Soldier settlement (Australia)
Soldier settlement was the settlement of land throughout parts of Australia by returning discharged soldiers under soldier settlement schemes administered by state governments after World War I and World War II. The post-World War II settlements were co-ordinated by the Commonwealth Soldier Settlement Commission.
Such settlement plans initially began during World War I, with South Australia first enacting legislation in 1915. Similar schemes gained impetus across Australia in February 1916 when a conference of representatives from the Australian Government and all the state governments was held in Melbourne to consider a report prepared by the Federal Parliamentary War Committee regarding the settlement of returned soldiers on the land. The report focused specifically on a federal-state cooperative process of selling or leasing Crown land to soldiers who had been demobilised following the end of their service in this first global conflict.[1] The meeting agreed that it was the Australian Government's role to select and acquire land whilst the State government authorities would process applications and grant land allotments.[2]
Crown land was used where possible, but much land was acquired. By 1924, just over 24 million acres (97,000 km²) had been acquired or allocated. Of this nearly 6.3 million acres (25,000 km²) was purchased and 18 million acres (73,000 km²) was crown land set aside. 23.2 million acres (93,900 km²) had been allotted 23,367 farms across Australia.[3]
Other than supporting soldiers and sailors that were returning from those wars the various governments also saw the opportunity of attracting both Australians and specific groups of allied service personnel to some of the otherwise little inhabited, remote areas of Australia. Although the Australian Government held responsibility for defence, and thus might have taken responsibility for demobilised soldiers, it was the states which took responsibility for land settlement and thus enacted separate soldier settlement schemes. The states also wished to take an active role in recognising the contribution of soldiers.[4]
In addition to soldiers, nurses and female relatives of deceased soldiers were also able to apply for the scheme.[5] However, in cases where women did take on land, they were often given little chance to succeed. Annie Smith, a returned nurse who began a dairy farm in Thorpdale, near Moe was repeatedly criticised by overseers from the Closer Settlement Board for having to hire labour to do some of the more difficult physical tasks. The Board disregarded the fact that the plot she had been assigned had no water, and that Smith often obtained local labour for free, swapping nursing advice for one-off jobs. In 1926 Smith vacated the lot, with no war pension left and mounting debt. Confounding the Board's assumption that her status as a single woman had rendered her unequal to the task, the two subsequent male owners of the property also failed to make the land profitable.[6]
Areas that gained such settlements included:[7]
By 30 June 1924 a total of 23,367 returned soldiers and sailors had taken up settlement farms on 23,275,380 acres (94,192 km²) across Australia as per the following breakdown:[3]
World War II[edit]
The procedure of supporting such soldiers was repeated after World War II with all Australian state governments using the previous and amended forms of such acts of parliament to reinvigorate the programme for this new generation of returned soldiers.
Settlement by State[edit]
South Australia[edit]
Following World War I, soldiers who had previously worked on irrigation activities along the Murray River during the years leading up to the war returned to find that their previous jobs were no longer available.
The South Australian government responded as early as 1915 with the first of the acts of parliament designed to both repatriate and compensate returning servicemen, and to meet the political and economic need to 'sponsor' the development of intensively productive agriculture pursuits. Soldiers were informed of the availability of the scheme via the media and in the material provided in both recruitment packages and general information forwarded to men serving overseas.
Settlement schemes during and after the conclusion of World War I saw properties specialising in dairy, grapes, vegetables, grains, and grazing develop along the River in Cobdogla, Waikerie, Berri, Cadell, Chaffey and near Renmark.[19]
Following a number of acts that dealt with Soldier Settlement the South Australian government introduced the Discharged Soldier Settlement Act 1934 which consolidated acts such as the Crown Lands Act 1929 and the Irrigation Act 1930 for the benefit of any discharged soldier who had served in connection with the Great War and had been a member of the British Army or Navy or of the Australian Imperial Force or of any other naval or military force raised in any part of the British Empire for service in that War, or to the widow (who had children) of any such who had died or dies from wounds inflicted, accident occurring, or disease contracted whilst on service.[20] A training farm was established at Pompoota to teach soldiers the skills they would need to be successful as farmers.[21] The training farm was an initiative of Samuel McIntosh who had observed the Village Settlements twenty years earlier in which unemployed city people were provided with land and expected to be able to clear and farm it with no relevant experience in farming.[22]
Settlement schemes after World War II expanded to include the Loxton Irrigation Area, which became the largest such scheme in South Australia, and to another part of the previously developed area of Chaffey. The Returned Services League (RSL) lobbied the state government to open up more land for returned soldiers at Loxton, and returning soldiers were informed of the scheme at the RSL through handout material. Settlement schemes after World War II also led to the establishment of the new towns of Parndana on Kangaroo Island and Padthway in the south east of the state.[23]
However whilst the first world war settlers had achieved only a modicum of success the benefit of that previous experience helped the second world war veterans, particularly in Loxton, to avoid some past mistakes and with the assistance of the Department of Lands, the community worked together in order to survive and prosper. Irrigation schemes that eventually arrived saw the advent of the productive orchard and vineyard concerns that became so important to the overall region as it exists today.[24]