journey Our across three
For us here at P&O Cruises, this year has been about reflection. It's 175 years
since our founding and 80 years since we began cruising from Australia, so we've been revisiting our past and glimpsing the near-forgotten world that we've left behind.
Brad Argent (pictured above) from Ancestry.com.au has been rounding up historical mementos and documents from P&O moments past and fittingly notes shipping and P&O as one of the most important contributors to Australian history.
centuries
With the help of Ancestry.com.au, we are reliving all the history, transformations, and utterly amazing stories that come from 175 years at sea.
"The vast bulk of Australians were boat people—in the literal sense of the word. We got on ships and came out here and that, to me, is the untold story about P&O because it has such a strong history with Australia.
"Although convicts built the colony, it was the settlers who came out on P&O ships who built the nation and I think there is a strong bond between the two. The records are fascinating. They tell so much."
Since beginning the Australian branch of Ancestry.com.au five-and-a-half years ago, Brad has all too often been led back to P&O, not just from an immigration point of view, but in various other areas all pointing back to the bonds our passengers built at sea.
"In history you see people coming out on the same boat and therefore they and their families went and lived in the same area and then their children grew up together and ended up marrying."
14 Sail Away. Spring 2012
Images courtesy of Rob Henderson and Doug Cremer Collection.
