It was a day like this, August 27 in 1829 when the first ever recorded Greeks set foot in Australia. They were seven convicted pirates in the Mediterranean sea who were ready to serve their sentences on this land, thousands of miles away from their country.
Later on, and despite the fact that the Greek Authorities granted an official amnesty, two of the men decided to stay there, starting the long history of the Greek presence in Australia. Their names were Antonis Manolis and Gikas Voulgaris.
The ship that brought them there was the British Norfolk and during their journey, they were among 192 other criminals, mainly from the United Kingdom. The voyage lasted between 91 and 93 days and the captain was assumed to be Alexander Greig.
The Greeks started sporadically migrating to Australia later on, but the main wave of migration didn’t happen until after the Second World War, resulting in the large numbers of Greek Communities in Australia we know today.