ABSTRACT
As with the other white dominions of the British Empire, the Australian colonies had, by the late nineteenth century, developed institutions and cultural forms that had their origins in the British Isles. Until the early twentieth century, the majority of the adult population were born overseas and much of their early socialisation had taken place in a specific British environment and context. Ethnic loyalty intersected with the emerging class structure in the colonies. Many sons and daughters of the professional and commercial classes were brought up in Protestant communities with attachment to English and sometimes Scottish ways of their forefathers. Others were suspicious of interests that seemed to be merely serving the ruling class in England; a feeling that was most marked amongst the one-third of the population whose ethnic origins lay in Catholic Ireland.
