Scottish Australians
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (1,792,600-2,000,000 (by ancestry) 130,204 (by birth, 2006). 8.3% of total Australian population.) |
|
| Languages | |
| English, Scots, Scottish Gaelic | |
| Religion | |
| Presbyterianism, Roman Catholic | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Scottish people, Anglo-Celtic Australians, Irish Australians, English Australians, Welsh Australians, Manx Australians |
Scottish Australians are residents of Australia who are fully or partially of Scottish descent.
According to the 2011 Australian census 130,204 Australian residents were born in Scotland, while 1,792,600 claimed Scottish ancestry, either alone or in combination with another ancestry. This is the fourth most commonly nominated ancestry and represents over 8.3% of the total population of Australia.
The links between Scotland and Australia stretch back to the first British expedition of the Endeavour under command of Lieutenant James Cook who was himself the son of a Scottish ploughman. Cook navigated and charted the east coast of Australia, making first landfall at Botany Bay on 29 April 1770. His reports in Cook's expedition would lead to British settlement of the continent, and during the voyage Cook also named two groups of Pacific islands in honour of Scotland: New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. The first European to die on Australian soil was a Scot; Forbey Sutherland from Orkney, an able seaman died on 30 April 1770 of consumption and was the first to be buried on the colony by Captain Cook, who named Sutherland Point at Botany Bay in his honour.
The first Scottish settlers arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, including three of the first six Governors of New South Wales John Hunter, Lachlan Macquarie (often referred to as the father of Australia) and Thomas Brisbane. The majority of Scots arriving in the early colonial period were convicts: 8,207 Scottish convicts, of the total 150,000 transported to Australia, made up about 5% of the convict population. The Scottish courts were unwilling to punish crimes deemed to be lesser offences in Scots Law by deportation to Australia. Scottish law was considered more humane for lesser offences than the English and Irish legal systems.
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