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Travelling steerage: class, commerce, religion and family in colonial Sydney

This article outlines the purpose and approach to be pursued in a new project, a history of Sydney written from the point of view of a middle-class Congregationalist family, the Thompsons, who emigrated from London in 1834. Such a history allows us to explore class, kin and community in global as well as local contexts, to understand the intersections of public and private life and to gain new insight into class formation in the mid-nineteenth century. It also endeavours to respond to the challenge posed by Ann Curthoys and Ann McGrath, of writing “history that people want to read”.