A person from England, usually caucasian. Pom is short for pomegranate.
Pom was never an abbreviation of
P.O.H.M nor P.O.M.E. (Prisoner of Her Majesty and Prisoner of
Mother England respectively), otherwise we'd be calling them pomes as both acronyms are pronounced 'pome'
The convict scheme was one way for England to rid itself of the non-
English and Catholic so many prisoners were Irish. Also purged from England were Scots, Welsh, blacks, jews, etc. so both above-mentioned acronyms are incorrect as pom would include all those that were not
English.
English seamen, captains, generals, prison guards, farm labourers, domestic servants, etc. also emigrated to Aus. along with the convicts so again both above-mentioned acronyms are incorrect as these
English were not prisoners.
All the convicts committed minor crimes. To dispel another myth, there were no hardened criminals shipped to Aus. During that time in England, murderers, rapists, conmen, Egyptians, etc. were all executed.
Note: the word Egyptian later became
gypsy, at that time they believed all gypsies came from Egypt and gypsies were executed as fortune telling and other ways of conning people of their
money, etc. was considered a serious crime.
