When was Tasmania first colonized?
Maritime Museum of Tasmania
The island state of Tasmania has a long and rich history of association with the sea, going back well before the time of British invasion and settlement on the island. The indigenous Tasmanians were known to have strong affiliations with the sea, and surrounding islands.
The British of course arrived by sea, and since the time of their first arrival in 1803, Tasmania has had a continuous history or sailing, maritime trade, fishing and other maritime activities. The museum sets out to chart, document and display materials and artefacts related to that history.
Maritime enthusiasts first began to argue that the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery should include a room dedicated to Tasmania's maritime history in the 1930s. However it wasn't until 1972, when six volunteers decided to create a dedicated museum, that the Maritime Museum of Tasmania was born. It was originally housed in St. George's Church, Battery Point, and opened in 1973, with an official opening in 1974.
Colony of Tasmania
Religion played an important part in the lives of European Tasmanians in the colonial era. This is evidenced by the large number of isolated churches that survive from that period. Following the Castle Hill convict rebellion in 1804, Catholicism had been outlawed in the Australian colonies out of fear of further Irish Catholic uprisings. This had permitted Protestant religions, particularly Anglicanism to gain a strong foothold in Van Diemen's Land. The Colony's first Preacher, Robert Knopwood, had vigorously pushed the Church of England's cause for much of his time in the colony. Although always in a small minority, Judaism also existed in the colony since its foundation. The indigenous Tasmanians had attempted to maintain their traditional religion, but had been forcibly converted to Anglicanism.
Colonial forces of Australia
During the Boer War, the first Tasmanian colonial force that was dispatched was an infantry company that had been raised solely from members of the Tasmanian colonial forces, which departed in October 1899. Together with companies from four other colonies, they initially formed the 1st Australian Regiment. They were later converted into a mounted force and assigned to the 4th Mounted Infantry Corps seeing action at Hout Nek, Zand River, Bloemfontein, Diamond Hill, Balmoral, Belfast, Karee Kloof, Brandfort, Vet River, Zand River, Elandsfontein, Johannesburg, and Diamond River before returning to Australia in December 1900. The colony's second contingent left in February 1900. Drawing its personnel both from serving soldiers and civilians who volunteered for service, who were grouped together in the Tasmanian Citizens Bushmen, it was a mounted infantry unit. These mounted infantry units were primarily made up of volunteers who had good bushcraft, riding and shooting skills. They subsequently served in Rhodesia and western Transvaal.
History of Tasmania
The first settlement was by the British at Risdon Cove on the eastern bank of the Derwent estuary in 1803, by a small party sent from Sydney, under Lt. John Bowen. An alternative settlement was established by Capt. David Collins 5 km to the south in 1804 in Sullivans Cove on the western side of the Derwent, where fresh water was more plentiful. The latter settlement became known as Hobart Town, later shortened to Hobart, after the British Colonial Secretary of the time, Lord Hobart. The settlement at Risdon was later abandoned.
Tasmania
The island of Tasmania was home to the thylacine, a marsupial which resembled a fossa or some say a wild dog. Known colloquially as the Tasmanian tiger for the distinctive striping across its back, it became extinct in mainland Australia much earlier because of competition by the dingo, introduced in prehistoric times. Owing to persecution by farmers, government-funded bounty hunters and, in the final years, collectors for overseas museums, it appears to have been exterminated in Tasmania. The Tasmanian devil became the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world following the extinction of the thylacine in 1936, and is now found in the wild only in Tasmania. Tasmania was one of the last regions of Australia to be introduced to domesticated dogs. Dogs were brought from Britain in 1803 for hunting kangaroos and emus. This introduction completely transformed Aboriginal society, as it helped them to successfully compete with European hunters, and was more important than the introduction of guns for the Aboriginals.
Economic history of Australia
In addition to New South Wales, four other British colonies were established on the mainland: Western Australia (1829), South Australia (1836), Victoria (1851) and Queensland (1859). Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania after 1856) became a separate colony in 1825. From the 1850s, these colonies acquired responsible government. In 1901, they federated, creating the Commonwealth of Australia.
History of rail transport in Australia
The first railway in Tasmania was a broad gauge line opened between Deloraine and Launceston in 1871 by the Launceston and Western Railway. It quickly went bankrupt and was effectively taken over by the Tasmanian Government in 1872. In 1876 the Tasmanian Main Line Company opened a narrow gauge line from Hobart to Evandale (near Launceston), connecting with an extension of the Launceston and Western line at a break-of-gauge. Further gauge confusion was added in 1885 when the Tasmanian Government built a narrow gauge line west of Deloraine to Devonport. This was resolved in 1888 by the conversion of the Launceston–Deloraine line to narrow gauge.
Colony of Tasmania
The 1860s saw a period of stagnation and economic depression in Tasmania, but it was punctuated by several highlights, including the opening of the new Hobart General Post Office, and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, a submarine communications cable between Tasmania and Victoria, the beginning of construction for the Launceston and Western Railway, the colony's first railway, and Tasmania's first royal visit, by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Albert. Compulsory education was introduced in 1868, making Tasmania one of the first colonies in the British Empire to adopt such an enlightened policy.
Parliament House, Hobart
In 1850 the British Parliament enacted the Australian Colonies Government Act, which gave Van Diemen's Land the right to elect its first representative government. The size of the Legislative Council was increased from six to 24. Eight members were appointed by the Governor, and 16 were elected by property owners. The new Legislative Council met for the first time in 1852, and by 1854 they had passed the Tasmanian Constitution Act, granting Van Diemen's Land responsible self-government and a new bicameral parliament. In 1855 Queen Victoria granted Royal Assent and Van Diemen's Land became a self-governing British Colony. The following year, 1856, one of the new parliament's first acts was to change the name of the colony from Van Diemen's Land to Tasmania.
States and territories of Australia
The states originated as separate British colonies prior to Federation in 1901. The Colony of New South Wales was founded in 1788 and originally comprised much of the Australian mainland, as well as Lord Howe Island, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Van Diemen's Land, in addition to the area currently referred to as the state of New South Wales. During the 19th century, large areas were successively separated to form the Colony of Tasmania (initially established as a separate colony named Van Diemen's Land in 1825), the Colony of Western Australia (initially established as the smaller Swan River Colony in 1829), the Province of South Australia (1836), the Colony of New Zealand (1840), the Victoria Colony (1851) and the Colony of Queensland (1859). Upon Federation, the six colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania became the founding states of the new Commonwealth of Australia.
King Island (Tasmania)
King Island was originally part of a land bridge linking Tasmania with the Australian mainland, which was submerged around 12,000 years ago due to rising sea levels. A human skeleton was discovered in a cave on the island in 1989, which was dated to approximately 14,000 years ago. However, previous examinations had revealed no "shell heaps, bones, charcoal or other remains which might indicate Aboriginal occupation", suggesting that the area was passed through by the ancestors of Aboriginal Tasmanians but not permanently inhabited. It was uninhabited at the time of European discovery.
Colony of Tasmania
The era immediately following the granting of responsible self-government brought a new confidence to the colony. Whilst Tasmania suffered a setback with a large loss of working-age males to the Victorian gold-fields, many social and cultural improvements soon developed. Horse-drawn buses between Hobart and New Town to the immediate north provide the colony's first public transport in 1856. The following year the first telegraph line between Hobart and Launceston was laid, and coal gas became available for private use, and illuminating Hobart's street lamps. Tasmania continued to be a centre of shipbuilding excellence, however growing competition, and later, a shift towards steel-constructed vessels soon threatened Tasmania's place as a world-leader. The late 1850s also saw the Hobart Savings Bank and a Council of Education formed, and the new Government House opened.
Tasmania
The first reported sighting of Tasmania by a European was on 24 November 1642 by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who landed at today's Blackman Bay. More than a century later, in 1772, a French expedition led by Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne landed at (nearby but different) Blackmans Bay, and the following year Tobias Furneaux became the first Englishman to land in Tasmania when he arrived at Adventure Bay. Captain James Cook landed at Adventure Bay in 1777. Matthew Flinders and George Bass sailed through Bass Strait in 1798–99, determining for the first time that Tasmania was an island.
James Backhouse Walker
He was a trustee of the Tasmanian Public Library. Mr. Walker was the author of several brochures on the history of his native colony, taken chiefly from official sources: viz. "The French in Van Diemen's Land" (Hobart, 1889); "The Settlement of Tasmania, comprising Papers read before the Royal Society of Tasmania" (Hobart, 1890); "The Discovery and Occupation of Port Dalrymple" (Hobart, 1890). His papers on the discovery, early settlement and Aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania, published in 1902 became a standard authority.
European Australians
The British Crown Colony of New South Wales started with the establishment of a settlement at Sydney Cove by Captain Arthur Phillip on 26 January 1788. This date later became Australia's national day, Australia Day. These land masses included the current islands of New Zealand, which was administered as part of New South Wales. Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, was settled in 1803.
Black War
The Black War was the period of violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Australians in Tasmania from the mid-1820s to 1832. The conflict, fought largely as a guerrilla war by both sides, claimed the lives of more than 200 European colonists and between 600 and 900 Aboriginal people, nearly annihilating the island's indigenous population. The near-destruction of the Aboriginal Tasmanians, and the frequent incidence of mass killings, has sparked debate among historians over whether the Black War should be defined as an act of genocide.
History of Indigenous Australians
Humans reached Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago by migrating across a land bridge from the mainland that existed during the last glacial maximum. After the seas rose about 12,000 years ago and covered the land bridge, the inhabitants there were isolated from the mainland until the arrival of European settlers.
Tasmania
Tasmania's insularity was probably detected by Captain Abel Tasman when he charted Tasmania's coast in 1642. On 5 December, Tasman was following the east coast northward to see how far it went. When the land veered to the north-west at Eddystone Point, he tried to keep in with it but his ships were suddenly hit by the Roaring Forties howling through Banks Strait. Tasman was on a mission to find the Southern Continent, not more islands, so he abruptly turned away to the east and continued his continent-hunting.
Indigenous Australians
The Tasmanian Aboriginal population are thought to have first crossed into Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago via a land bridge between the island and the rest of mainland Australia during the last glacial period. Estimates of the population of the Aboriginal people of Tasmania, before European arrival, are in the range of 3,000 to 15,000 people although genetic studies have suggested significantly higher figures, which are supported by Indigenous oral traditions that indicate a reduction in population from diseases introduced by British and American sealers before settlement. The original population was further reduced to around 300 between 1803 and 1833 due to disease, warfare and other actions of British settlers. Despite over 170 years of debate over who or what was responsible for this near-extinction, no consensus exists on its origins, process, or whether or not it was genocide. However, using the "UN definition, sufficient evidence exists to designate the Tasmanian catastrophe genocide."
Aboriginal Tasmanians
First arriving in Tasmania (then a peninsula of Australia) around 40,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Aboriginal Tasmanians were cut off from the Australian mainland by rising sea levels c. 6000 BC. They were entirely isolated from the rest of the human race for 8,000 years until British contact.
Parliament House, Hobart
The bicameral Tasmanian parliament continued to govern Tasmania as an independent colony until 1 January 1901 when Tasmania joined with five other Australian colonies, and federated to become parts of the new Commonwealth of Australia. The Tasmanian colonial parliament then became the Tasmanian State Parliament, and has since continued to take responsibility for internal domestic issues such as education, healthcare, and policing.
Tasmania
The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land drafted a new constitution which it passed in 1854. The following year the Privy Council approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856 the newly elected bicameral parliament sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a self-governing colony of the British Empire.
Tasmania
A smaller colony was established at Port Dalrymple on the Tamar River in the island's north in October 1804 and several other convict-based settlements were established, including the particularly harsh penal colonies at Port Arthur in the southeast and Macquarie Harbour on the West Coast. Tasmania was eventually sent 75,000 convicts—four out of every ten people transported to Australia. By 1819 the Aboriginal and British population reached parity with about 5000 of each, although among the colonists men outnumbered women four to one. Wealthy middle-class free settlers began arriving in large numbers from 1820, lured by the promise of land grants and free convict labour. Settlement in the island's northwest corner was monopolised by the Van Diemen's Land Company, which sent its first surveyors to the district in 1826. By 1830 one-third of Australia's non-Indigenous population lived in Van Diemen's Land and the island accounted for about half of all land under cultivation and exports.
History of Australia
In 1798–99 George Bass and Matthew Flinders set out from Sydney in a sloop and circumnavigated Tasmania, thus proving it to be an island. In 1801–02 Matthew Flinders in "HMS Investigator" led the first circumnavigation of Australia. Aboard ship was the Aboriginal explorer Bungaree, of the Sydney district, who became the first person born on the Australian continent to circumnavigate the Australian continent. Previously, the famous Bennelong and a companion had become the first people born in the area of New South Wales to sail for Europe, when, in 1792 they accompanied Governor Phillip to England and were presented to King George III.
Launceston, Tasmania
Tin was discovered at Mount Bischoff in 1871 in north-western Tasmania, starting a minerals boom. Gold mining commenced approximately away in Beaconsfield in 1877. During the following two decades Launceston grew from a small town into an urban centre. In 1889, Launceston was the second town in Tasmania to be declared a city, after state capital Hobart.
City of Clarence
The area that now constitutes the City of Clarence was once part of the traditional land of the Moomairemener, a sub-group of the Tasmanian Aborigines. In 1803, the island of Tasmania (then Van Diemen's Land) was colonised by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, who subsequently established the settlement of Hobart Town. By the 1820s the settlement had spread to the 'Clarence Plains', but the area remained primarily agricultural until the mid to late 20th century, when it experienced a residential development boom. Since then Clarence has grown rapidly to become a self-sufficient city.
Hampshire, Tasmania
Hampshire is a locality in the north-west of Tasmania (Australian postcode 7321) inland from Burnie. It was first settled by Europeans in the late 1820s when rolling plains were mistakenly believed to be good grazing ground for sheep by the surveyors of the Van Diemen's Land Company. In fact, the open lands were the result of generations of burning off the natural temperate rainforest by the indigenous aboriginal population of the area, and it proved totally unsuitable for the chosen purpose. In later years its fertile soils have been used for a variety of agricultural uses although it is currently mostly used for timber plantations.
Tasmania
The island is believed to have been occupied by indigenous peoples for 30,000 years before British colonisation. It is thought Aboriginal Tasmanians were separated from the mainland Aboriginal groups about 10,000 years ago when the sea rose to form Bass Strait. The Aboriginal population is estimated to have been between 3,000 and 7,000 at the time of colonisation, but was almost wiped out within 30 years by a combination of violent guerrilla conflict with settlers known as the "Black War", intertribal conflict, and from the late 1820s, the spread of infectious diseases to which they had no immunity. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831, and led to more than three years of martial law, cost the lives of almost 1,100 Aboriginals and settlers.
Tasmania cricket team
Cricket almost certainly has been played in Tasmania since the time of European settlement in 1803. It was a popular pastime among marines, who were responsible for security in the fledgling colony. The first recorded match is known to have taken place in 1806, although it is most likely that unrecorded matches were already being played at this time. According to the colony's chaplain, and famed diarist, Robert Knopwood by 1814 the game had become very popular, especially around the festive season at Christmas.
Colony of Tasmania
On 1 November 1856, Governor Sir Henry Fox Young proclaimed former British Army officer, William Champ as the first Premier of Tasmania, and the new bicameral parliament met for the first time on 2 December 1856, marking the beginning of self-government for the Colony of Tasmania.
History of Hobart
The modern history of the Australian city of Hobart (formerly 'Hobart Town', or 'Hobarton') in Tasmania dates to its foundation as a British colony in 1804. Prior to British settlement, the area had been occupied for at least 8,000 years, but possibly for as long as 35,000 years, by the semi-nomadic Mouheneener tribe, a sub-group of the Nuenonne, or South-East tribe. The descendants of the indigenous Tasmanians now refer to themselves as 'Palawa'.
Indigenous peoples of Australia
Twentieth-century historians previously held that Aboriginal Tasmanians had become extinct with the death of Truganini in 1873, but this is no longer the accepted view. The original population, estimated at from 3000 to 15,000 people (The rate of genetic drift indicates that the maximum estimate is likely the lower boundary while archaeological evidence suggests numbers of up to 50,000) was reduced to a population of around 300 between 1802 and 1833 mainly due to the actions of white settlers who came to Australia from the United Kingdom, combined with disease and cultural disruption. The Black War (1828–1832) and subsequent Black Line in 1830 were turning points in the relationship with European settlers. Even though many of the Aboriginal people managed to avoid capture during these events, they were shaken by the size of the campaigns against them. In 1828, Tarerenorerer (or Tarenorerer), a Punnilerpanner woman who had escaped from sealers, became the leader of the Emu Bay people (Plairhekehillerplue). Attacking settlers with stolen weapons, this is the first recorded use of muskets by Aboriginal people. Mannalargenna, the leader of the Ben Lomond people (Plangermaireener) organised guerrilla attacks against British soldiers in Tasmania and in 1835 became the first Aboriginal person in Tasmania to be given a "Christian" burial.
List of shipwrecks of Tasmania
Since European discovery in 1642 by the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman, many explorers and many vessels visited Tasmania, or Tasmania's waters. Following the establishment of a British settlement in 1803 at Hobart, a local boat building industry began almost immediately. Since that time Tasmania has had a very strong connection to the sea, and both commercial and recreational sailing has been a constant feature of Tasmania's history.
HMS Lady Nelson (1798)
"Lady Nelson" was one of the vessels selected to establish the first settlement in Tasmania. The desire to settle that part of Australia arose from King's concern that Baudin, leader of the French expedition in "La Naturaliste", intended to establish a settlement on the east side of Van Diemen's Land.
Intercolonial cricket in Australia
The match finally commenced on 11 February 1851 at the Launceston Racecourse, later to become the Northern Tasmania Cricket Association Ground. The first ball was bowled (underarm) by William Henty for the Launcestonians, to Duncan Cooper of Port Phillip. About 2500 people watched the locals win the match by three wickets.
King Island (Tasmania)
King Island was first visited by Europeans in the late 18th century. It was named after Philip Gidley King, Colonial Governor of New South Wales, whose territory at the time included what is now Tasmania. Sealers established temporary settlements on the island in the early 19th century, but it was not until the 1880s that permanent settlements were established. The largest of these is Currie, situated on the island's west coast. Today, the island's economy is largely based on agriculture and tourism. It is also home to the Huxley Hill Wind Farm.
Tasman Sea
The Tasman Sea (Māori: "Te Tai-o-Rehua", ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, who was the first recorded European to encounter New Zealand and Tasmania. The British explorer Captain James Cook later extensively navigated the Tasman Sea in the 1770s as part of his first voyage of exploration.
History of Australia
Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, was settled in 1803, following a failed attempt to settle at Sullivan Bay in what is now Victoria. Other British settlements followed, at various points around the continent, many of them unsuccessful. The East India Trade Committee recommended in 1823 that a settlement be established on the coast of northern Australia to forestall the Dutch, and Captain J.J.G. Bremer, RN, was commissioned to form a settlement between Bathurst Island and the Cobourg Peninsula. Bremer fixed the site of his settlement at Fort Dundas on Melville Island in 1824 and, because this was well to the west of the boundary proclaimed in 1788, proclaimed British sovereignty over all the territory as far west as longitude 129° East.
Australia–New Zealand relations
The first European landing on the Australian continent occurred in the Janszoon voyage of 1605–06. Abel Tasman in two distinct voyages in the period 1642–1644 is recorded as the first person to have coastally explored regions of the respective landforms including Van Diemen's Land – later named for him as the Australian state of Tasmania. The first voyage of James Cook stands as significant for the circumnavigation of New Zealand in 1769 and as the European discovery and first ever coastal navigation of Eastern Australia from April to August 1770. The European settlement of Australia and New Zealand, then referred to as the colony of New South Wales, dates from the arrival of the First Fleet into Cadi/Port Jackson on Australia Day, 1788.
Launceston, Tasmania
The first significant colonial settlement in the region dates from 1804, when the commandant of the British garrison Lt. Col. William Paterson, and his men set up a camp on the current site of George Town. A few weeks later, the settlement was moved across the river to York Town, and a year later was moved to its definitive position where Launceston stands.
Colony of Tasmania
The Anglican See of Tasmania was created in 1843, and shortly after Francis Russell Nixon, the first Bishop of Tasmania arrived. Nixon was highly successful in promoting a form of High Anglicanism, and linking his denomination with a patriotic sense of national identity under the banner of 'God, King, and Country'. Not to be outdone, the first Catholic Bishop of Tasmania, Robert Wilson arrived the following year, preaching a form of pious asceticism. An unintended consequence of the Irish potato famine was a huge influx of Irish Catholic settlers in the 1850s, reestablishing Catholicism in the colony. In 1866 St Mary's Catholic Cathedral was opened, but without the originally designed tower.The magnificent St David's Anglican Cathedral, seat of the Bishop of Tasmania, and administrative centre of the Anglican Diocese of Tasmania, was designed by George Frederick Bodley, in high Gothic style and completed in 1868.
List of Tasmanian representative cricketers
Though Tasmania took part in the first recognised first-class cricket match in Australia in 1850/51, it remained on the peripheries of Australian cricket for more than a century, confined to "friendly" first-class matches against other Australian states, primarily Victoria, and touring teams from the other Test-playing nations. After World War II, even the friendly matches against other Australian states became less frequent. To supplement the limited local schedule, matches were arranged in several seasons for a "Tasmania Combined XI", with the side consisting of some Tasmanian cricketers and others imported, usually from mainland Australia; matches played by this team do not count as first-class games for the Tasmania cricket team, and are therefore not included in this table.
Dutch Empire
The Australian island state Tasmania is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. He first named the island Anthony van Diemen's Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the Governor of the Dutch East Indies. The name was later shortened to Van Diemen's Land by the British. It was officially renamed in honor of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856. Arnhem Land is named after the Dutch ship named Arnhem. The captain of the Arnhem (Willem van Coolsteerdt) also named the large island, east of Arnhem Groote Eylandt, in modern Dutch spelling Groot Eiland: Large Island. There are many more Dutch geographical names in Australia.
Aboriginal Tasmanians
Risdon Cove, the first Tasmanian settlement, was located in south-east country. There is eyewitness evidence that the South East nation may have consisted of up to ten clans, totalling around 500 people. However, only four groups totalling 160–200 people were officially recorded as the main source by Robinson, whose journals begin in 1829. By this time, Europeans had settled in most of the South East tribe's country, with the country dispossessed and food resources depleted. Their country contained the most important silcrete, chert and quartzite mines in Tasmania.
The South East people had a hostile relationship with the Oyster Bay people whom they frequently raided, often to kidnap women.
Truganini was a Nuenonne from Bruny Island, which they called "Lunawanna-Alonnah". The first two European towns built on the island were named Lunawanna and Alonnah, and most of the island's landmarks are named after Nuenonne people. The island was the source of the sandstone used to build many of Melbourne's buildings, such as the Post Office and Parliament House.
Tasmanian aboriginal culture is one of the world's most enduring. Aboriginal culture was disrupted severely in the 19th century after dispossession of land and incarceration of aboriginal people on Wybalenna and Oyster Cove. Much traditional knowledge has irrevocably disappeared and what remains has been nurtured over several generations starting with the aboriginal wives of sealers on the Furneaux Islands.
History of the world
The Pacific islands of Oceania would also be affected by European contact, starting with the circumnavigational voyage of Ferdinand Magellan, who landed on the Marianas and other islands in 1521. Also notable were the voyages (1642–44) of Abel Tasman to present-day Australia, New Zealand and nearby islands, and the voyages (1768–1779) of Captain James Cook, who made the first recorded European contact with Hawaii. Britain would found its first colony on Australia in 1788.
Aboriginal Tasmanians
Abel Jansen Tasman, credited as the first European to discover Tasmania (in 1642) and who named it Van Diemen's Land, did not encounter any of the Aboriginal Tasmanians when he landed.
In 1772, a French exploratory expedition under Marion Dufresne visited Tasmania. At first, contact with the Aboriginal people was friendly; however the Aboriginal Tasmanians became alarmed when another boat was dispatched towards the shore. It was reported that spears and stones were thrown and the French responded with musket fire, killing at least one Aboriginal person and wounding several others. Two later French expeditions led by Bruni d'Entrecasteaux in 1792–93 and Nicolas Baudin in 1802 made friendly contact with the Aboriginal Tasmanians; the d'Entrecasteaux expedition doing so over an extended period of time.
Tasmania
The next European to enter the strait was Captain James Cook in the "Endeavour" in April 1770. A talented and diligent hydrographer, Cook quickly identified the strait, but knew he had to conceal it. The Admiralty had issued its usual instructions to hide strategically important discoveries that could become security risks, such as off-shore islands from which operations could be mounted by a hostile power, at a time of intense Anglo-French rivalry.
Robbins Island (Tasmania)
In 1826, following the English occupation of Tasmania, the Van Diemen's Land Company was set up at Stanley. This company was formed in England by London-based businessmen, who wanted to utilise land in Tasmania to create a wool industry to supply the British textile industry, which intention was facilitated by William Sorell's account to the Colonial Office that the Tasmanian colony was desperate for capital. The Van Diemen's Land Company Act was passed transferring possession of of Crown land to freehold status or private ownership and included Robbins Island. A series of disputes during the period of 1820 to 1840, between European settlers and the North West tribe, in which Van Diemen's Land Company chief agent Edward Curr authorised the use of force if 'required', escalated into battles which became violent and bloody, notably including the infamous Cape Grim massacre. This culminated in the attempted genocide of what is now known as the Black War. In 1835 under George Robinson, almost all Indigenous people from the Tasmanian mainland, including the "Parperloihener" band from Robbins Island, were removed and transported to a reserve on Flinders Island.
British colonisation of Tasmania
The first British colonies on Tasmania appeared circa 1803. Small numbers of whalers and sealers set up communities along the Northern Coast and the Bass Strait islands. The whalers and sealers began to trade with the native aborigines along the North Coast. Most of the goods traded were seal skins, dogs and aboriginal women. Sporadic skirmishes over land and women occurred between the settlers and the aborigines, but few records of the conflict exist. In late 1803 to early 1804 colonisation of Tasmania began to formalise. The governor of New South Wales built military outposts along the River Derwent in southern Tasmania, and also on the Tamar River in the north to prevent French interests in the area. These outposts began to grow into small communities as new settlers and convicts came from Great Britain. Communities around Hobart and Launceston were established, which would eventually become the largest settlements on Tasmania, and railways connecting the towns were built. The early colonies on Tasmania constantly suffered from lack of food.
Bank of Van Diemen's Land
The Bank of Van Diemen's Land (nicknamed 'the old bank') was Tasmania's first commercial financial institution. Founded in 1823 prior to the use of the name Tasmania, it lasted for 68 years before becoming the first major bank failure of the 1890s depression in Australia. Although it had a reputation for reliability, during the 1880s the bank lent heavily to Tasmanians who invested heavily in silver mining ventures until mineral prices crashed in the 1890s leading to defaults on loan repayments that the bank was unable to survive. The bank closed its doors in August 1891, and offered up its banking premises as a £1 lottery ticket. Following the bank's demise, a Royal Commission was established to investigate allegations of fraudulent activities.
Aboriginal Tasmanians
The Letteremairrener were among the first Tasmanian Aboriginals to be affected by the impact of colonisation by the British as colonial occupation commenced at Port Dalrymple and progressed to Launceston, with settlers progressively occupying land up the Tamar valley.
By the early 1800s the Letteremairrener had been involved in skirmishes with exploratory parties of colonials, in the second decade of that century they had reached some accommodation with the interlopers; and were observed practicing spear throwing near present-day Paterson Barracks and watching colonial women wash clothes at Cataract Gorge.
Between 1811 and 1827 several aboginal children were baptised in Launceston, either abducted or the progeny of settler/aboriginal liaison.
By 1830 the people of the Letteremairenner had largely disappeared from their homeland and the survivors were waging a desperate guerrilla war with colonial British, living a fringe existence in Launceston or living life on the margin at the peripheries of their traditional land.
By 1837 the Letteremairrenner had disappeared completely from the Tamar Valley and would eventually die in the squalor of Wybalenna or Oyster Cove.
Postage stamps and postal history of Tasmania
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Tasmania (originally known as Van Diemen's Land), a former British colony that is now part of Australia.
History of Australia
New South Wales in 1855 was the first colony to gain responsible government, managing most of its own affairs while remaining part of the British Empire. Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia followed in 1856; Queensland, from its foundation in 1859; and Western Australia, in 1890. The Colonial Office in London retained control of some matters, notably foreign affairs, defence and international shipping.
Longford, Tasmania
Settlers started to arrive in 1807 as farmers were moved from Norfolk Island to Van Diemen's Land (the original name used by Europeans for Tasmania). Governor Macquarie granted land rights to the settlers, who originally called the area "Norfolk Plains". The town, originally called Latour, grew up around the hotel (later known as the Longford Hotel) which was built in 1827 by Newman Williatt. In 1833 the town was renamed Longford, probably at the suggestion of the land commissioner Roderic O'Connor.
Education in Tasmania
The oldest tertiary institution to be founded in Australia was the theological school Christ College in Bishopsbourne, Tasmania, in 1846. Today Christ College is a residential college of the University of Tasmania, which was founded in 1890, making the university the fourth oldest in the country.
List of Tasmania cricket captains
The Australian state of Tasmania has one of the longest traditions of cricket-playing in the southern hemisphere. Cricket is recorded as having first been played in Tasmania very shortly after the arrival of British settlers on the island on 12 September 1803, however it wasn't until nearly fifty years later that First-class cricket was to be played there.
Parliament House, Hobart
The island of Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land) was claimed and subsequently settled by Great Britain in 1803. Initially, it was administered by the Governor of New South Wales, as part of that British Colony. In 1825 Tasmania became an independent British colony, administered separately from New South Wales, and the Legislative Council was formed as an appointed six man body to advise the Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land who had sole governance of the colony. The council initially held their meetings in a room adjacent to the old Government House that was located near to the present site of Franklin Square, but by 1841 they relocated their meetings to the 'Long Room' (now the Members' Lounge) in the Customs House.
Beaconsfield, Tasmania
Gold was first discovered in Beaconsfield in 1847. When the gold rush hit Victoria and New South Wales in 1851 and the Tasmanian Government offered a reward for the discovery of a payable goldfield. 
In 1877 the cap of a payable gold reef was discovered on the eastern slope of Cabbage Tree Hill by brothers William and David Dally. This became known as the fabulous Tasmanian Reef. 
In October 1877 the Dally brothers sold their claim on the Tasmania Reef to William D Grubb & William Hart for 15,000 pounds, and 1/10 share in any company formed.
Australian frontier wars
The British established a settlement in Van Diemen's Land (modern Tasmania) in 1803. Relations with the local Indigenous people were generally peaceful until the mid-1820s when pastoral expansion caused conflict over land. This led to sustained frontier warfare (the 'Black War'), and in some districts farmers were forced to fortify their houses. Over 50 British were killed between 1828 and 1830 in what was the "most successful Aboriginal resistance in Australia's history".
Prehistory of Australia
Archaeological evidence indicates human habitation at the upper Swan River, Western Australia by about 40,000 years ago. Tasmania, which was connected to the continent by a land bridge, was inhabited at least 30,000 years ago. Others have claimed that some sites are up to 60,000 years old, but these claims are not universally accepted. Palynological evidence from South Eastern Australia suggests an increase in fire activity dating from around 120,000 years ago. This has been interpreted as representing human activity, but the dating of the evidence has been strongly challenged.
Aboriginal Tasmanians
More extensive contact between Aboriginal Tasmanians and Europeans resulted when British and American seal hunters began visiting the islands in Bass Strait as well as the northern and eastern coasts of Tasmania from the late 1790s. Shortly thereafter (by about 1800), sealers were regularly left on uninhabited islands in Bass Strait during the sealing season (November to May). The sealers established semi-permanent camps or settlements on the islands, which were close enough for the sealers to reach the main island of Tasmania in small boats and so make contact with the Aboriginal Tasmanians.
Van Diemen's Land
The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania in 1642. Landing at Blackman Bay and later having the Dutch flag flown at North Bay, Tasman named the island Anthoonij van Diemenslandt, in honour of Anthony van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, who had sent Tasman on his voyage of discovery. Between 1772 and 1798, only the southeastern portion of the island was visited. Tasmania was not known to be an island until Matthew Flinders and George Bass circumnavigated it in the "Norfolk" in 1798–99.
Tasmania cricket team
Tasmania played in the very first first-class cricket match in Australia against Victoria in 1851, which they won by three wickets. Despite winning their first match, and producing many fine cricketers in the late 19th century, Tasmania was overlooked when the participants in Australian first-class tournament known as the Sheffield Shield were chosen in 1892. For nearly eighty years the Tasmanian side played an average of only two or three first-class matches per year, usually against one of the mainland Australian teams, or warm-up matches against a touring international test team.
John Bowen (colonist)
Rear-Admiral John Bowen RN (baptised 14 February 178020 October 1827) was a naval officer and colonial administrator, who led the first settlement of Tasmania at Risdon Cove.
Colony of Tasmania
The Theatre Royal was established in 1834, making it the oldest still operating theatre in Australia. A strong literary tradition also developed, with famous titles such as Quintus Servinton by Henry Savery (1831) and For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke (1874) being produced in the colony. Other less sophisticated forms of entertainment, such as cock fighting and dog fighting were also popular in Tasmania in the late nineteenth century.
Cygnet, Tasmania
The first European settler in the district was William Nichols in 1834 who arrived 30 years after state capital Hobart was settled. Nichols received a grant for three hundred and twenty acres of land on the north side of Port Cygnet in 1829. After the land had been cleared and accommodation built, Nichols moved his family to this property. At the time the property was only accessible by a walking track from Browns River or up the river by boat.
Governor of Tasmania
The colony was called Van Diemen's Land until 1856.
Education in Tasmania
In 1868 Tasmania became the first Australian colony to introduce compulsory education. In 1885 the Tasmanian Department of Education was founded under the "Education Act 1885 (Tas)", the fifth Australian colony to do so. In 1908 school fees for compulsory education were abolished, the last state to do so.
Van Diemen's Land v Port Phillip, 1851
Cricket was less well-established in Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen's Land. Although cricket was probably played soon after the island was settled in 1803, and was reasonably popular by the mid-1810s, the first recorded matches took place only in 1825. There was little organisation or competition; there were few clubs, and none in Hobart, in the south of Tasmania, until 1832, or in Launceston, in the north, until 1841. Partly, this may have been due to an insistence among Tasmanian clubs that only the social elite could play cricket. The cricket historian Jack Pollard suggests that Tasmanian cricket failed to thrive in its early years because of "the strange reluctance of the strong, prestigious clubs in Hobart and Launceston to hire professional players to coach and strengthen their teams". With these main cities apart, it was difficult to establish competitive games; despite an abandoned attempt in 1841, the first match between North and South Tasmania did not take place until 1850. These difficulties prompted Launceston cricketers to seek opponents from the Australian mainland rather than from Hobart.
History of Tasmania
On 3 December 1825, Van Diemen's Land became an independent colony from New South Wales with an appointed Executive Council, its own judicial establishment, and Legislative Council. Also in that year, the Richmond Bridge, Australia's oldest existing bridge, was opened and a party of soldiers and convicts establishes Maria Island penal settlement
Constitutional history of Australia
During the 19th century, separate British colonies were formed in Australia. In 1825, Tasmania, named Van Diemen's Land, was proclaimed a separate colony from the colony of New South Wales. The Swan River Colony of Western Australia was established in 1832, separately from that of New South Wales, effectively taking over by Britain of the remainder of the Australian continent. Following the Treaty of Waitangi, William Hobson declared British sovereignty over New Zealand in 1840 and was part of the colony of New South Wales. In 1841, it was separated from the colony of New South Wales to form the new Colony of New Zealand. South Australia was formed in 1836 separately of the colony of New South Wales, and Victoria in 1851 and Queensland in 1859 both from the colony of New South Wales. By Letters Patent on 6 June 1859, Queen Victoria gave her approval to the separation of the colony of Queensland from New South Wales. On the same day an Order-in-Council gave Queensland its own Constitution. Queensland became a self-governing colony with its own Governor, a nominated Legislative Council and an elected Legislative Assembly. South Australia was founded as a "free province"—it was never a penal colony. Victoria and Western Australia were also founded "free", but later accepted transported convicts. A campaign by the settlers of New South Wales led to the end of convict transportation to that colony; the last convict ship arrived in 1848.
Van Diemen's Land Ensign
The Van Diemen's Land Ensign is an unofficial merchant flag, which was used in the colony (later renamed Tasmania) prior to the adoption of the current Tasmanian Flag in 1875. The earliest known reference to the Van Diemen's Land Ensign is from an 1850s flag chart by Captain John Nicholson, Harbour Master of Sydney. The flag is similar in design to the New South Wales Merchant Flag, which is believed to also be the historical origin of the Murray River Flag.
List of Tasmania cricket captains
Despite the long wait since the foundation of the colony, Tasmania played in the first ever first-class cricket match in Australia, which was played on 11 February and 12 February 1851, against Victoria, with Tasmania emerging victorious by 3 wickets. For that first match, Tasmania was captained by John Marshall.
King Island (Tasmania)
Captain Reed was the first European to discover King Island in 1799 while hunting seals in the schooner "Martha". Matthew Flinders’ first map of Van Diemen's Land and the Bass Strait, which was sent to England (before Flinders had left) and was published in June 1800, did not show King Island. However, before Flinders left Sydney for England in 1800, Reed had informed Flinders of the existence of the island. Flinders' second map of Van Diemen's Land and Bass's Strait (properly finished en route to England) and published with his Observations in 1801 shows:
Southwest National Park
The South West of Tasmania was first seen by Europeans in 1642 by Abel Tasman, but it was not known to be an island until Matthew Flinders and George Bass circumnavigated it 156 years later.
Risdon Vale, Tasmania
Risdon Vale is an outer suburb of Hobart, capital of Tasmania, Australia on the eastern shore of the River Derwent, and adjacent to Risdon Cove, which was the site of the first British settlement in Van Diemen's Land.
Tasmania
After hostilities between settlers and Aboriginals ceased in 1832, almost all of the remnants of the indigenous population were persuaded or forced by government agent George Augustus Robinson to move to Flinders Island. Many quickly succumbed to infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, reducing the population further. Of those removed from Tasmania, the last to die was Truganini, in 1876. The near-destruction of Tasmania's Aboriginal population has been described as an act of genocide by historians including Robert Hughes, James Boyce, Lyndall Ryan and Tom Lawson. Boyce has claimed that the April 1828 "Proclamation Separating the Aborigines from the White Inhabitants" sanctioned force against Aboriginals "for no other reason than that they were Aboriginal" and described the decision to remove all Tasmanian Aborigines after 1832—by which time they had given up their fight against white colonists—as an extreme policy position. He concluded: "The colonial government from 1832 to 1838 ethnically cleansed the western half of Van Diemen's Land and then callously left the exiled people to their fate."
British colonisation of Tasmania
It has been claimed by authors such as Jeremy Paxman and Niall Ferguson, that the British colonisation of Tasmania led to the genocide of the native aborigines of Tasmania. Although distantly related, they had been separate from the Australian Aborigines for around 8,000 years. It is unknown how many Aborigines were living on the island when the Dutch arrived in 1642 nor when James Cook landed in 1777 but when the British began their colonisation in 1803, there were perhaps seven to eight thousand left, many of whom were already dying from diseases thought to have been contracted from European sailors, explorers and seal hunters. In addition many had been left infertile by venereal disease but the introduction of technologically advanced, brutal convicts and less than sympathetic settlers contributed to their misery. Almost all of the 7000 native people were killed during a period of colonisation lasting around 27 years. By the end of Britain's colonisation in 1830, at least two families of Aborigines were living on the Island. By 1835 only one aboriginal family remained on the island. They were living in a white sealing village near the Bass Strait, hiding from British authorities.
Flag of Tasmania
The current state flag of Tasmania was officially adopted following a proclamation by Tasmanian colonial Governor Sir Frederick Weld on 25 September 1876, and was first published in the "Tasmanian Gazette" the same day. The governor's proclamation here were three official flags, they being the Governor's flag, the Tasmania Government vessel flag, and a Tasmania merchant flag. Up until 1856 when Tasmania was granted responsible self-government, the Union flag and the British ensign were primarily used on state occasions.
Tasmania
The island was permanently settled by Europeans in 1803 as a penal settlement of the British Empire to prevent claims to the land by the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. The island was initially part of the Colony of New South Wales but became a separate, self-governing colony under the name Van Diemen's Land (named after Anthony van Diemen) in 1825. Approximately 75,000 convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land before transportation ceased in 1853. In 1854 the present Constitution of Tasmania was passed, and the following year the colony received permission to change its name to Tasmania. In 1901 it became a state through the process of the Federation of Australia.
Colony of Tasmania
The Colony of Tasmania (more commonly referred to simply as "Tasmania") was a British colony that existed on the island of Tasmania from 1856 until 1901, when it federated together with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The possibility of the colony was established when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the "Australian Constitutions Act" in 1850, granting the right of legislative power to each of the six Australian colonies. The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land drafted a new constitution which they passed in 1854, and it was given Royal Assent by Queen Victoria in 1855. Later in that year the Privy Council approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856, the newly elected bicameral parliament of Tasmania sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a self-governing colony of the British Empire. Tasmania was often referred to as one of the "most British" colonies of the Empire.
Colony of Tasmania
The Flag of Tasmania was officially adopted following a proclamation by Tasmanian colonial Governor Frederick Aloysius Weld on 25 September 1876, and was first published in the "Tasmanian Gazette" the same day. The governor's proclamation here were three official flags, they being the Governor's flag, the Tasmania Government vessel flag, and a Tasmania merchant flag. Up until 1856 when Tasmania was granted responsible self-government, the Union flag and the British ensign were primarily used on state occasions.
History of Australia
Many events illustrate violence and resistance as Aborigines sought to protect their lands from settlers and pastoralists who attempted to establish their presence. In May 1804, at Risdon Cove, Van Diemen's Land, perhaps 60 Aborigines were killed when they approached the town. The British established a new outpost in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in 1803. Although Tasmanian history is amongst the most contested by modern historians, conflict between colonists and Aborigines was referred to in some contemporary accounts as the "Black War". The combined effects of disease, dispossession, intermarriage and conflict saw a collapse of the Aboriginal population of Tasmania from a few thousand people when the British arrived, to a few hundred by the 1830s. Estimates of how many people were killed during the period begin at around 300, though verification of the true figure is now impossible. In 1830 Governor Sir George Arthur sent an armed party (the Black Line) to push the Big River and Oyster Bay tribes out of the British settled districts. The effort failed and George Augustus Robinson proposed to set out unarmed to mediate with the remaining tribespeople in 1833. With the assistance of Truganini as guide and translator, Robinson convinced remaining tribesmen to surrender to an isolated new settlement at Flinders Island, where most later died of disease.
RSPCA Tasmania
The earliest piece of colonial legislation that carried penalties for some forms of cruelty toward animals was passed in Tasmania (then called Van Diemen's Land) in 1837. This piece of legislation, however, lacked the proper infrastructure needed for its enforcement and it was replaced by the "Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1877" and amended in 1879. In the 1860s Tasmanian newspapers occasionally published articles concerning animal cruelty issues that were from British newspapers. Sentiments about the necessity of passing substantial anti-cruelty laws and creating an organisation similar to England's RSPCA were published in the 1870s.
British colonisation of Tasmania
The British colonisation of Tasmania took place between 1803 and 1830. Tasmania was a British colony from 1856 until 1901, at which time it joined five other colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. By the end of the colonisation in 1830 the British Empire had annexed large parts of mainland Australia, and all of Tasmania.
Evandale, Tasmania
The first inhabitants of the present site of Evandale were Tasmanian Aborigines (Palawa). The site lies at the interface of country originally belonging to the Ben Lomond and North Midlands Nations (most likely the Panninher Clan). The ethnographic record in regards to aboriginal populations in the North Midlands of Tasmania is scanty, as many of the original inhabitants were displaced or did not survive the first colonial occupation of the South Esk Valley in the early 1800s. However, archeological remains of Palawa campsites and artifacts existed on the river flats just below the present site of Evandale (now Rotary Park) and also at Native Point, 2 km downstream, which was a known 'resort of the natives'. The Evandale region also appears to have encompassed an aboriginal route from the Tamar Valley to the Lake River and it is likely that this area was a hunting ground and meeting point for local clans of the North Midlands Nation.
Penguin, Tasmania
12000 years ago the peninsula/island of Tasmania was separated from mainland Australia. By European arrival in 1803 some 4000-5000 semi-nomadic Aboriginal people continued to manage this diverse and changing landscape, both responding to and manipulating the environment.
Geology of Tasmania
The earliest geological history is recorded in rocks from over . Older rocks from western Tasmania and King Island were strongly folded and metamorphosed into rocks such as quartzite. After this there are many signs of glaciation from the Cryogenian, as well as the global warming that occurred at the start of the Ediacaran period. An orogeny folded the older Precambrian rocks. In the Cambrian time the Tyennan block forming the south west and central Tasmania, was pushed up and slightly over the land of north west Tasmania, the Tyennan Orogeny. Then there were volcanic action and sediments from the Cambrian and Ordovician. The large ore deposits were formed on the West Coast. The north east of Tasmania began to form as part of the Lachlan Orogen with turbidity flows of mud and sand on to the ocean floor. In the Devonian the Tabberabberan Orogeny caused more folding, and intrusion of granite on the west and east coasts, and probably joined the east of Tasmania to the west.
Football Federation Tasmania
Soccer was first played in Tasmania during the colonial period, but was never as popular as cricket, and the advent of Australian rules football in the mid-nineteenth century, soon saw that code surpass both rugby and football in popularity within the island colony. The code was generally referred to as British Association Football, to distinguish it from Rugby, and Australian rules, which soon became known locally as 'football' or 'footy'. The term "soccer" originated in England, first appearing in the 1880s as a slang abbreviation of the word "association", often credited to former England captain Charles Wreford-Brown. It is not clear when the term 'soccer' came into common use in Tasmania, but by the early twentieth century it was the more common term.
Sport in Tasmania
Tasmania was the first place outside of Victoria to play Australian football, playing Victorian Rules since 1864. Tasmania has competed strongly in Interstate matches in Australian rules football since its first colonial match in 1884, forming a strong rival with traditional powerhouse Victoria, however played its last competitive match in the 1990 State of Origin series which resulted a victory over Victoria in Hobart.
Supreme Court of Tasmania
The Supreme Court of Van Diemen's Land (as Tasmania was then known) was established by The Royal Letters Patent of 13 October 1823 and commenced activities on 10 May 1824. The Court is the oldest Supreme Court in Australia and predates the Supreme Court of New South Wales, if only by a period of just ten days. The supreme courts of Tasmania and New South Wales were initiated through the New South Wales Act 1823, and this gave those courts jurisdiction over New Zealand. Sir John Pedder, after whom Lake Pedder is named, was the first Chief Justice of the court.
History of Hobart
Calls for responsible self-government were successful, with a new constitution drafted, and Van Diemen's Land became an independent British colony in 1856. The new colony immediately changed its name to Tasmania, to disassociate itself with its past as a penal colony.
Tasmania
The state is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the island Anthony van Diemen's Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the Governor of the Dutch East Indies. The name was later shortened to Van Diemen's Land by the British. It was officially renamed Tasmania in honour of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856.
Tasmania cricket team
The 1880s provided better progress for the colony. In 1880 the TCA Ground had been established, providing a permanent ground to play on in the colony's capital, Hobart. The establishment of an organised regular local competition led to improvement in the quality of players. John Davies, owner of local newspaper "The Mercury", was a keen cricket fan, and through personal connections, he arranged various touring English sides to visit the colony, and victory for Tasmania against the English tourists in 1887–88 led to Victoria resuming competition with Tasmania.
Chudleigh, Tasmania
Aboriginal Tasmanians have lived on the island of Tasmania for thousands of years. The earliest archaeological evidence for Aboriginal habitation of Tasmania is from the valley of the Forth River, 35,000 years before the present. Prior to European settlement, Chudleigh was part of the lands of the Pallittorre Aboriginal tribe. Their range included Deloraine, east of Chudleigh, and the Gog mountain range to the north-west where they mined ochre in the Toolumbunner ochre pits. The Pallittorre people lived in the area and used to have a camping ground, where the Church of England cemetery was established later. Land clearing, road construction, disease and conflicts with settlers drove them from their lands and decimated the population. Their population in the area has been estimated to drop from 200 to 60 during 1827-30. At the time of settlement the Chudleigh area was covered with bogs and wild bush.
During the early 1820s the Van Diemen's Land Company created a track or stock route from Deloraine to Emu Bay (now Burnie) that ran via Chudleigh and Mole Creek. The route enabled them to move grazing livestock from the higher rainfall areas in the west of Tasmania, to the population centres further east. The company built facilities, including a store, in Chudleigh. Europeans settled the area west of Deloraine from the early 1800s, and cattle were being grazed—illegally—in the Chudleigh area from as early as 1823. John Badcock Gardiner, who probably named Chudleigh after the village with the same name in Devon, England, was granted in the area after arriving in Tasmania in 1829 with his family. The town's area was first granted to Lieutenant Travers Hartley Vaughan in 1830. Vaughan sold the land in 1837 to Henry Reed, merchant, who was later briefly a member of the Tasmanian Legislative Council.
Colony of Tasmania
The population of the colony began to rise quite rapidly in the period immediately following the discovery of gold. In 1880 the colony's population was 114, 762, but by 1884, it had reached 130,541. The period of growth also created a substantial improvement in the standard of living for Tasmanians. In the period from 1875 to 1884, the total value of personal saving in the colony's five existing banks increased from £1,227,585, to £4,022,077 - nearly a fourfold increase. The total valuation of owned property also rose from £604,347 to £837,916.
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Sir John Eardley-Wilmot, 1st Baronet, during his period was Lt. Governor of Tasmania, did much of the work that led to the modern museum. The museum was noted as first being an established institution in the 1848 minutes of the Royal Society of Tasmania, though Wilmot had done most of the work in 1843 and had attempted to set up a museum in the cottage of the Secretary of the Governor, in what is now the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens. In 1838 the Mechanics' Institution received an agreement from the government for a room to be constructed in the Customs House for use as a museum. Customs House was later requisitioned by the Legislative Council of Tasmania and became Parliament House, Hobart. The Royal Society of Tasmania later founded TMAG in the sub-committee room of the Parliament, possibly the same room.
The museum moved to Harrington St in 1852, where it paid £60 a year in rent for a hall there. In 1853 the governor placed before the Legislative Council a debate on the state granting a plot of land for the building of a permanent museum building. In 1854 the museum attracted over 1000 visitors in a year for the first time. In 1855 the Lady Franklin Museum, founded in 1842 at Acanthe Park (now Lenah Valley), sold its fittings and collection to the Royal Society and these were added to the TMAG. The acquisition was driven by the donation of a large geology collection by Joseph Milligan.
Tunnerminnerwait
Tunnerminnerwait grew up on the island of Tasmania, the second European settlement area in Australia after Sydney Cove. Relations between the Aboriginal people inhabiting the island and the settlers became very hostile leading to attacks and massacres. The first massacre of Tasmanian Aboriginal people occurred at Risden Cove in 1804, when troops fired on a group which included women and children. By 1806 clashes between Aboriginal people and settlers were common and the Cape Grim massacre occurred on 10 February 1828. According to historian Professor Lyndall Ryan, (University of Newcastle) "Tunnerminnerwait had witnessed the Cape Grim massacre in 1828 as an 11-year-old, when a lot of his own people were killed. His whole family had fallen apart as a result."
Anglican Diocese of Tasmania
Robert Knopwood, a member of the original settlement in 1803, was responsible for the initial establishment of Anglicanism in the colony. Also important for the development of Anglicanism in the colony was the arrival of the Bible Society in 1819. Although most of the mainline denominations were well represented in Tasmania, Anglicanism was well established by the 1830s.
Launceston, Tasmania
The first white visitors did not arrive until 1798, when George Bass and Matthew Flinders were sent to explore the possibility that there was a strait between Australia and Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania). They originally landed in Port Dalrymple (the mouth of the Tamar River), to the north-west of Launceston.
List of shipwrecks of Tasmania
Tasmania is an island and since the time of European colonisation by the British, the population had been entirely reliant upon the sea for all physical contact with the outside world, until the development of links by air.