Origin of the term 'Pom'

According to World Wide Words, the theory about the pomegranate seem to be the more credible one, its real origin remains unclear for this outdated term:

• Part of the reason for all these theories growing up is that there was for decades much doubt over the true origin of the expression, with various Oxford dictionaries, for example, continuing to say that there is no firm evidence for the pomegranate theory. That origin was described by D H Lawrence in his Kangaroo of 1923: “Pommy is supposed to be short for pomegranate. Pomegranate, pronounced invariably pommygranate, is a near enough rhyme to immigrant, in a naturally rhyming country. Furthermore, immigrants are known in their first months, before their blood ‘thins down’, by their round and ruddy cheeks. So we are told”. You will note that he had to explain the pronunciation that we would now take to be the usual one: in standard English it used not to have the first “e” sounded, with pome often rhyming with home.
• It is now pretty well accepted that the pomegranate theory is close to the truth, though there’s a slight twist to take note of. H J Rumsey wrote about it in 1920 in the introduction to his book The Pommies, or New Chums in Australia. He suggested that the word began life on the wharves in Melbourne as a form of rhyming slang. An immigrant was at first called a Jimmy Grant (was there perhaps a famous real person by that name around at the time?), but over time this shifted to Pommy Grant, perhaps as a reference to pomegranate, because the new chums did burn in the sun. Later pommy became a word on its own and was frequently abbreviated still further. The pomegranate theory was also given some years earlier in The Anzac Book of 1916.
• Whatever your beliefs about this one, what seems to be true is that the term is not especially old, dating from the end of the nineteenth century at the earliest, certainly not so far back as convict ship da

Pom:

• British person): Australian from 1912. contraction of pomegranate, rhyming slang for immigrant (“imme-granate”).

• The older term of Jimmy Grant, meaning immigrant, became Pommy Grant as the Australian sun allegedly turned immigrants′ skin pomegranate red.

• Folk etymologies also exist, for example:

  • A devolution of “Prisoner of His/Her Majesty” or “POHM”;
  • An acronym for “Prisoner of Mother England”.
  • An acronym for "Permit of Immigration".

(Wiktionary)

I am a London taxi driver & heard an interesting theory a while back. There used to be a prison called millbank prison (definitely)in Westminster & the prisoners being transported to Australia would be taken from millbank prison in row boats down the Thames to be transferred to sailing ships & onward to Australia. Some say POM (prison or prisoner of millbank) was either marked on their shirts or on the side of the rowing boats. There is a pub on the old Kent Road called The World Turned Upside Down, (still there) apparently prisoners were given one last drink before going round the world to Australia.

John Deighton is correct. The Tate Britain is built on the site of the prison at Millbank that transported prisoners to Australia. The word POM was therefore short for Priisoner Of Millbank. The history of the word is well know at Chelsea College of Art that is next to the gallery.

I have a theory.... Maybe someone better at researching can look onto this. Portsmouth in England is known by s slang term "Pompey" In my brief 10 minute research this term has been used since at least the late 1800's. As Portsmouth Is home or the Royal Navy many ships arriving in Australia would have come straight from Portsmouth. Could it be that in the 1800's naval folk arriving in Australia might have been known as "Pompeys"? and this might have been shortened to Poms and extended to mean anyone from England (as Anglo-Australia began to develop its own culture seperate to Englands) ?
It certainly sounds just as likely as the Prisoner Of Mother England story or the pomegranate story

Growing up in Australia (Sydney) in the 1950s, I remember being told by several older people whom I can't remember that the word came from the French word "pomme" for apple. The reason given was similar to one of the explanations for "pomegranate" as the source: English migrants tended to sunburn upon arrival in Australia. Another reason I heard was that when in England the cheeks of the English looked red like a red apple because it was so bloody miserable and cold there.

Despite the lack of corroborating made-up evidence on the internet, "pomme" seems a more plausible origin than "pomegranate", rhyming slang notwithstanding. I never heard of a pomegranate in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, and it's still mostly an imported fruit. It would have been relatively unknown in Australia in the early 1900s. Many Australians fought in France in WWI and spent time in England before or after (e.g. my grandfather). The term seems to have originated around then. There was a lot of migration from England to Australia after the war so there would have been a lot of overlap of soldiers returned from France and England with English migrants. This etymology may have passed from my grandfather to my father to me.

For what it's worth.

I would have thought it came from the word 'pompous'. In the early days of european settlement most of the people were convicts. Their children would have been looked down upon for being convict stock.