Community starters: Greek

Australia prides itself on being a multicultural society - but it wasn't always that way. Each new culture that flourished here had to start with one adventurous individual or family who took the plunge and crossed the oceans to reach Australia. In this series, we're trying to find those first pioneers. Episode two tells us the story of George Emanuel, our candidate for the first Greek person to ever call Australia home.

The House of George Manuel in Sydney's Castle Hill Source: Supplied

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Update 2025: This podcast credits Costas Markos with discovering that George Manuel was the first Greek Australian, which occurred in 2020 and was published in Neos Kosmos in January 2021. The arrival of George Manuel was also being researched at the same time for the book 'Wild Colonial Greeks’ published by Peter Prineas on 10 December 2020.