Ross Lowton (KCL) - 2023-24 Students
k21109412@kcl.ac.uk

The Construction of the Indigenous Australian in London, 1770-1810

My research seeks to trace the discourse taking place in London about Indigenous Australians during the earliest years of the colonisation of Australia so as to understand the creation of a popular stereotype of these peoples. Informed by the philosophies, ideologies and explorer encounters of the previous century, my research examines explorer journals, visual art and literature as well as archival texts such as letters, periodicals and government communication in order to uncover the particular images that were becoming rapidly encoded as the popular stereotype of New Holland’s native people. Through this, I seek to recouple this discursive, intellectual process taking place in the metropolitan heart of the Empire with tangible violence and oppression faced by Indigenous Australians in their own lands, drawing a direct and causal link between the two. By understanding the constructed Indigenous Australian that existed for policy-makers and future settlers long before the arrival of Bennelong and Yemmerrawanne, the first Indigenous Australian visitors to Britain, reached London, we can better understand how ideological stereotyping and certain negative portrayals informed years of colonial mistreatment and violence.

Primary supervisor: Dr. James Grande

Secondary supervisor: Dr. Simon Sleight