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Our southern neighbour

A history of ideas about the ice continent
by
July 2025, no. 477

The Southern Frontier: Australia, Antarctica and Empire in the Southern Ocean world by Rohan Howitt

Melbourne University Press, $39.99 pb, 304 pp

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Our southern neighbour

A history of ideas about the ice continent
by
July 2025, no. 477

On the evening of Boxing Day 1900, a spectacular pantomime premiered at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney in honour of the imminent federation of the Australian colonies. A theatrical ‘extravaganza’, Australis presented an image of the fledging nation one hundred years hence. In the pantomime’s vision, Australia in the year 2000 is ruled by a former trade unionist, ‘the Boss’, who leads an expedition to annex Antarctica, forming a ‘Great Empire of the South’. One advantage of this move, notes the Boss, is that the capital of the Australian empire can be located on the geographic south pole, thus resolving the dispute between Sydney and Melbourne. Clearly, the pantomime’s librettists (who included theatrical entrepreneur J.C. Williamson) were not above political satire. What Australis also suggests is that there existed genuine popular enthusiasm for an Australian Antarctic empire.

The Southern Frontier: Australia, Antarctica and Empire in the Southern Ocean world

The Southern Frontier: Australia, Antarctica and Empire in the Southern Ocean world

by Rohan Howitt

Melbourne University Press, $39.99 pb, 304 pp

Buy this book

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

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