Australia Made by 1850s Wool Industry & Gold Rush [15min]

The image of early Australia as a convict society obscures the fact that not everyone was a felon. Both felons and freeholders created the successful longer term story of the colony: the 1850s gold rush, wooden ship-building in Tasmania, iron ore from Broken Hill, prairies of wheat and the big wool industry. "This Sceptred Isle: Empire" is a narrative history of the British Empire from Ireland in the 12th century to the independence of India in the 20th, told in 90 programmes written by historian Christopher Lee and narrated by actor Juliet Stevenson. (You may listen again online to up to five most recent episodes of "Empire".)

The earliest sheep in Australia were indifferent beasts. But this changed with the import of the Iberian merinos imported by Elizabeth MacArthur whose husband had been deported back to England. The pace set by the original settlers was faster than any other colonial experiment in the history of the British Empire.

Yet in 1817 Lord Bathurst, Secretary for Colonies, said the penal colony experiment was failing. There was no evidence that transportation had any deterrent effect on crime in England and there was no military and strategic value to justify the costs.

Australia was a curious society inasmuch as only a minority of the population chose to be there. Yet a lot was being learned from the administrative experiments in North America, the West Indies and India. In thirty years everything changed. Wealth accelerated, mansions and legislatures were built. In the 1850s came the telegraph, then the railway. By 1860, with the exception of Western Australia, all the states were self-governing although not independent. By 1870 British soldiers had gone for good. Australia was self-governing on most matters because it was better run that way and, unlike India, there was no indigenous population ever likely to demand independence.