Letters from Frank Birks

Letters from Frank to his father from onboard the Royal Tar and from the New Australia settlement in Paraguay.

The staff member who suggested this material for the staff favourites exhibition wrote: 'I've been interested in the story of the New Australia colony since I read a 'documentary novel' about it while I was still at school (The Paraguayan Experiment by Michael Wilding). I'm intrigued by the idea that of a group of Australians - whose grandparents or parents had probably left other parts of the world to start a new life in Australia - had become so disillusioned with one part of the new world that they decided to strike out for another entirely new place.'

On 17 July 1893, radical idealist William Lane and his followers left Sydney on the Royal Tar for Paraguay, where they planned to establish the socialist colony of New Australia. The New Australia Cooperative Settlement Association had been formed following the suppression of the maritime and shearers' strikes of 1890-91. More than 230 adults and their children left Australia seeking a workers' utopia in South America.

Six months later another group of hopeful emigrants left Adelaide for Paraguay, also aboard the Royal Tar: among them was Frank Birks, aged 20. Frank wrote frequently to his father John Birks detailing the life in the colony and the widening disillusionment as disputes arose under Lane's authoritarian leadership. In addition Frank accumulated copies of Cosme monthly the community's newsletter. Together with his letters they reveal a great deal about the experiment in Paraguay.

Factions formed in New Australia and in 1894 Lane was forced to resign. He established a separate community at Cosme, but by 1898 this had also failed to develop as a socialist settlement. In addition to the ideological disputes and personality clashes, the inhospitable climate and difficult living conditions all took their toll on the settlers. Frank Birks had joined Lane at Cosme, also working as a turner for nine months with the Paraguay Railway Co. Ltd. He resigned from the organization about May 1898: a letter dated 17 May 1898 and signed by John Lane accepts his resignation, and also thanks him for not withdrawing his money from the co-operative. Frank left South America on 22 March 1899 as a mess steward on Highland Scot; he arrived England in May 1899, and arrived back in Adelaide on 7 September 1899.

By 1898 Cosme had also failed to develop as a socialist settlement. William Lane left for England, and later New Zealand, where a conservative change to his beliefs became apparent in his writings as a journalist and editor. Many of the colonists, like Frank, became disillusioned and returned to Australia, and those who stayed eventually abandoned communal living and the land was divided between them.

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