Through Australian Eyes - Colonial Perceptions of Imperial Britain (Paperback)

In the last 25 years of the 19th century, around 200,000 visitors from Australia landed in Britain. As members of the colonial elite, they sailed to the Old Country to experience their Britishness: they toured Westminster Abbey; they visited graves of parents; they threw snowballs at Christmas. As one visitor expressed it on arrival in London in 1889: "Spotted St Paul's in the distance and felt at home".;Yet these pilgrims to the Old Country were also aware of themselves as Australians. In 1891 one Irishman wrote of his birthplace: "The north of Ireland is a disgusting climate for an Australian who loves his blue skies and glorious sunshine". Even London could disappoint: "I have seen many curious things here not to be seen at home but it's not half the place I expected to see - hardly worth coming for".;Colonial Australians were British, but not of Britain, and their diaries and letters offer a distinctive insight into 19th-century Britain. Using unpublished diaries and letters, this work offers a cross-disciplinary approach to cultural history. It considers both British and Australian national identities as the products of cultural displacement.