Australia was the richest country per capita for decades after the 1850s gold rush, until the 1890s depression. A cow cost £84 in 1796. The 1890s depression was worse than the 1930s.
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Australia was the richest country on earth, per capita, for decades. After the 1850s gold rush, up until the 1890s depression, Australia had the highest per capita income in the world. In 1850, probably only the United Kingdom and the Netherlands sat above Australia, by about 20 per cent, with the United States 9 per cent below. After the gold rushes Australia passed both, and from 1860 to 1890 the gap over the United States ran at 25 or 30 per cent.
A cow cost as much as £84 in 1796, about several years' wages for an English labourer. Only government, or its military/civil officers, owned cattle and horses in 1796, which were extraordinarily hard to import in the first decade, having to survive the long distance from South Africa or India. In England, an ordinary cow would have cost around £10.
John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor seriously discussed running off to Australia. Mill was an active supporter of the movement that founded South Australia, joining the South Australian Association. Harriet's younger brother, Arthur Hardy, migrated to South Australia and became a pastoralist and politician there. Liberals hoped that South Australia would become a progressive leader in political and social equality. Indeed, South Australia became the first self-governing jurisdiction in the world to allow women to vote and stand for parliament, in 1895.
Australia's 1890s economic depression was worse than the 1930s Great Depression. Real GDP per capita fell by around 20 per cent over the 1890s, compared with a fall of only about 10 per cent over the 1930s. Unlike America, Australia's banking system largely remained intact during the 1930s. In part, that is because Australian banks remembered the catastrophic banking collapse of the 1890s, fuelled by huge credit growth and lax standards, particularly in Victoria. Of the 64 deposit-taking institutions in Australia in 1891, 54 were closed by 1893. A severe drought made economic recovery even more difficult.
All forty are interesting, by Andrew Kemp on his very good Australia Substack.
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