Causes of death of British emigrants on voyages to South Australia, 1848-1885.

During recent decades, great advances have been made in measuring death rates on a number of transoceanic routes over several centuries. This article builds on measurements of mortality on voyages to Australia in the nineteenth century. These have shown that it was on Australia-bound convict and government-assisted vessels, which operated under the auspices of government agencies, that the maritime adult death rate was first brought into line with that on land.