The Finns

Abstrakti

Into the 20th century jumping ship was the favoured method of emigration for the Finns, with Sydney, where a Finnish Seaman’s Missionary Society was established, becoming the most popular port of entry. The approved immigrants, the non-queue jumpers, mainly went to Queensland after they were offered free passage from London. In 1899 200 settled in QLD, 78 of whom founded a utopian colony. The Finns were heavily into communes and such inclinations made them naturals for Mullumbimby where, post WW1, they built the largest enclave of Finns in New South Wales outside Sydney and Newcastle. By the 1930s they were amongst the largest alien groups in the district. Those who formed this banana-growing commune came mainly from the Swedish-speaking communities of the north west coast, while NSW’s next largest Finnish enclave at Gosford was predominately Finnish speaking.