NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2010

Malcolm Prentis was born in Auchenflower, Brisbane, and was educated in schools in three states, including at Brisbane Boys’ College. He studied at Queensland, Sydney, Macquarie and New England universities. He is Professor of History at Australian Catholic University. He has served on the Executive of the Australian Historical Association and is Vice-President of the Uniting Church Historical Society in New South Wales.

Scots have been ‘invisible’ ethnics but happen to be Australia’s third largest immigrant group. The Scots in Australia is a long overdue and comprehensive history of Scottish immigrants – including convicts and free settlers – and their descendants in Australia from 1788 to the present. Combining anecdote, biography and straightforward history, author Malcolm Prentis reevaluates commonly held assumptions and myths from both ends of the migration process. Malcolm Prentis shows that the Scots have had an influence in Australia disproportionate to their numbers. The book powerfully demonstrates the countless ways in which the Scots and their descendants have shaped and been shaped by Australia.


The Scots in Australia is published by The University of New South Wales Press

• Read an extract of The Scots in Australia