Salvatore Diacono: The Story of The remarkable convict whose journey helped begin the story of Maltese migration to Australia
Today, Malta and Australia share an extraordinary connection. Generations of Maltese families have made Australia their home, creating particularly strong communities in Sydney and Melbourne while maintaining their language, traditions, food, religion and affection for the tiny Mediterranean island their ancestors left behind.
But where did the story of Maltese migration to Australia begin?
To find its earliest chapters, we have to travel back more than 200 years to the turbulent opening decades of British rule in Malta — and to a Maltese man named Salvatore Diacono.
His journey to Australia was certainly not the beginning he would have chosen.
Who Was Salvatore Diacono?
Salvatore Diacono appears in the historical record during the early years of British Malta.
In 1817, Diacono and Tommaso Frendo were tried for barratry, a serious maritime offence. Frendo was executed, but Malta’s governor, Sir Thomas Maitland, considered the younger Diacono to have been led into crime by others. Taking into account his previous conduct and circumstances, Maitland commuted his death sentence to 14 years’ transportation to New South Wales.
Instead of facing execution in Malta, Diacono was therefore sent thousands of kilometres away to the developing British colony of Australia.
It was an extraordinary journey from one small Mediterranean island into the emerging history of another continent.
Was Salvatore Diacono the First Maltese in Australia?
This is where the story becomes particularly fascinating.
Diacono has often been associated with the beginning of the Maltese-Australian story, but historians have uncovered evidence suggesting other Maltese prisoners may have reached Australia earlier.
Two former soldiers of the Royal Regiment of Malta, with the surnames Farrugia and Spiteri, are believed to have arrived in New South Wales aboard the Admiral Gambier in 1811 after being convicted of desertion.
There is even an intriguing possible earlier candidate, John Pace, who reached Australia in 1790, although researchers have questioned whether he was actually Maltese.
What makes Salvatore Diacono so important is the documentary evidence.
Records preserved in the archives of St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney identify a “Salvatore Diacono, of Maltese nationality” living at Parramatta in 1821. He wrote in Italian asking a priest to hear his confession. This provides some of the earliest firm documentary evidence connecting a specifically identified Maltese individual with colonial Australia.
For that reason, historical scholarship has described him as possibly the first-known Maltese in Australia.
From Malta to Parramatta
Imagine the scale of Diacono’s journey.
The Malta he left behind was itself undergoing enormous change. The centuries-long rule of the Knights of St John had ended in 1798, followed by French occupation and then the arrival of British rule.
Australia, meanwhile, was still a collection of developing British colonies heavily dependent upon convict labour.
By 1821, Diacono was documented at Parramatta, west of Sydney.
His presence there represents something much larger than the fate of one transported prisoner. It provides a human link between the early histories of Malta and Australia.
Neither Diacono nor those around him could possibly have imagined what would follow
The Beginning of Maltese Migration to Australia
Diacono belonged to the earliest, involuntary phase of the Maltese presence in Australia.
Free Maltese migration followed.
Antonio Azzopardi is generally identified as the first Maltese free settler, arriving in Melbourne during the 1830s and becoming a successful businessman. Later attempts were made to encourage organised Maltese migration, and in 1883 a group of approximately 70 Maltese labourers, accompanied by nine stowaways, travelled to Australia.
The Maltese-Australian community would grow dramatically in the twentieth century, particularly following the Second World War. Sydney and Melbourne became major centres of Maltese life in Australia.
What began with a tiny handful of individuals eventually became one of Malta’s most important diaspora stories.
Malta and Australia: Two Islands Connected by History
That is what makes Salvatore Diacono’s story so compelling.
History rarely announces when something important is beginning.
There was no ceremony marking the beginning of Maltese-Australian history. No politician stood on a quay proclaiming the birth of a relationship between two countries.
There was simply a Maltese man transported halfway across the world — and an archival document in Sydney that, two centuries later, allows us to find him.
Today, Australians of Maltese heritage continue to return to Malta to explore their family history, ancestral villages and cultural roots.
For us at Malta Themed Tours, these connections are an important part of Malta’s story. Our history does not end at the shoreline. Maltese sailors, migrants, soldiers, merchants and adventurers carried pieces of this little island across the world.
And sometimes the greatest stories begin with one almost-forgotten name.
Salvatore Diacono.
From Malta to Australia, more than two centuries ago.
And one of the earliest documented chapters in an extraordinary shared history. 🇲🇹🇦🇺
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