A passing occupation: An exploration of the history and heritage of itinerant workers in rural New South Wales, 1850-1914

Itinerancy permeated rural life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and this thesis demonstrates that itinerancy may be a fruitful way of understanding people across ethnic and social divides in a way which can inform understandings of Australia's history. Itinerant workers formed a significant phase in the development of rural New South Wales; yet the lack of considerable tangible heritage relating to itinerant workers has meant that the importance of their presence has disappeared. Affirmative action is needed to ensure the rightful place of the legacy of itinerant workers in the heritage of New South Wales. This thesis provides a mechanism, via the use of different lenses, to systematically explain itinerancy elsewhere. Recent studies in Australian history and heritage have given a voice to hidden people and events in time past, such as women, families, ethnic minoritieand frontier violence. This study has added to the progressive body of work by exploring the history and heritage of itinerant workers in rural New South Wales in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.