The Ten Pound Fare by Betka Zamoyska
This is a study of the assisted passage scheme offered for journeys to Australia in 1947. The assisted passage scheme, also known as the ten pound fare, was introduced in 1946 and continued until the early 1970s, providing almost free passages to Australia for would-be migrants who fulfilled the immigration requirements of the Australian government. The book discusses the scheme's response in Britain which appealed to a wide cross-section of people who went for a variety of reasons, such as personal, professional and economic. It was often regarded as the ten pound cure by those who saw it as a way out of dead-end jobs, broken marriages and frustrating lives. Between 1946 and 1966, 2.55 million immigrants arrived in Australia of which 1.36 million were British, 1.26 million having made use of the assisted passage scheme. This book charts the adventures and experiences of some of the British immigrants.