What question did this study set out to answer?

The study aims to explore how immigrant depots transformed women into settlers in the nineteenth-century colonial context.

March 28, 2026Open Access

'To Make the Emigrant a Better Colonist': Transforming Women in the Female Immigration Depot, Hyde Park Barracks

Key Points

The study aims to explore how immigrant depots transformed women into settlers in the nineteenth-century colonial context.
Analyzed archaeological findings from the Hyde Park Barracks Female Immigration Depot
Examined the processes and practices at immigrant institutions
Investigated the role of daily practices in the transition of immigrants to settlers
Identified key daily practices that facilitated the integration of female immigrants
Showed how institutional sites shaped the social roles of women in colonial society
Revealed the importance of immigration depots in the settlers' transformation process

Abstract

The immigrant’s journey is a paradigmatic example of the ‘betwixt and between’, both physically and socially ambiguous, suspended momentarily outside of normal society. For archaeologists studying nineteenth-century immigration around the British Empire, ‘institutions of immigration’ (emigrant and immigrant depots, quarantine stations, processing centres, etc.) provide access to this transitional state. Using the example of the Hyde Park Barracks Female Immigration Depot (1848–1887) in Sydney, Australia, the author demonstrates how these the institutional sites encountered throughout the immigrant’s journey were integral to the process of turning immigrants into settlers through the creation of new forms of daily practice.

'To Make the Emigrant a Better Colonist': Transforming Women in the Female Immigration Depot, Hyde Park Barracks

Key Points

Abstract

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