Karl Ludwig Wilhelm Kirchner (who had arrived in Sydney on 20th July 1839 on the Mary) returned to Germany in 1848 to work there for a few years as immigration agent for the NSW government.

He based himself at his mother's house in Frankfurt am Main, arranged the publication and distribution of his promotional booklet "Australien und seine Vortheile für Auswanderer", and put up advertisements and posters in towns and villages all over the Rhine regions.

 There was a big shortage of labour in NSW at the time; convict transportation had finished in 1841. The NSW government authorised him to offer subsidised tickets to migrants. They would be contracted to work for a set number of years for land owners who had given commitments to Kirchner.

During August, 1847, Mr Kirchner was in Newcastle and Maitland Districts arranging agreements with the principal landowners, to bring out experienced vine dressers from Germany, under the Government bounty.

 He succeeded in placing some forty-three men, in addition to some sixty that he had previously booked for the Southern (or Cumberland) district.

The Windeyers, John Eales, Dr Mitchell, King, Kelman, Doyle, and many other landholders interested in vine cultivation, took  advantage of this opportunity to secure expert labour from the vine making districts of Germany. www.newcastle.edu.au/service/archives/mayfield/crebert.html -   These Germans with their families, arrived in the Colony during 1848 and 1849, there can be no doubt that they played an important part in the advancement of the wine industry during its pioneering days in New South Wales. Most of them became good colonists, and many of their descendents are today well-known citizens.

When transportation of convicts to the Australian colonies ended, the colonies had to attract free settlers. Gold provided a lure in the 1850s to bring vigorous free immigrants to New South Wales and Victoria, but overall the colonies had to compete for migrants despite the tide of emigration from the British Isles and Western Europe during the nineteenth century. North America was closer for intending emigrants; the United States a rich and flourishing republic, while Canada preserved strong British links for those more attached to the imperial connection.

In this competitive world of migration the Australian colonies required the incentive of free passages and land grants. There were so many potential immigrants with insufficient income to support themselves and their families, much less afford the passage money to the dominions. This was recognised by the 1820s even while transportation was at its height and before the lure of gold discoveries in easily-accessible places. In 1831, Lord Goderich, Minister for the Colonies, acting on ideas which had been percolating for some time through official circles, introduced the principle that colonial land be sold by auction, and that up to one-half of the land fund created was to be used to pay the passages of intending British emigrants.

The monies were managed by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners from 1840 until 1876. The British Government gave evidence of a new interest in the former year by reducing the charge of an assisted passage to Australia from £30 to £18, and by advancing £10,000 on the security of future land sales to assist emigration. Alongside this policy of assisted immigration, the Government encouraged the so-called ‘bounty system’ by which free settlers already established in the colonies paid for the passages of relatives and friends to come to Australia. Chain migration and assisted passage became fundamentals of Australian immigration policy.

With the granting of internal self-government in the 1850s, each colony administered its own immigration policies, and while Federation in 1901 gave the Commonwealth ultimate responsibility, each state jealously guarded its de facto control of this area of government for many years. In fact, there was little assisted immigration into Australia between the Depression of the 1890s and the return of relative prosperity fifteen years later. Passage assistance was resumed in 1906, and at the Premiers Conference in that year it was agreed that the Commonwealth should sponsor appropriate advertising in the British Isles.

With the discovery of gold just outside Bathurst in 1851, the nature of Australian migration changed completely. People arrived in far greater numbers and from more varied backgrounds than ever before. Between 1851 and 1861 over 600,000 immigrants came and while the majority were from Britain and Ireland, 60,000 came from Continental Europe, 42,000 from China, 10,000 from the United States and just over 5,000 from New Zealand and the South Pacific. Although Australia never again saw such a rush of new immigrants, the heightened interest in settling here remained.