New Italy had its beginnings in 1880, when poor farming families from the Veneto region in Northern Italy were beguiled by Frenchman, Marquis de Rays, to purchase land in a phantom paradise in the Pacific named La Nouvelle France (an imaginary kingdom east of Papua New Guinea).
317 hopeful immigrants set out on the India but on their arrival they found that there was no promised colony. After enduring 9 months of disease and starvation in the festering tropics, the 217 survivors were eventually brought to Sydney in April 1881. After recovering their health, the families were dispersed around NSW, employed on farms or large estates, while they assimilated and learned the language. Over time the majority reunited and a settlement was established on some of the last land available for selection in northern New South Wales, just south of the Richmond River. In 1882 & 83 twenty-six Italian immigrant families took up a conditional purchase farm of 40 acres and called their sanctuary La Cella Venezia (Venetian Cell). Although the land was not ideal, their industriousness and resourcefulness reaped rewards. They cleared the land, sank wells, built houses, raised livestock and planted fruit trees, vegetables and grape vines.
Most of the men worked on nearby farms, sawmills or cutting cane. They prospered and by the mid-1880s, about 50 holdings of an aggregate area of more than 3,000 acres were under occupation, and the population increased to 250. They officially changed the town name to New Italy when the school was established in 1886 – the strict teacher insisting that the children only spoke in English in the classroom. The settlement was widely accepted by the larger community and people well respected as hard workers. Mulberry tress grew well in the region and there was an attempt at establishing a fledgling silk industry by breeding silkworms. It was quite successful but short-lived due to changes in government and other circumstances.
Over time, several marriages resulted in new families joining the hamlet and the diversity of cultures was embraced. As the children grew up and moved away to forge their own path and as the original settlers passed away, the settlement declined as the population aged. By the 1920s very little was happening at New Italy although it would remain inhabited until 1955.
Today, New Italy boasts a vibrant community centred around the splendid museum and pavilion which superbly depicts the full history of the enterprising Italian settlers.
