The 'Secret Census' of 1916 and South Australia's Ithacans: A Reflection

This reflection explores the 1916 ‘secret census’ of Greeks in South Australia — a unique event in the history of migrant monitoring which included the cataloguing of every Greek in Australia by local police on behalf of the Special Intelligence Bureau. The census was conducted due to questions of loyalty during WWI, despite Greece being a neutral country at this point. However, it was no doubt imbued with anti-migrant and xenophobic sentiments. This paper takes South Australia as a case study, and in particular, the small Ithacan community that existed and can be analysed through the rich ‘secret census’ data.