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The Real Face of White Australia

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Research

The Real Face of White Australia

The Real Face of White Australia project aims to raise awareness and understanding of the history of the White Australia Policy through the stories of individuals and communities.

A key part of the project is to transcribe data from identification documents – namely Certificates of Domicile and Certificates Exempting from the Dictation Test – created in the administration of the Immigration Restriction Act in the first half of the 20th century. The Immigration Restriction Act – later simply the Immigration Act – was the legislative backbone of the White Australia Policy.

All the data extracted by the Real Face of White Australia project is available for further research through this GitHub repository. You can follow @invisibleaus on Twitter for twice-daily mini stories drawn from the transcribed data.

The Immigration Restriction Act and the White Australia Policy

The Immigration Restriction Act, enacted in December 1901, aimed to limit the numbers of non-European migrants entering Australia. It also targetted other so-called 'undesirable' immigrants, such as people who were ill, disabled or thought to be morally suspect. The Act's infamous Dictation Test could be applied to anyone entering the country, even if they were Australian-born or a naturalised British subject. The Dictation Test could also be given in languages other than English, to make sure that English-speaking 'coloured' migrants could be excluded too.

At the time of Federation in 1901, many thousands of people of non-European, non-Indigenous background already lived in Australia. Over the following half century, if they wanted to travel outside Australia they could apply to be exempted from the Dictation Test on their return. If successful they were issued with a Certificate of Domicile (1902–1905) or a Certificate Exempting from Dictation Test (CEDT) (from 1906 onwards). A separate but related system of exemptions – called the Certificate of Exemption – existed for non-Europeans entering Australia as temporary residents (for example, merchants, students or visiting wives and children of Australian residents).

The Immigration Restriction Act became the Immigration Act in 1912. It was Australia’s principal piece of immigration law until it was replaced by the Migration Act in 1958, when the Dictation Test was abolished. The Immigration (Restriction) Act was one of the key pieces of legislation for the maintenance and implementation of the White Australia Policy.

The Act was administered by the Department of Customs and Excise, with offices in various ports in each Australian state, and by the Department of External Affairs (and its subsequent agencies) in Melbourne and later Canberra. Customs officers would deal with the day-to-day administration of the Act, with more complex or difficult issues referred to External Affairs. External Affairs also dealt with policy matters. The Department of Immigration took over responsibility for immigration and naturalisation matters after it was established in 1945.

The records

The records at the heart of this project are identification documents issued to non-European Australians by the Collector of Customs in Sydney during the first half of the 20th century. The records are held by the National Archives of Australia at Chester Hill in Sydney in record series NAA: ST84/1. The policies and processes involved in issuing these documents changed over time, meaning that the records in NAA: ST84/1 and the information they contain also varies over time.

Key documents within the files include:

  • Certificates of Domicile (No. 21) – issued between 1902 and 1905
  • Certificates Exempting from the Dictation Test (No. 21) – issued from 1906 to the 1950s
  • Landing Form (No. 32)

The Real Face of White Australia project builds on work done by the National Archives of Australia to digitise the records in NAA: ST84/1. The National Archives’ RecordSearch database contains item-level descriptions for all the records in NAA: ST84/1, but not all the records are digitised. Full copies of those records that are digitised can be downloaded free of charge from RecordSearch. You can locate records of particular people in RecordSearch by doing a keyword search using their name.

SERIES ST84/1

Series ST84/1 contains copies of Certificates of Domicile and Certificates Exempting from the Dictation Test (CEDTs) that were issued in Sydney to non-European Australians who wished to be exempted from the Dictation Test when they returned after travelling overseas. They date from 1903 to the mid-1950s.

Generally two copies of each certificate were issued by the Collector of Customs – one was given to the traveller to use when booking a return passage and then as identification on arrival, and the other (often marked DUPLICATE) was filed for reference. In some instances, both copies of the certificates are now held in NAA: ST84/1. NAA: ST84/1 includes a small amount of other associated paperwork, such as copies of the landing form, Form 32, for some arriving travellers.

Certificates of Domicile and CEDTs were each issued with a number, at first in the form of year/certificate number (e.g. 06/258) and then in later years with a book and certificate number (e.g. Book 22, No. 6). The certificates are filed in the numerical order in which they were issued. Each certificate contains personal information, as well as details of the person’s travel.

CEDTs generally include front and side-facing photographs of the person, and on the reverse their left handprint or their thumbprints. The earlier Certificates of Domicile do not always have photographs, but include other personal information such as family, occupation and place of residence.

The records held in NAA: ST84/1 are part of a broader recordkeeping system that documented the travels of non-Europeans in and out of the port of Sydney in the first half of the 20th century. The identity certificates are therefore augmented by other archival records, particularly correspondence files in series SP42/1 and SP42/2 in Sydney, and series A1 in Canberra. These correspondence files contain further documents and information about non-European travellers, including application forms, letters of reference, police reports and correspondence between the Collector of Customs and Department of External Affairs.

For more information about Immigration (Restriction) Act records from New South Wales, see Kate Bagnall’s Chinese Australians and the Immigration Restriction Act in New South Wales: A guide to finding records (pdf, 6.8mb).

Further resources