Our Research
Journey of the 1837 Select Committee Report
Quaker James Backhouse’s distribution of the 1837 Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes (British Settlements) to influential people in the Australian colonies reveals the humanitarian circuits of information and policy within empire.
Journey 1: Backhouse and Walker 1832–1838 (Australia, Mauritius and the Cape Colony)
In 1832–1838 British Quakers James Backhouse and George Washington Walker travelled to the Australian colonies of Van Diemen’s Land, New South Wales, and Swan River in Western Australia, Mauritius and South Africa’s Cape Colony. Backhouse and Walker were fundamental to the creation and expansion of humanitarian networks in the Antipodes, where they made major interventions in matters concerning Aboriginal peoples, penal reform, slavery and education.
Journey 2: Daniel and Charles Wheeler 1832-1836 (The Pacific and Australia)
In 1833–1838 British Quaker Daniel Wheeler and his son, Charles Wheeler, sailed to the Australian colonies, New Zealand and the Pacific, where they visited Hawaii and Tahiti. The Quakers went to the Koloa plantation on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai in 1836 and were troubled by concerns over slavery. They met key Pacific leaders Queen Pomare IV of Tahiti and King Kamehameha III of Hawaii.
Journey 3: Neave and Robson to Queensland and the Pacific, 1868–1871
In 1868–1869 British Quakers Joseph Neave and Walter Robson travelled to Queensland, Australia, amid fears of a new ‘Pacific slavery’. Here they were drawn into key humanitarian and political circles who protested against the Pacific labour trade, and they expressed their concern about the violence towards Aboriginal peoples. The Quakers travelled on a missionary ship to the Pacific and Neave to New Zealand in 1869 to investigate the labour trade and missionary activity.