Where do I find information about arranged employment in Australia in the 1850s? Many immigrants from England worked for the Hon. Edward Flood M.P. in the 1850s. They were employed mainly as sheep overseers, station hands, bullock drivers etc. Would this type of employment have been arranged prior to departure from England or obtained after arrival in Sydney

In general, immigrants were hired on arrival in Sydney. See 1848 'IMMIGRANTS PER ROYAL SAXON.', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 20 July, p. 2 for a description of the process. The squatters with larger properties (such as Flood) would have employed agents for the task of securing new employees on annual contracts each time a ship arrived.

It would certainly have been possible to pre-arrange these matters in England, but the employer then ran the risk that his man would be one of those who died during the voyage.

Remember that at this time, the colony of New South Wales was making the difficult transition from a penal colony to a free settlement. The big landowners were accustomed to being assigned what amounted to slave labour.