G'day Q,

No agreement on pomegranate-immigrant-pommy.
The earliest use of the term occurs during the 1st World War, but not always meaning the same thing (Now generally applied to an immigrant from the United Kingdom)

Tough about that ... it's about time for you to shell out for a new OED!

The first citation in The Australian National Dictionary for both "Pommy Grant (assisted immigrant)" and "Pommy" (" ... Pommy sneaked up behind the quadruped ... ") is Bulletin (Sydney) 14 November 1912. The Bulletin was the magazine of the Australian Bushman ... and the main place poetry, yarns and songs, both contributed and written by poets like Paterson, Brady and Lawson first appeared in print.

The term, which undoubtedly had existed for some years before appearing in print (ie - in line with the 1890s derivation still remembered in the Bulletin item), would have gone to WW I with Australian "Diggers" ... and there it finally impinged on the consciousness of the Poms themselves. I suspect (not running to a copy of the OED ... not even on CD!) that the older editions citations are principally from British journals reporting the War.

The next entry, 22 December 1912, is from The Truth - a scurrilous Melbourne rag - includes: "Now they call 'em 'Pomegranates' and the jimmy-grants don't like it." A 23 February 1913 item from the same manages to have:
Pomegranate,
jimmygrant and
The Poms,
though I imagine Joybell might try to make a comeback with the sentence: "The Poms, however, have not found Australia to be a Tom Tiddlers' Ground." ... !

Since the AND is an Oxford publication, and I'm still using my 1988 first edition, I imagine all this will be in the latest OED (now, let's see where I can scrounge the "Special Centenary Price" of only Aus$2300 from ...).

Regards,

Bob Bolton