retumed to Ticino as wealthy men in 1854, giving hope to<br />

their desperately poor compatriots of a better future on the goldfields. Further<br />

encouraged by the aggressive advertising campaigns mounted by the shipping<br />

companies, the Italian speakers had begun to emigrate in large numbers.<br />

While some hoped to make a fortune seeking gold, a large number expected to<br />

find work in their various trades ~ as the shipping companies had promised they<br />

would. Several were successful, such as Gaetano Tomasetti who appears to have<br />

found employment as a stonemason on a church building site and Stefano Pozzi who<br />

found work as a jeweUer, but many more were unable to find work and roamed the<br />

streets of Melboume in a fiiiitless search.* For those immigrants who arrived in the<br />

228

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