In the Beginning
Passenger lists identify that Baldacchino immigrants began arriving from Malta in Australia at the time of World War I. However, a group of over 200 Maltese migrants fell victim to Australia’s dictation test in 1916, known as the ‘Maltese of New Caledonia’ incident, and their entry was prohibited. This entry requirement was designed to prohibit Asians and other non-whites, which Maltese were considered to be at time, from settling in Australia. The test allowed for the use of any European language and officials decided to test the Maltese arrivals in the Dutch language. This was an especially troubling situation given that over 50,000 ANZAC soldiers from the World War I Gallipoli campaign had just been treated in Maltese hospitals. Only two Baldacchino voters were found in each of several 1914-1930 electoral rolls, all in Tasmania. See Maltese ‘prohibited immigrants’: the Australian experience, 1912-1946 for more information.
Migration
The acceptance of Maltese immigrants eventually improved and electoral rolls and passenger lists show that the Baldacchino population, overwhelmingly from Malta, began growing in the vicinity of Sydney, New South Wales by the 1950s. After World War II, the Maltese government faced an employment crisis and adopted a strategy of encouraging emigration to deal with the crisis. Passengers could now receive financial assistance for the journey and numbers began to swell in the vicinity of Melbourne, Victoria. Victoria and New South Wales remain the most populous Baldacchino locations to present day but small numbers of Baldacchinos also began settling in the vicinity of Brisbane, Queensland and Perth, Western Australia in the 1970s.
The Surname Today
forebears.io estimates that, in 2025, there were 531 people with the surname Baldacchino, 11 with Baldachino and 3 with Baldaccino in Australia. The very few spellings other than Baldacchino are likely to be simple misspellings in the sources for frequency today, e.g. phone directories, voter lists and the like. Also, the complete absence of the variant name Ballacchino is a good indicator that the Baldacchinos in Australia came mostly from Malta rather than Sicily since the Ballacchino spelling is so prevalent in Italy but not yet found in Australia. Australian Baldacchinos are clustered in the vicinity of Australia’s major cities along the coast, with Greater Melbourne in Victoria the preference of almost half of all Baldacchinos in the country.
