Andonis Pentopoulos' steamship ticket to Australia (1928)

At sixteen years of age Andonis Pentopoulos left Kythera and migrated to Australia. He had hardly ever even been outside of his village when he set out on his first journey abroad.

Andonis had been sponsored by his uncles Theodore and Nikolas Marcellos, who were already living in Australia. They loaned him the money for his passage and guaranteed him three years work in their restaurant and bakery in Griffith, N.S.W.

It took him three years to pay off his ticket, and although Andonis would never return to Greece, he always kept the original steamship ticket he purchased for the journey.

This is a copy of the original ticket. It is a third class passengers' contract ticket purchased in Port Said from the Orient Line of Royal Mail Steamships. The ticket cost 38 pounds and indicates that Andonis embarked the Steamship Orvieto for Australia on the twelfth day of September in 1928.