19th-Century Australian Travel Writing
Henry Capper (1804-1866) worked as a senior clerk for the South Australian Colonization Commission (est. 1834), which controlled early land sales in the colony. Capper became a prolific writer of emigrant guides and associated literature: beginning with guides to South Australia, his later publications covered all Australian colonies, New Zealand, and South Africa. He was the editor of Australia and New Zealand monthly magazine and The South Australian Record, and published Capper’s Colonial calendar. Capper's The Australian Colonies contains basic geographical and historical information regarding the location and early settlement of Australia, before providing a survey on the colonies, reporting on the classes of emigrants currently desired, advising the readers on emigration agents in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, including the payments intending emigrants will have to make. The third section of the work addressed working class-emigrants who could not obtain a free passage, and those too poor to pay their passage. Capper recommended Mrs Chisholm's Family Colonization Loan Society, before providing a list of outfits and items required for emigration, the regulations for behaviour on board ship, and advice to those undertaking the voyage and on arrival in the colony.
