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GUSCETTI
Not all the Italian speakers who came to the Australian goldfields during the
1850s were peasants seeking refuge from poverty and starvation. A small number of
financially stable, professional people also fled political associations which threatened
to destroy their future social and financial security. Among them were several teachers
from the Valle Maggia, including Gioachimo Respini, whose father's involvement in
1841 political movements had jeopardised his working career, and medical practitioner
Severino Guscetti from Quinto in Ticino* As Alcorso has noted.
The timing of the gold mshes was fortuitous for European radicals; in
addition to impoverished peasants and workers, the Australian gold
msh attracted political activists and revolutionaries, displaced and
disUlusioned by the failure of the 1848 revolutions.^
It was Dr Gruscetti's position as a member of parliament, however, which led to his
arrival on the Australian goldfields in 1855, one of only a handful of Quinto's citizens
choosing to go to Australia. Leventina, the region of Ticino where Quinto is situated
(ref figure 3), suffered enormous population losses in the years between 1843 and
1873 ~ over seventeen per cent and the highest rate after the Valle Maggia. The
majority, as was tme for most of north-eastern Ticino, chose North America as their
destination,' and only 20 individuals (.04 per cent) including Guscetti, his wdfe and four
children, departed for the Colony of Victoria."* Why they did so, and how professional
families such as the Guscettis fared in Australia, will be examined in this section.
Severino Guscetti was bom in 1816 in Quinto, a viUage, like mc^t in Ticino,
suffering high rates of poverty and unemployment. By the 1850s, living conditions had
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