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Papers and Proceedings of The Royal Society of Tasmania _
Volume 155(2)_
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THE ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE
Papers and Proceedings of The Royal Society of Tasmania
Edited by Dr Sally Bryant and published by the Society
Volume 155(2) December 2021
The Royal Society of Tasmania acknowledges, with deep respect, the traditional owners of this land, and the ongoing custodianship of the Aboriginal people of Tasmania. The Society pays respect to Elders past and present.
We acknowledge that Tasmanian Aboriginal Peoples have survived severe and unjust impacts resulting from invasion and dispossession of their Country.
As an institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge, the Royal Society of Tasmania recognises Aboriginal cultural knowledge and practices and seeks to respect and honour these traditions and the deep understanding they represent.
Published by
The Royal Society of Tasmania GPO Box 1166
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia 7000
www.tfst.org.au
15 December 2021
ISSN 0080-4703
Cover photograph: Its pretty important you know, the land, it doesn't matter how small, its something ... just a little sacred site... thats Wybalenna. There was a massacre there, sad things there but we try not to go over that. Where the bad was, we can always make it good”. 1995
Words of Aboriginal Elder Ida Amelia (Aunty Ida) West AM in the ‘Aunty Ida West Healing Garden’ at the Wybalenna Chapel, Flinders Island. (Photo: Sally Bryant)
Print Tasmania Copy editor Caroline Mordaunt Typesetting by June Pongratz
PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA VOLUME 155(2)
Contents
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Rimmer, Z. & Taylor, R. The Report to inform an Apology to the Tasmanian Tanne Community
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Sorensen, E.R. & Kirkpatrick, J.B. Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland since the early nineteenth
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Baillie, P. S. Warren Carey: New Guinea oil explorer (1934-1942)
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery's Expedition of Discovery I] — The flora and fauna of Musselroe Wind Farm, Cape Portland, Northeast Tasmania
Ratcliff, E. Sheltering knowledge: residences of the Royal Society of Tasmania and its precursors, 1838 to 2021
Husband, M. & Kirkpatrick, J.B. Effects of garden type and distance from bush on adventive trees in domestic gardens
Corbett, K.D. The geology and glacial history of the Walls of Jerusalem, Central Tasmania — a preliminary study ...
Kile, G.A. & Hall, M.E. Sporulating mycelium of Davidsoniella australis on the bark of Nothofagus cunninghamii,
and role as inoculum for new infections
Henry, S.C. What's in a name? Polyzosteria yingina; the Golden Sun Cockroach ...........:0ccseceseeeeeeee eee eeeeeeees
Baker, M.L., de Salas, M.E., Grove, S., Cave, L., Moore, K., Byrne, C., Lee, E. & Kantvilas, G. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s Expedition of Discovery III — The flora and fauna of the Spring Bay Mill area
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Ww UNIVERSITY of Tasmania TASMANIA
Explore the possibilities
Baker, M.L., Grove, S., de Salas, M.E, Byrne, C., Cave, L., Bonham, K., Moore, K., Cook, L. & Kantvilas, G.
Publication of this volume was generously supported by the Government of Tasmania and the University of Tasmania.
THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA
Elected Office Bearers, Council Members and Ex Officio Council Members to March 2022
Patron Her Excellency the Honourable Barbara Baker AC, Governor of Tasmania
President Mrs Mary Koolhof
Vice President Professor Jocelyn McPhie
Honorary Secretary Mrs Marley Large
Honorary Treasurer
Mr David Wilson
Councillors Professor Ross Large AO Dr Robert Johnson Ms Chel Bardell Assoc. Professor Julie Rimes Dr John Thorne AM Mrs Roxanne Steenbergen Dr Anita Hansen Ms Shasta Henry Mr Peter Manchester
Representatives of the Northern Branch Dr Eric Ratcliff OAM Mr Neil MacKinnon
Co-opted Council Member 2021 Dr Adele Wilson
Honorary Editor Dr Sally Bryant
Honorary Librarian Ms Juliet Beale
Honorary Solicitor Mr James Crotty
Representative of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Dr David Sudmalis (Acting Director)
The Royal Society of Tasmania
APOLOGY TO TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL PEOPLE 2021
On Monday, 15 February 2021, the Royal Society of Tasmania (RST) and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) delivered paired Apologies to the Aboriginal people of Tasmania. The event was held in the Courtyard of TMAG, Hobart, and attended in person by about one hundred invited guests including members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, members of the Council of the RST and members of the Board of Trustees of TMAG. A large number of invited guests also witnessed the event by livestream. It was also the first time the Aboriginal flag had been flown at Customs House to commemorate the significance of this event.
The delivery of RST’s Apology was the culmination of efforts that began in earnest at the end of 2019 when a first draft of the Apology was considered by RST Council. Co- Chairs of the Aboriginal Engagement Committee (AEC),
Professor Greg Lehman and Professor Matt King, sought ~
feedback on the draft Apology from the Aboriginal Advisory Council of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and the Aboriginal Reference Group of the Queen Victoria Museum
Apology to |
Tasmanian | Aboriginal © People
Professor Matt King, Chair of the RST Aboriginal Engagement Committee, welcoming attendees. Photograph courtesy of Simon Cuthbert.
and Art Gallery as well as the Council of the RST. The draft Apology was revised many times by members of the AEC until the final version crystallised in January 2021, a few weeks before the Apology was delivered.
TMAG was engaged in framing its Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people more-or-less at the same time, so the two organisations agreed to deliver paired apologies. A Joint Working Group comprising representatives from TMAG and RST was established in August 2020 and met almost weekly to put in place the plans required for the event. On the day of delivery, the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions regulated the number of people who could attend in person, with all others being accommodated via livestream.
The event began with Professor Matt King, Chair of the RST Aboriginal Engagement Committee, and Janet Carding, Director of TMAG, welcoming guests, presenting the Acknowledgment of Country on behalf of each of the two organisations and introducing the speakers. No media or government officials were invited, however, the Governor of Tasmania, Her Excellency the Honourable Professor Kate Warner AC, attended in her capacity as Patron of the RST and TMAG and was the first invited speaker.
For both the RST and TMAG, offering’ an Apology was a means of publicly acknowledging past actions and practices that have caused immense hurt and suffering to Tasmanian Aboriginal people. The Apologies signify the commitment of the two organisations to building strong and respectful relationships with Tasmanian Aboriginal people now and in the future.
| Apology to | Tasmanian | Aboriginal
RST President, Mrs Mary Koolhof, delivering RST’s Apology. _ Photograph courtesy of Jillian Mundy.
The RST and TMAG Apologies were paired in recog- nition of the shared history of the two organisations. That shared history began with the formation of the RST in 1843 and was explained in the Preamble presented by Her Excellency.
The second speaker was the President of RST, Mrs Mary Koolhof, who delivered RST’s Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people. The Apology identified past negative practices including mistreatment and exhumation of Aboriginal ancestral remains and promised the beginning of a new era in the Society's relationship with Aboriginal people.
The Chair of the Board of Trustees of TMAG, Ms Brett Torossi, delivered TMAG’s Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people. This Apology recognised the long history of profoundly hurtful practices including removal of cultural artifacts, and a commitment to re-dress past wrongs.
Director of TMAG, Ms Janet Carding (left) and Chair of TMAG Board of Trustees, Ms Brett Torossi, following the delivery of the TMAG Apology. Photograph courtesy of David Reilly. i
Mr Rodney Gibbins, the first Chair of [MAG’s Aboriginal Advisory Council, and Mr Michael Mansell, Chair of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, responded on behalf of Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
Rodney Gibbins began by mentioning some of the actions central to the discrimination and ill-treatment suffered by Tasmanian Aboriginal people following invasion, including the atrocities involving Aboriginal ancestral remains. He went on to explain that despite the obstacles, Tasmanian Aboriginal people have successfully campaigned for recognition, acceptance and autonomy. Attitudes and actions have gradually changed, including advances such as the recognition of land rights (1995) and the Apology to the ‘stolen generation’ (2004). He described the delivery of the Apologies as a significant step towards equality, justice and recognition of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and welcomed the opportunity to work in partnership with RST and TMAG.
Mr Michael Mansell brought to life the significance of the Preminghana petroglyphs in the lives of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people who created them. He regards the recent agreement reached with TMAG for the return of the petroglyphs as evidence of a new willingness to take responsibility for and acknowledge past mistakes, not just the modern mistakes but those made by all previous generations. Michael drew attention to the photographs of some Tasmanian Aboriginal ‘Old People’ on display, explaining that although the Apologies are being offered to the current generation, we must include the ‘Old People’ who suffered grievously. In his final words, Michael spoke for the ‘Old People’: “I stand here before you, on behalf of all those people, and readily accept with pride, the Apology that was given in the spirit in which it was stated”.
In the audience, left to right foreground, Chair of TMAG Board of Trustees, Ms Brett Torossi, Ms Nala Mansell, Mr Rodney Gibbins and Mr Michael Mansell. In the background are members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community holding historical photographs of Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Rodney Gibbins and Michael Mansell responded to the Apologies on behalf of Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Photograph courtesy of Jillian Mundy.
4
Mr Michael Mansell delivering his reply flanked by historical photographs held by members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. Photograph courtesy of Sally Bryant.
The formalities closed with a smoking ceremony, presided over by Jamie Graham-Blair and Auntie Wendal Pitchford. All attendees had the opportunity to be marked by ochre as a sign of belonging, and to be enveloped by the healing and cleansing smoke of the peppermint gum. Indigenous and traditional foods were then shared by all.
Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 3
The Apology event can be viewed on https://youtube/ ZRVwcS6DQW8 and a framed copy of the RST Apology is on display in the RST Lecture Room, TMAG. Permission has been given by the five key speakers for the transcripts of their speeches to follow this article.
Professor Jocelyn McPhie RST Vice President 2021
During the smoking ceremony, Auntie Wendal Pitchford applying ochre to Her Excellency, the Honourable Professor Kate Warner AC, and Mr Richard Warner AM looking on. Photograph courtesy of Jillian Mundy.
Preamble
THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA AND TASMANIAN MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY APOLOGY TO TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL PEOPLE
delivered by Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AC, Governor of Tasmania
Thank you for inviting me to deliver a Preamble to the Apologies from the Royal Society of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
There is important symbolism, | think, in the invitation to the Governor to perform this role today given the long association of this position with both organisations. Lieutenant Governors and then, after self-government, Governors have always been the Royal Society’s President and more recently Patron. And from the earliest days the Governor has had a close relationship with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. For these reasons the island’s Vice-Regal representative has been at least complicit in the Society’s and the Museum’s omissions and misdeeds and their consequences.
I will briefly explain the historical ties which makes it appropriate to pair these two Apologies.
The Royal Society of Tasmania (then of Van Diemen’s Land) was founded in 1843 by Lieutenant Governor
Sir John Eardley Wilmot with the aim of increasing
knowledge, in particular knowledge about the island, and promoting research. For much of its history, the Governor, as President, attended and chaired its meetings. From the earliest days, the Society began building up collections of art and natural history specimens including Aboriginal artefacts and ancestral remains, all of which were housed in the Royal Society’s Museum, the foundation stone of which was laid by Governor Sir Henry Fox Young in 1861.
In 1885 the Society relinquished the building and most of the collections to the people of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum was born, to become known as the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery after it opened a gallery wing four years later. Until 2017 the trustees of the Museum were required to present an annual report
of the proceedings and progress of the Institution to the Governor and these reports included acquisitions.
The two organisations, while maintaining connections and some common membership of governing bodies — indeed the Museum’s first Curator after it was transferred from the Royal Society was also the Secretary of the Royal Society, positions he held until 1907 — have had separate Acts of Parliament and separate boards of governance since 1885. The Royal Society is still based at TMAG, with an entrance in Davey Street.
It is important to note that these Apologies are not simply an apology for past actions, important as truth-telling is to acknowledge the devaluing of a culture that dates back at least 40,000 years, the acts of desecration and disrespect in relation to ancestral remains and cultural artefacts and the assertions of extinction and denial of survival of the Aboriginal people of lutruwita Tasmania.
These Apologies also look to the future with undertakings to change the narrative, to play an important role in communicating the cultural and spiritual significance of Country in the lives of our First Peoples of lutruwita/ Tasmania and in fostering the continuity of their culture; to make the respective institutions inclusive, respectful, equitable and welcoming to Tasmanian Aboriginal people and the Apologies embrace a commitment to playing a part in redressing the inequalities experienced by our First Peoples that the two organisations have contributed to.
And finally, as both organisations acknowledge, these Apologies are not given in the expectation of acceptance or receiving anything in return from the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. But they are intended to signal a commitment to a different and better future.
Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 5
THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA APOLOGY TO TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL PEOPLE
delivered by Mary Koolhof, President of The Royal Society of Tasmania
Today the Royal Society of Tasmania apologises un- reservedly to the Aboriginal people oflutruwita (Tasmania).
This apology is long overdue.
The Royal Society of Tasmania recognises that it has been responsible for negative impacts on Tasmanian Aboriginal people in the past, and that these impacts contribute to the disadvantage, injustice and intergenerational trauma
suffered today. The Council of the Royal Society of Tasmania, on behalf
of its membership, offers this sincere and formal apology to the Aboriginal people of lutruwita (Tasmania).
We acknowledge that:
The Society acted to exhume and to purchase the ancestral remains of Tasmanian Aboriginal people for scientific study. In some cases these remains were sent to collecting institutions outside of Tasmania.
Exhumation and mistreatment of ancestral remains occurred with a lack of regard for their deep cultural and spiritual significance. In at least one case, exhumation was against the expressed wish of the individual concerned.
‘These remains were held by the Society in the Royal Society Museum without care or respect, and without discussion or permission from Aboriginal community members.
For this, we are sorry.
Research and interpretation of ‘Tasmanian Aboriginal material culture, language and cultural knowledge were undertaken without consultation or due respect.
For this, we are sorry.
While sometimes advocating for the recognition of the importance of Tasmanian Aboriginal culture, the Society at times failed to challenge prevailing attitudes that denied recognition and respect for Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
Past practices of collection, description and representation of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and their material culture by the Society contributed to beliefs that continue to be misleading and destructive.
For this, we are sorry.
The Society failed to respond to a past request to support a proposal for a treaty with Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
Actions of some members of the Society, who were also leaders in the Tasmanian community, legitimised and facilitated the mistreatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and their material culture.
Some members of the Society actively opposed requests for the return of ancestral remains to Aboriginal people.
For all this, we are sorry. We are unreservedly sorry. Now we look to the future.
The Royal Society of Tasmania understands that this apology must influence all aspects of its undertakings in seeking the advancement of knowledge.
We intend to to work co-operatively and respectfully with Tasmanian Aboriginal people on meaningful and lasting initiatives.
We will work to respect the values and perspectives of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, and understand and acknowledge protocols and processes determined by
Aboriginal people.
We will seek a truthful and full account of the actions of the Society and its members that fully recognises impacts on Aboriginal people for which we take responsibility.
We will promote ethical research-related scholarly activities in consultation with, and of benefit to Tasmanian Aboriginal
people.
We will support Tasmanian Aboriginal people in seeking the repatriation of their ancestral remains and material culture.
Finally, we hope that the delivery of this apology today will mark the beginning of a new era, and a relationship that recognises the histories, cultures, knowledge and aspirations of Tasmanian Aboriginal people as fundamental to the future of Tasmanian society.
Resolution of the Council of the Royal Society of Tasmania 22 September 2020
Mary Koolhof, President 15 February 2021
TASMANIAN MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY APOLOGY TO TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL PEOPLE
delivered by Brett Torossi Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
We are here today on the lands of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, the traditional owners and custodians of the land and waterways of /utruwita (Tasmania). We wish to pay our deepest respects to Tasmanian Aboriginal people, and Elders past and present. The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery sits on the land of the Muwinina and Mumirimina people, who once lived in the Hobart region. We wish to pay our respects to all of these people, and acknowledge their sovereignties in land and sea, never ceded. '
To belong to a place for tens of thousands of years is something non-Aboriginal Tasmanians are only beginning to comprehend. We acknowledge the beauty of this land and the way the river upon which we live, and kunanyi that watches over us here in Hobart, have shaped our lives and the lives of all who have come before us. We see that belonging lives at the heart of responsibility and connection.
Today we find the courage to take responsibility for the past. Today we own our actions and culture that have caused such pain to Aboriginal Tasmanians. This is a moment long overdue.
Today is therefore a day of enormous importance and gravity. Today we, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, apologise to Tasmanian Aboriginal people for nearly 200 years of practices that we acknowledge were morally wrong.
For many years Tasmanian Aboriginal people have called for the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery to tell the truth about its part in a difficult and traumatic past. We cannot move forward together without truth telling, without addressing the past, and the previous museum practices that have caused profound suffering for Aboriginal people and their community.
On behalf of the whole organisation, the Board wants to acknowledge openly, permanently record, and apologise for the institution’s actions and declare that such behaviour will never happen again.
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, its precursor the Royal Society Museum and people in a variety of roles associated with these institutions, were part of, and sometimes were deeply implicated in, acts which were heedless of, or knowingly contrary to, the wishes and cultural practices of Tasmanian Aboriginal people. These injustices, and the consequences for Tasmanian Aboriginal people must be owned and acknowledged not simply as facts of history but with our hearts and our minds.
Beginning in 1803, the violence of European invasion and colonisation began a process of loss and dispossession for Tasmanian Aboriginal people across /utruwita. During this time, from the very beginnings of colonisation, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and its former entity
The Royal Society Museum, participated in practices, including the digging up and removal, the collection, and the trade of, ancestral remains of Tasmanian Aboriginal people (or respectfully, the Old People.) This was done largely in the name of racial sciences — practices of ethnography and anthropology which were racist, discriminatory, and have long been entirely discredited.
These practices showed profound disrespect for Aboriginal people, their families and communities, and their vital spiritual and cultural practices. The remains of Aboriginal people were exploited as artefacts and objects of research, their burial sites were violated, and the importance of Aboriginal spiritual beliefs and cultural heritage were ignored, trivialised and dismissed. There is ample, undisputed evidence of this. Aboriginal people have known this. Members of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, its former directors, and staff have known this. The evidence is in the minutes of the institution itself, in reports, in letters, diaries, and in newspapers — it is on the public record. But it has also been hidden and forgotten, and too often denied. We know Tasmanian Aboriginal people do not forget that this is what has occurred.
It is well documented that staff, and those associated with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, solicited and paid for the removal of Tasmanian Aboriginal ancestral remains for collection and trade, and used ancestral remains and material culture in museum and scientific exchanges across the nation and around the globe.
It is beyond dispute that the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery disrespected the remains of Tiukanini. It created public displays and interpretation of her remains. Her wish to be buried in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, so her body could not be cut up, was disregarded. If we imagine such a practise being enacted on our own grandmother, if we imagine the burial sites of our loved ones being dug up, and their bones being traded and used for scientific research, or put on show in museums and galleries across the world, we begin to understand the appalling hurt our predecessors caused the Aboriginal people.
There was also resistance to the repatriation of Tasmanian Aboriginal ancestral remains back to /wtruwita so that the Old People might rest again in the earth of their homeland. It is amply clear that the Board of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery did not fully respect the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community's wishes to actively engage and find appropriate ways to repatriate the remains of loved ones. There was a lack of active engagement to enable community requests, and legal codes and bureaucracy were too often used as a shield and an excuse.
Ancient cultural artefacts of spiritual and ceremonial value were removed without consultation with Tasmanian Aboriginal people. The removal of the Preminghana petroglyphs from the West Coast in the 1960s is a key example of such past practices.
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery created inappropriate displays and exhibitions concerning Tasmanian Aboriginal people, and promulgated false ideas of ‘extinction’; that is, that there were no Aborigines in Tasmania after Tiukanini.
For much of its history, the institution did not recognise or respect the deep, continuing knowledge of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, and did not ask them to be the curators of their cultural material held in the collections, or to tell their stories.
We acknowledge that all of these actions have been damaging to Tasmanian Aboriginal people and to the Community. We acknowledge and own the pain we have caused.
Asa museum in the European tradition, we also traded in the remains of the ancestors of other nations, and brought them to this Country. We acknowledge the insensitivity and disrespect shown by these practices to Tasmanian Aboriginal people and to the peoples of other cultures and lands.
It is heartbreaking to consider the trauma inflicted on Aboriginal people by all these practices, trauma that echoes down through time, and cannot begin to be healed without full and fearless recognition.
For all of these actions and for-your pain, suffering and ongoing trauma, we, the Board of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, are truly and completely sorry. Although words can never erase the actions of the past, they have a permanence and potency. We know we have caused heartbreak, and we acknowledge this honestly.
We understand that some Tasmanian Aboriginal people may not wish to accept our apology; indeed some may reject it.
We want to build trust with you — without ever forgetting the past. We want to find a future way of being together that is open-minded and whole-hearted. We understand that this may be hard, and difficult emotional business for Tasmanian Aboriginal people, and it requires trust where there has been none. :
We offer and hope that this apology will be received in the spirit that it is given. We give it unreservedly without asking for anything. We know-and mourn that it is so belated.
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery commits to changing our practices. We commit to creating a shared and consultative vision — based on respect and good faith — to tell the rich, varied and difficult story of this island. While new ways of working do not make up for the past, we want this to be the beginning of a new relationship. We want the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery to be a safe place for Tasmanian Aboriginal people in the future.
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery has supported repatriation programs over the last thirty years and, through knowledge shared by Aboriginal people, we have learned
Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 7
to better respect Tasmanian ancestral remains, and secret- sacred heritage materials. Through participation in the creation and development of the Aboriginal Advisory Council, Aboriginal people have engaged with us and have helped guide the organisation. We wish to acknowledge the bravery and trust of the earliest members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Advisory Council who paved the way for a new direction, giving us a keen awareness of what could be possible for the future. Tasmanian Aboriginal people have been appointed to roles within the museum, which has helped to improve truth telling and respectful treatment, display and interpretation of cultural heritage. Since 2003,. learning and exchange have deepened. Through Aboriginal-led exhibitions and projects, such as ningina tunapri and, later, parrawa, tayenebe and kanalaritja, we have taken positive steps and have jointly fostered and supported new and more respectful ways of working. ‘These positive steps do not in any way offset, or make-up for, the injustices and practices of the past. We have made the decision to repatriate the Preminghana petroglyphs, and we will continue to work with the Community to complete that process. We have committed to working alongside museums and galleries around Australia to enhance engagement with all First Peoples by implementing the Australian Museums and Galleries Association Indigenous Roadmap. We want today, and every day forward, to do better. Through speaking the truth, we wish to make visible and real the past that haunts this institution so that a new way of seeing and living in community together is possible. On 29. May 2017, over three years ago, the Uluru Statement from the Heart was delivered by the First Nations National Constitutional Convention to the Australian people. The Aboriginal writers of the statement placed matters of history and truth telling, of Aboriginal sovereignty and power, at the very forefront of agreement making. All over this nation, and on this island of lutruwita, Aboriginal people have called for truth telling about the difficult past and its ongoing damaging legacies that continue today. We commit to a different future working with you to ensure we: ¢ Recognise the right to self-determination of all First Peoples
¢ Recognise that the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery is the custodian of art and cultural material that are owned and stewarded in perpetuity by First Peoples around the world
¢ Recognise that the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery is the custodian of contemporary art and cultural materials purchased from First Peoples around the world
¢ Acknowledge Country at all Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery sites and online, and ensure Tasmanian Aboriginal Community presence is always and obviously manifest
*. Listen deeply to, and learn with, Tasmanian Aboriginal people, respecting the cultural knowledge and spiritual values of the Aboriginal Community
Work as a facilitator with the Aboriginal Community in Tasmania on projects and initiatives that tell First Peoples’ stories
Work in partnership with the Community in all our work, and using our exhibitions, programs, research capacity and the resources of the State Collection to tell the truth about Tasmania's history of colonisation and the contemporary resilience of Tasmanian Aboriginal people
Ensure cultural safety for First Peoples staff, volunteers and visitors by improving cultural competence of the Board, staff and volunteers
_ Review and revise Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery policies so they are culturally appropriate, and implement new protocols for how First Peoples are welcomed and included
Work to share access to First Peoples material(s) held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery with communities across Australia and overseas, and support repatriation when return is requested
Take a leadership role, as the State museum and gallery, in encouraging the adoption of culturally appropriate policies and practices by museums and galleries across Tasmania and Australia
Embed these practices in the governance and leadership of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
¢ Never forget our shared past or the long history of
Tasmanian Aboriginal people and /utruwita (Tasmania).
In conclusion, in the year of 2021, the Board of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery on behalf of the whole organisation, wants to openly and whole heartedly acknowledge, permanently record, and deeply apologise for the institution’s past actions relating to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
This Apology will be displayed, here and online, as a permanent record to reinforce this commitment.
In offering these words today, we take full responsibility for all that has kept us apart. I am sorry. We are sorry.
We seek a new way of cultivating engagement, enriching understanding, and warmly embracing respectful partnership with Tasmanian Aboriginal people. We commit, now and always, to a future that defends, sustains and illuminates Tasmanian Aboriginal culture here at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and throughout Tasmanian life.
We mark this occasion, and the enduring nature of our apology and our commitment, with this public statement and hope that today marks a more honest way of being with the past and a new sense of responsibility and belonging to this beautiful island for all who call it home.
Thank you everyone for your attendance on this important occasion.
Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 9
REPLY TO THE APOLOGY TO THE ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA AND THE TASMANIAN MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY
delivered by Mr Rodney Gibbins
Good afternoon everyone. I would like to acknowledge all members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community who are here today, and to pay respect to all our old people who have passed before us. Let’s not forget that this day is as much about them as it is us.
This is a momentous day for the Aboriginal community of Tasmania — Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and the Royal Society of Tasmania.
As we have heard today the TMAG and the Royal Society have offered apologies to the Aboriginal community for past actions that have shown no regard for our culture and spirituality and which in turn contributed to our disadvantage and trauma.
I believe it is up to all of us to consider these apologies with open minds and hearts.
Over the years, the Tasmanian Aboriginal community has had its issues not only with TMAG but with various Tasmanian Governments and their broader institutions. There was a reluctance on the part of Government and its institutions to rethink and remake old ill-informed attitudes towards the Aboriginal community. These views have profoundly contributed to the continued disadvantage of the Aboriginal community and have impacted on our rights, aspirations and identity.
These actions and attitudes are long standing.
For example, the return of the remains of Truganini who died in 1876. Her wish to be buried beyond the mountains were ignored. Truganini’s greatest fear was to suffer the same fate as William Lanne. Upon his death in 1869, his remains were fought over and then mutilated by William Crowther of the Royal College of Surgeons and George Stockell a member of the Royal Society of Tasmania.
Truganini was buried in the grounds of the former Female Factory in South Hobart only to be dug up two years later, by members of the Royal Society and have her skeleton placed on display at the TMAG for over 40 years. Even though the Aboriginal community campaigned to have her returned it was the Government who decided the timing of her return. It decided she would be cremated at Cornelian Bay on the 100th anniversary of her death. There were no members of the Aboriginal community present. Her ashes were then scattered in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel by the small number of Aborigines present.
Again, there was the reluctance of the museum and Government to hand over the Aboriginal human remains removed from Putalina (Oyster Cove) — the so-called Crowther collection — to the Aboriginal community. That was combined with the hesitation of the TMAG to change the old diorama which was a 3D representation ofa
family group at camp in front of a stolen petroglyph from Preminghana. A display that was naive and inappropriate and didn’t recognise continued Aboriginal Sovereignty over this land. This persisted from the 1960s to the late 1990s
At that same time changes were happening in the Aboriginal community. There was a growing political and social movement within the Aboriginal community that demanded recognition, acceptance and autonomy. The community built its political knowledge and skills. After launching effective campaigns, using the media and influencing public opinion the views and attitudes of Government and its institutions along with those of the broader community began to change.
This has been one of our greatest achievements.
Our political skills and ability to influence attitudinal change have had significant outcomes. In 1985 this led to the Crowther collection of Aboriginal remains consisting of 33 skulls and three skeletons being released to the Aboriginal community under its terms and control. This led to one of the largest gathering of Aborigines at Putalina to welcome our old people home with our own spiritual and ceremonial practices that set their spirits free at last.
The winds of change were also influencing TMAG. There were new people with new ideas. Pat Sabine, a former director of the TMAG during the 1990s, bought with her a genuine concern about how Aborigines were portrayed and represented in the museum. She consistently advocated for the development of a more contemporary and honest portrayal of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community.
Through her persistence, a trainee Tasmanian Aboriginal curator position was created. Tony Brown was selected to take up that position and, after successfully completing a degree at the University of Tasmania, became the museum's first full-time Aboriginal Curator of Indigenous Cultures in 1997.
Perhaps, for the first time TMAG began to support and learn about reconciliation, and truth telling about Aboriginal experiences past and present. It deepened and made a more genuine partnership with the Aboriginal community. These changes progressed under the leadership of Bill Bleathman, which saw Zoe Rimmer successfully complete a degree at the University of Tasmania. Zoe is now TMAG’s Senior Indigenous Cultures Curator after the retirement of Tony.
During this time a new display was being developed, the much visited and applauded Aboriginal gallery, Ningenneh Tunapry. It offered for the first time a comprehensive account of Aboriginal history with a vast array of Aboriginal Cultural expression. The Gallery was shaped by the
10
Aboriginal community — and reflects the thoughts and aspirations of that community. Community consultations were undertaken around the State to ensure relevant and critical issues of interest to the Aboriginal community were included.
Ningenneh Tunapry, means to “Give Knowledge and Understanding”. The guiding principle of the project is to provide learning experience. One aim is to prompt non-Aborigines to rethink their attitudes, their actions and their impacts on the Aboriginal community.
Another exhibition was developed to complement Ningenneh Tunapry. This was the Parrawar Parrawar exhibition about the conflict between Tasmanian Aborigines and the Colonial invaders. I believe one of the first of these types of exhibitions to be developed anywhere in Australia. It was a difficult story to tell one of violence and dispossession. It gave visitors an experience of conflict, particularly from the Aboriginal perspective, which has been rarely told. It was an explicit story of invasion characterised by conflict over the use and control of land and its resources.
It has been our experience in Tasmania that it has been a personal commitment by political and bureaucratic leaders that has delivered crucial advances in Aboriginal Affairs. I acknowledge the leadership of former Premier Ray Groom (on a personal note one of the most honourable men I’ve known) who in the mid 90s introduced land rights legislation to Parliament. He consulted exhaustively across the State and when the Legislation was presented to Parliament it faced no opposition at all.
The Jim Bacon and Paul Lennon Labor Governments were equally effective in broad consultations that led to the hand back of Wybalenna, Cape Barren, and the Parliamentary apology to the Stolen generation.
Today the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery should be complimented for steady progress it has made in its outlook and support for the Aboriginal Community's aspirations leading up to today’s apology. The representation of Aboriginal people is now characterised by respect and
engagement with the Community. Today’s apology is not only an acknowledgement of past wrongs but a pledge to equal and respectful partnerships in the future.
Of course, there is always room for further improvements. And we must closely guard these advances that we have fought so hard to achieve within TMAG, and within our political process and across the State. The winds of change have a habit of retreating.
I fear that since Will Hodgeman’s 2016 ill-informed Australia day speech the current Liberal Government is eroding the advances made by the Aboriginal community. It is eating away at Aboriginal influence and knowledge by limiting the number of consultations with Aborigines and some non-Aborigines to a select few severely reducing broad Aboriginal Community consultations.
This is more about meeting the personal desires and ambitions of the few rather than meeting with the broad Aboriginal community and understanding their needs and aspirations. The cost of these actions are being paid for by the rest of the Aboriginal community through living with inequitable, and even discriminatory decisions being made by the Tasmanian Government. These actions fly in the face of the advances made by previous governments and their institutions, such as TMAG, over the past years in developing a strong consultative relationship with the Aboriginal community.
Today I recognise the humility shown by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and the Royal Society of Tasmania to offer their apologies. I thank them for their promise of a strong consultative relationship with the Aboriginal community into the future.
Our story — the story of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community — has been one of struggle and denial. Despite the many obstacles’ put in front of us we have survived and prospered. We will continue our quest for equality, justice and recognition. Today marks a significant step in that quest.
Thank you.
Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 11
REPLY TO THE APOLOGY TO THE ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA AND THE TASMANIAN MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY
delivered by Mr Michael Mansell
‘The speakers I am to follow delivered four very powerful speeches. [Michael then acknowledges the protocol for addressing the Governor Kate Warner].
Of course, the catalyst for this event was the request by the Aboriginal community for the return the petroglyphs to the place from which they were taken, and agreement by TMAG to hand the petroglyphs over.
Over the years there has been much ignorance about what the petroglyphs mean. Most people ponder what exactly each design means. But it doesn’t take much to work out that a people who lived for thousands and thousands of years on this earth, would note down, like every society in the world, the things that were important to the
lifestyle and the events that took place in their lives. The _
significant events that they saw, whether they were in the sky, whether they were in a corroboree, whether they were of a great warrior whose name was no longer allowed to be used for so many generations, and that warrior’s name was an emblem of an animal, all those things are in the rock carvings. When there was some significant corroboree event from a visiting tribal group or from a great distance where gifts were exchanged, and relationships made or cemented, are all in the rock carvings. And so when people say ‘well we don’t know what they mean’, we might not know exactly what each circle or what each line means, but we know the overall context for the markings honoring many thousands of years.
‘The water rose, the scientists tell us, 6000 years ago. That being so, many records of ancient events are now underwater on the west coast and probably elsewhere. What we are seeing in 2021, is just the little bits that remain unconcealed. It is important to acknowledge those people who, over generations and generations over thousands of years, carved into rock, events that they had seen or heard about and wanted to leave there for prosperity. For whom were these records meant to be left to?
Those records were not intended to be cut away and taken away to white people's museums. The people who carved them had never seen white people. They could not have known that their sacred works would be taken away. It is absolutely significant that the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, without any hesitation said ‘okay’ you want them back in their rightful place — we'll give them back. No prompting, no coercion, done in the best of faith. An important gesture on the part of the Museum to do it so quickly.
Many representatives of institutions apologise for actions their forebears did and leave it at that. And you can understand that. “We didn’t take the land, we didn’t cut
up the people when they were dead, we're sorry about that, but you know we're sorry really about these things that we've done in more recent times”. But what I heard in those speeches was from Mary — ownership, of all the things that that the Royal Society did. From Brett — responsibility for all of the things, not just in recent times, that TMAG have been involved in. The succinct summary by the Governor Kate Warner — pulled it together, about the impact of things done on Aboriginal people, not just on Aboriginal people but also how those things diminished white society too. We heard about the attitudes and behavior of a society who were invaded, exiled to the Bass Strait islands and their descendants sidelined without rights or remedies. So, I think it is important for we Aborigines to acknowledge that the institutions did not shy from the activities of their predecessors — they acknowledged the issues that we have complained about over the years. They have acknowledged the wrong of those activities and they have taken responsibility, not only for acknowledging and identifying them, but saying “we have to do it better” — and that’s an important part of any apology. When we look at even more recent time in the 1900s, ’m still amazed at when Truganina’ remains were displayed in this Museum, why some of the people — not a single soul thought to talk to the people who were directly affected. The Museum in those days — in the 1930s — could not have said “we don’t know any Aborigines in Tasmania’, because they had the recording of Fanny Cochrane Smith here in the Museum itself. When, in 1949, the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston took its first collection of the petroglyphs from Preminghana, they must have known that Aboriginal people had been ‘forced’ from the islands under the Tasmanian Government's assimilation program, and dumped mostly in the slum housing in Invermay, which was just five minutes’ walk from the QV Museum. How blind can people be? Still, no one bothered to consult those Aboriginal people so nearby! So it brings us to the question of ‘if the Apology is coming from the institutions, not just in this current generation, not just on behalf of this Board, not just on behalf of the staff, not just on behalf of the leadership now, but they own — embrace — and take responsibility — for all of the mistakes that have been made by those institutions, way back until the time they established themselves here in Tasmania, To whom then is the apology addressed from TMAG, the Royal Society and the Governor on behalf of Tasmanian society? It cannot be to me, or any other individual. If the mistakes of generations gone are acknowledged and an apology given, then those apologies
12
are addressed to those people at Wybalenna whose images we see on the banner [Michael points to a banner held up by Aboriginal people]. They were the ones who lived with Truganina and William Lanny. They were the ones who grew up with them, who knew them. The next generation on the other banner over there [Michael points to another banner near Sarah Maynard] Lucy Beaton, Nancy Mansell, Jack Maynard, Philip Thomas in front and Harry Beaton on the end. They wrote the 1883 petition to the local newspaper in Launceston:
We are under no obligation to the Government.
Whatever land they have reserved for our use, is a token
of their honesty. In as much as it has been given in
lieu of that grand island Tasmania, which they have
taken from our ancestors.
They knew about morals, about right and wrong. Unsurprisingly, at the bottom of the letter the newspaper saw fit to add “we do not identify ourselves with the opinions of the correspondents”. So, how’s that!
In 1911, Gov. Warner's predecessor visited Cape Barren as a forerunner to the Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1912. Aboriginal people thought they were getting legislated land rights. They believed they were getting the whole of Cape Barren, the mutton bird islands and other islands, as a sanctuary against assimilation enforcement.
In 1911, Aboriginal people from all around the islands came to Cape Barren to meet the Governor believing he would be giving Cape Barren to Aboriginal people. They were deceived. Out of the intended land rights for Aboriginal people, they were given blocks of land that they had to fence, and they had to behave like white people, otherwise they would lose any plots of land. Any Aboriginal woman who married a white man was not allowed to stay on the reserve. Some Aboriginal people, closely related to Aborigines on Cape Barren, were kicked off the island after dark, and were not allowed to stay with their people. So, I say the apology is also directed to them. Ray Groom took responsibility for dispossession in the 1990s by beginning the process of land return. Mr Groom’s gesture was to those people in the past but also to us, the contemporary Aboriginal people. It was an important act of recognition.
Those who have delivered the apologies today on behalf of their institutions also have made an important acknowledgement of the hurt to we Aborigines of today.
In return, I stand here before you and say “on behalf of all of those Aboriginal generations I have mentioned, we readily accept, with pride, the apologies given, in the spirit within which it was stated”.
Thank you.
Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, Volume 155(2), 2021 13
THE REPORT TO INFORM AN APOLOGY TO THE TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA
by Zoe Rimmer and Rebe Taylor
Rimmer, Z. & Taylor, R. 2021 (15:xii) The Report to inform an Apology to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community by the Royal Society of Tasmania. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 155(2): 13-20. ISSN 0080-4703. College of Arts, Law and Education, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 132, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia. (ZR and RT*). *Author for correspondence. Email: rebe.taylor@utas.edu.au
CULTURAL WARNING ‘This paper contains information regarding Aboriginal Ancestral remains that may cause sadness, anger and distress to some people. This information is being shared in the spirit of truth-telling and with the understanding that with knowledge
comes obligations. We ask that you treat the information in this paper with dignity and respect to Aboriginal Community members and their wishes about how these stories should be shared.
In 2017, the Royal Society of Tasmania (the Society) commissioned a report to inform an apology to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community. Pakana woman and museum curator Zoe Rimmer and British-born historian Rebe Taylor co-researched and wrote the Report by early 2018. The Report detailed mistreatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains and mistreatment and misrepresentation of Tasmanian Aboriginal culture and people. The Society presented its Apology in February 2021 at an event at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG). The Society’s Apology was preceded by a Preamble by Tasmania’s Governor and was followed by a ‘paired’ Apology by TMAG. This paper includes all the findings and recommendations included in the original report and differs only in its formatting, style, and some very minor editing.
Key Words: Tasmanian Aboriginal Community, Apology, Royal Society of Tasmania, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
BACKGROUND
In 2017, the Royal Society of Tasmania commissioned historian Rebe Taylor to write a report to inform a planned Apology to the Tasmanian Aboriginal (Pakana) Community. Due to Zoe Rimmer’s comprehensive knowledge of the history and records pertaining to the removals and repatriations of Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural artefacts and Ancestral remains, the Society agreed that the Report be co-authored by Rimmer and Taylor.
Rimmer and Taylor began by considering the Report’s potential scope. They observed that historians Stefan Petrow (1997), Tom Wise (2003), Helen MacDonald (2005), Tom Lawson (2014) and Paul Turnbull (2017) had detailed variously the theft, mistreatment and trade of Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains by Society members (and others) in the nineteenth century. Less examined, however, was the continued removal of Ancestral remains from Country during the twentieth century and the resistance to demands by the Aboriginal Community to repatriate Ancestors made from the 1970s (references in the below report). The authors also noted that there had been less historical research on the theft and mistreatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal material culture relative to that of Ancestral remains through both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Report was intended as an overview. The authors recognise that there exists more historical detail than can be included in a relatively short report. The below reproduction of our Report includes all the findings and recommendations included in its original form and differs
only in its formatting, style, and very minor editing (except for point three below, that has been reworked to explain the governance relationship between TMAG and the Society). ‘The Report opens with six key points that preface and direct its findings followed by two main parts: the ‘Mistreatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains’ and the ‘Mistreatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal material artefacts’. A short closing statement considers the misrepresentations of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and culture.
THE REPORT TO INFORM AN APOLOGY TO THE TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA BY ZOE RIMMER AND REBE TAYLOR, 2018
Six key points preface and direct the findings of this Report.
First: From its inception in 1843, the Royal Society's members have included leaders in Tasmanian politics, law, education, church, and industry since its formation (Wise 2003). The members’ social standing has legitimated and facilitated the mistreatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and material culture from the mid nineteenth century. An apology by the Society should acknowledge its failure to lead their community with honourable and decent conduct.
Second: The Society’s mistreatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal bodies and material culture followed the forced dispossession of Aboriginal lands and removal of Aboriginal children, Ancestral remains and cultural objects. An apology by the Society should recognise that their mistreatment of
14 Zoe Rimmer and Rebe Taylor
Tasmanian Aboriginal bodies and material culture was part of the wider history of invasion and colonisation.
Third: The Royal Society Museum was established in 1846 by the Society. In 1885, the Society vested its collections, including Aboriginal Ancestral remains and cultural objects, in the new and public Tasmanian Museum (shortly thereafter the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery) by an Act of Parliament (An Act to incorporate and endow the Tasmanian Museum and Botanical Gardens No. 34 1885, Tasmania). While formally separated by law, the Society and TMAG, remained ‘united in aims and services’ (Somerville 1944). The TMAG Board maintained a majority of Society Councillors through most of the twentieth century. Until 1993, the TMAG Director was also Secretary of the Society. In 2021, in accordance with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Act 2017, the TMAG Board is appointed by the responsible State Government Minister who is ‘to consult and seek nominations from the Royal Society of Tasmania’. The TMAG Director holds ex-officio membership of the Society's Council. The Society is located at TMAG and the two institutions continue occasionally to collaborate. However, the Society remains a non-government member- based organisation while TMAG reports to the Tasmanian State Government’s Department of State Growth. In relation to Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains and cultural artefacts, the majority of acquisitions and the most serious mistreatments occurred when those collections were either managed by the Society Museum or by TMAG during the time the TMAG Board was dominated in numbers by Society members and the TMAG Director also held the role of Society Secretary. In the eyes of the Tasmanian public, including the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community, there has been no clear distinction between the Society and Museum. An apology by the Society to Tasmanian Aborigines should incorporate TMAG. The authors therefore direct the following three points to the Society and to TMAG.
Fourth: Tasmanian Aboriginal human remains are people — or rather, in the eyes of Aboriginal Community members, Ancestors. They are not specimens. The desecration of burials and removal of Ancestral remains from Country by the Society and TMAG has caused continuing trauma for the Aboriginal Community. They have had to fight for and then manage the return of their Ancestors largely without support, while mourning their desecration. An apology by the Society to Tasmanian Aborigines should recognise that the deep hurt of mistreating Ancestral remains is ongoing.
Fifth: The collection, curation and display of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and culture by the Society and TMAG created and perpetuated many of the prevailing stereotypes and myths that continue to be destructive to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community. An apology by the Society to Tasmanian Aboriginal people should recognise that the deep hurt caused by misrepresenting Aboriginal culture and people is ongoing.
Sixth: The apology by the Society for the mistreatment of Ancestral remains (among other actions) comes thirty years after their return. Although receiving funding to resource an active repatriation program since 2001, TMAG has also
never delivered a formal apology or act of restitution for its past treatment of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community. An apology by the Society to Tasmanian Aborigines should recognise that it is belated.
PART ONE: MISTREATMENT OF TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL ANCESTRAL REMAINS
The acquisition and trade of Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains by the Royal Society of Tasmania is almost as old as the society itself, with the first recorded acquisition in 1848 by Joseph Milligan. As Royal Society Secretary from 1851— 59, Milligan became the most active donor of Tasmanian. Aboriginal Ancestral remains to British anatomical collections in the nineteenth century (Wise 2003, Turnbull 2017, p. 93; IS File 10891, TMAG: ‘Specimens donated to Royal Society of Tasmanian Museum 1848-1886’). Through the remainder of the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth century, members of the Royal Society (and from 1885 TMAG) continued to receive donations of Ancestral remains; send them to institutions and collectors; and actively remove remains from gravesites. The last noted removal and acquisition in the TMAG Trustees’ Minutes was in 1970 by Colin Wendell-Smith (3 Sept, 1 Oct and 5 Nov 1970).
William Lanne
The mutilation of William Lanne was one of the most notorious and atrocious acts of mistreatment ofa Tasmanian Aboriginal person by members of the Royal Society. In 1869, Society Councillor Morton Allport successfully sought permission from Tasmania's Premier, Richard Dry, to secure the skeleton of the recently deceased William Lanne, whom it was wrongly believed was the ‘last’ Tasmanian Aboriginal man. Before the Society gained possession of Lanne’s skeleton, hospital surgeon William Crowther and his son, Bingham Crowther, removed Lanne’s skull while he lay in the Hobart hospital morgue. After discovering this, Royal Society member and hospital surgeon George Stokell, in agreement with Allport, with the Society's Secretary, James Agnew, and with Royal Society Councillor John Graves, sawed off Lanne’s hands and feet and took them to their museum before he was buried (Petrow 1997, MacDonald 2005, pp. 136-182). Historian Paul Turnbull (2017, pp. 143-148) is confident that it was Royal Society members who then robbed Lanne’s grave and took his body to the Royal Society’s Museum storerooms where Stokell cut out the remainder of Lanne’s skeleton.
Despite the public outrage and official inquiry that followed, Allport tried to find Lanne’s missing skull. He offered cash to Bingham Crowther and a complete Tasmanian Aboriginal skeleton to the Royal College of Surgeons, London, as an exchange. Allport also secretly exhumed skeletons from the cemeteries at Oyster Cove and Flinders Island and in the early 1870s sent them to the Royal College and to private collector, Joseph Barnard Davis (Turnbull 2017, pp. 146-148).
The Report to inform an Apology to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community by the Royal Society of Tasmania 15
Trukanini
The exhumation, display and keeping of Trukanini’s remains by the Society and TMAG from 1878-1975 went against the express requests of Trukanini, the Anglican Diocese in Tasmania and the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community, as recorded in newspapers: ‘Her Last Wish’; 22 Feb 1932,
Examiner, ‘Story of Truganini The Ghost of a Broken
Promise’, The Age, 20 Dec 1947; ‘Dying Wish’; Mercury, 27 Apr 1949; “Truganini to get dying wish’, Advocate 12 June 1953; ‘Reburial Wanted’; Canberra Times, 29 March 1974; ‘Boffins hang onto Truganini’, Nation Review 7-13 June 1974; “Truganini’s Bones Row, Aboriginals are angry’, 1 Feb 1976; Mercury).
Trukanini was wrongly thought to be the ‘last’ ‘full blood’ member of the Tasmanian Aboriginal ‘race’, and for this reason there was intense interest in securing her body long before she died. Knowing this, Trukanini asked the Reverend Henry Atkinson to ensure she was buried at sea. But her death, on 8 May 1876, was attended by Royal Society member, Parliamentarian, and medical doctor Henry Butler who, with another medical doctor, moved her body to the Hobart hospital. The following day the Society formally requested Trukanini’s body for their museum. Trukanini was instead given a Christian burial at the Cascade Female Factory, but it is likely her exhumation was always intended. The Society's second formal request to the Colonial Secretary to secure her body in July 1876 was refused because it was ‘premature’; the third, in 1878, was granted (Ryan 1974; references letters 9 May and 12 July 1876 and 4 Dec 1878 in TSA. CSD 10/31/488. Copies also held in TMAG RICP RST Folder RSA/B/1 RSA/B/166). Historian Lyndall Ryan (1974) notes it is pertinent that many Tasmanian Parliamentarians were also Society members.
Ten years later, Trukanini’s skeleton was placed on temporary display in the Melbourne Exhibition Building. This was contrary to the initial conditions under which her remains were entrusted by Parliament to the Royal Society: that her ‘skeleton shall not be exposed to public view (in Ryan 1974). Trukanini’s skeleton returned to Melbourne in 1904, where it was articulated and casts of it made in preparation for its display in TMAG. She was exhibited in Hobart until 1947, when the son of Henry Atkinson, the Archdeacon Henry Brune Atkinson, began a public campaign to honour his father’s broken promise. Consequently, TMAG placed Trukanini’s remains in storage, but did not heed Atkinson's requests for a proper burial, even when they were taken up by Bishop Cranswick in 1953. The Royal Society Council agreed ‘it was inadvisable that the skeleton should be lost to science’ (TMAG folder, ‘RICP — RST Archives’, 10 Sept 1953). The Museum Trustees, and the Royal Society members, successfully sought the support of the wider scientific community to defend the keeping of Trukanini’s remains. The Trustees ensured these letters were passed on to Tasmania’s Chief Secretary who attended a special meeting of the Trustees. It was agreed to create a new “Tasmanian Aboriginal Room at TMAG’ with specially constructed
‘memorials’ to house ‘skeletal remains’ including those of Trukanini (Trustees’ Minutes, 30 July, 3 Sept, 5 Nov, 1 Oct 1953). Nearly ten years later, Royal Society member Dr W.L. Crowther reminded the Trustees of their unfulfilled commitment to create this ‘semi-mausoleum’ (Trustees’ Minutes, 12 April 1962).
From March 1970, the TMAG Trustees received requests to relinquish Trukanini’s remains, including from Aboriginal Jaw student, Harry Penrith. The Trustees responded that they had ‘no power to carry out this request, but they once again sought the support of the wider scientific community which uniformly agreed that ‘under no circumstances should Trukanini’s skeleton be destroyed’. The Trustees forwarded these letters, along with related acquisition records, to the Government. The Chief Secretary upheld the Trustees’ wishes and reiterated the earlier promise of a memorial to house Ancestral remains (Trustees’ Minutes, 12 April 1962). Months later, Tasmanian Aboriginal skeletal remains were found in sand dunes at Trial and Granville harbours on Tasmania's west coast. The bones were placed in TMAG’s collections, and with University of Tasmania’s Professor of Anatomy, Colin Wendell-Smith, further excavations were carried out (Trustees’ Minutes, 3 Sept, 1 Oct and 5 Nov 1970). A letter from the University archivist Margaret Littlejohn to Mrs E.F. Cotton of Kelvedon dated 6 August 1971 confirmed that Wendell-Smith held historical collections of Tasmanian Aboriginal remains, including that of a baby (TMAG folder: ‘RICP — Roy. Soc. Of ‘Tas. Archives’). Wendell-Smith also supervised a medical student to carry out the only detailed and specific study of Trukanini’s skeleton for an Honours thesis, submitted around 1973 (Meumann c.1973).
In 1974, the National Aboriginal Congress requested that Trukanini’s skeleton be placed in its custody. TMAGs’ Trustees were advised by a solicitor that Trukanini’s remains could only be divested by an Act of Parliament. The Tasmanian Museum Act 1950 was amended in February 1975. Trukanini’s remains were then placed in the vaults of the Reserve Bank in Hobart until 8 May 1976. On that day Tasmanian Aboriginal Community members cremated Trukanini and scattered her ashes in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel.
The Crowther Collection
The Crowther Collection was one of the largest single collections of Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains formed by an individual. It was formed illegally from the early twentieth century by a leading member of the Royal Society of Tasmania. The TMAG Trustees resisted returning the collection to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community despite repeated requests. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (later Corporation (TAC)) began formally campaigning for repatriation in the 1970s and in the early 1980s took legal action against the TMAG. Although unsuccessful, this action and Community protests brought national and international attention to the Tasmanian Government (TAC 1997).
Sir William Edward Lodewyk Crowther (1887-1981) was a medical doctor; a member of the Royal Society of
16 Zoe Rimmer and Rebe Taylor
Tasmania from 1911 (a Councillor from 1919-1958); a recipient of the Royal Society medal in 1940; elected a life member in 1962; anda Trustee of (MAG from 1919-1973 (von Oppeln 2007). Crowther was knighted in 1955. At his death in 1981, the TMAG Trustees stood in honour for a minute’s silence (Trustees’ Minutes, 3 June 1981). Sir William was also the grandson of Dr William Crowther, who cut out William Lanne’s skull in 1869, and the son of Edward Crowther, who owned land near Oyster Cove, close to the former Aboriginal Station. Sir William grew up hearing stories about ‘the natives’ and seeing ‘several of their crania in the back surgery at [his] home’ (Crowther 1949). In 1907, Crowther’s University of _Melbourne anatomy lecturer, Professor R.J.A Berry, urged his students to collect Aboriginal crania, especially those from Tasmania. As a result, in 1908, Crowther with Dr W. Robertson exhumed the remains of twelve Tasmanian Aborigines who were buried at the Oyster Cove cemetery in the 1840s—1860s (Turnbull 2017, p-. 253). Crowther (1949) considered that the long bones were too soft to be of ‘anatomical value’ and packed them in two large crates (TMAG IS File 10891). The crania were in better condition. Two contained their cerebrum (brain) and were acquired by the University of Melbourne. Crowther (1949) described them as being so ‘dried and shrunken
.. as to resemble a small, shrivelled apple’. In 1982, the Tasmanian Solicitor-General’s Department found that this exhumation had been illegal (‘Draft Briefing notes for Premier for a meeting with TAC representatives, 1982, TMAG IS File 10891).
From 1919, Crowther continued to collect Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains from across Tasmania, often while he was removing Aboriginal stone artefacts with other locals including Robert W. Legge and R.H. Pulleine (Evans 2011). Most of the Ancestral remains removed were from Tasmania's northwest and from Eaglehawk Neck. They included both prehistoric and more recent burials, including an infant. Many of the skulls ‘in better preservation’ were acquired by institutions and collectors. By 1961, Crowther had housed his collection of three skeletons and thirty- four skulls in TMAG, and he formally presented them in 1963. Crowther (1949) studied and published on the collection and facilitated and urged such study by others.
From 1981, members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community sought the return of the Crowther Collection. The TMAG Trustees offered to ‘share’ the responsibility of the collection with the Aboriginal Community but would not hand the remains over to them. They sought advice to defend this position legally and, with TMAG’s staff anthropologist sought and received letters of support from leading scientists and scientific associations (correspondence
1982-1984, TMAG IS File 10892).
Other collections of Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains
By the early 1980s TMAG was aware that it held about 100 Tasmanian Aboriginal crania or fragments of crania, three of which were from named individuals: Augustus,
Caroline and Waubedabar (Waubedema or Waubedimia). This number included the Crowther Collection, but mostly comprised of other acquisitions. Numerous acquisitions had been made to the Royal Society of Tasmania from 1848 to 1886, and to TMAG from 1886 to the late 1970s. Members of the Society actively collected Ancestral remains and published their findings in their Papers and Proceedings until the late 1970s. The TMAG Trustees also instigated the removal of Ancestral remains and accepted donations from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s. The following examples demonstrate TMAG’s active effort to obtain Ancestral remains from the late nineteenth to
late twentieth centuries:
The Bishop of Tasmania had on a visit to [Vansittart?] Island, formerly Gun Carriage Island, came across graves of seventeen Tasmanian Aborigines. The TMAG Curator was authorised to make necessary arrangements to secure the skulls and skeletons. (Trustees’ Minutes,
19 Sept 1899)
TMAG Director reported that ‘he was hopeful of obtaining another Tas. Aboriginal skull for the Museum collection’ and it was ‘resolved that the Director be empowered to incur reasonable expenditure in order to secure same’. (Trustees’ Minutes 30 Oct 1924)
See the example of Wendell-Smith’s removal of Ancestral remains in 1970 mentioned previously.
In a landmark paper presented on behalf of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community to the Australian Archaeology Association conference held in Hobart in 1983, Rosalind Langford (1983) claimed that TMAG and its staff had deceived the Aboriginal Community in 1976 by ‘concealing the fact that they held the remains of Aborigines other than those of Truganinni [Trukanini]’. From 1982, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community formally sought the return of ‘all’ the Tasmanian Ancestral remains held in TMAG. The TMAG Trustees remained determined that they should retain their collections, except for one Trustee. The Minutes of the Trustees’ meeting held on 6 October 1982 record that one Trustee moved ‘that all Tasmanian Aboriginal skeletal remains in TMAG be handed over to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people for appropriate disposal’. The motion ‘lapsed for want of a seconder’. The Minutes of the Trustees of 2 February 1983 stated: ‘It has been made abundantly clear on earlier occasions by the Trustees that they did not favour the removal [return] of the skeletal material.’ The Tasmanian Aboriginal Community took legal action and carried out public protest and demonstration. In 1984, the TMAG (Aboriginal Remains) Act authorised the return of Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains to the Community. On 13 August 1984, TMAG staff wrote to the Trustees ‘strongly protesting’ the government's decision and continued to seek the support of the wider scientific community (Trustees’ Minutes 5 Sept 1984). In 1985, the Crowther Collection and the remains of the three named Aboriginal people were returned to the
The Report to inform an Apology to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community by the Royal Society of Tasmania 17
Tasmanian Aboriginal Community. The remainder of the collections known to be Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains were returned in 1988.
Over many years several external researchers were encouraged and given access to the Ancestral remains collection (Berry & Robertson 1909, Crowther & Lord 1920, Crowther 1921, Abbie 1964). Researchers applied
their own theories to the cataloguing and the physical |
storage of the Ancestral remains. The results of this intervention included separating the skeletal remains of a person and wrongly boxing remains belonging to different individuals together. Such poor curatorial practices have made recent provenance research to aid repatriation efforts nearly impossible. Due to this poor record keeping and questionable research practices as well as substandard storage and mismanaged repatriation processes of the past, in 2018, TMAG continues to hold a collection of poorly provenanced and unprovenanced Ancestral remains. Some of these remains include Ancestors from Indigenous Communities outside Tasmania. As Franchesca Cubillo (2010, pp. 30-36) notes, keeping other peoples’ Ancestors trapped in collections weighs heavily on traditional owners working in those institutions. Currently the repatriation of other Indigenous peoples’ Ancestral remains outside of Australia is unfunded and not covered by the Australian Government’ Indigenous Repatriation Policy.
Return of Ancestral remains
Aboriginal people have lived on lutruwita, the Country now known as Tasmania, for more than 40 000 years. Aboriginal spiritual beliefs are that they ‘have been here forever’ and the connection to Country, Ancestors and kin are inalienable. As such, it is imperative that Ancestors are acknowledged, respected, and given the appropriate ceremony in death. Many Aboriginal people feel a profound responsibility to return Ancestors to Country. This is critical for honouring the Ancestors’ dignity and to allow their spirit to finally rest, as well as allowing the Aboriginal Community today to mourn and heal.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Community have had to fight for recognition and for the return of their Ancestors through political and legal battles. As Cubillo (2010, p. 25) writes: ‘Indigenous communities were not responsible for the problems associated with repatriation, and yet they have to carry the cultural, spiritual and financial burdens.’ The struggle to return known people and the knowledge that many more ‘unprovenanced’ remains may never return causes ongoing distress to Aboriginal people who are responsible for their Ancestors’ safe return home. The disrespect with which Ancestral remains have been collected, traded, stored and researched often means that little is known about the Ancestors who are returned to Community. This lack of knowledge adds further stress and complexity to the decisions regarding proper ceremony, burial practice and reburial place. The wounds caused by the desecration of burials, and the collection of Ancestral remains, are not historical; they are ongoing.
Collectors placed a high value on the remains of Tasmanian Aboriginal people in particular. The Society and TMAG played a major role in the ‘scientific trade’ of Tasmanian Aboriginal Ancestral remains and received the Ancestral remains of other Indigenous peoples in exchange for Tasmanian Aboriginal remains as well as collegial recognition. Ros Langford outlined this issue poignantly in 1983 (p. 2):
Science, including the science of archaeology, determined that Truganinni was the last of our people. It did so by using scientific principles based upon European values.
the effect of this scientific fact has been incalculable to the 4000 Tasmanian Aboriginals who reside in
Tasmania ... Science got what it wanted — some bones to parade through Europe enhancing the reputation
of white colonials, leaving us with the struggle lasting 100 years to defeat that view. And science did not assist us in that fight. But what has changed? It was the Aboriginal people who fought for the return of the grave-robbed skeletons known as the Crowther Collection. There was no agitation from within your discipline for their proper burial or cremation. Instead,
there was opposition and obstruction to our demand
for the return of the dead...
The return of Ancestral remains from TMAG to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community in the 1980s was inadequately managed. The research into the history of the collections in the 1980s was carried out in large part by TMAG’s staff anthropologist who objected to their return (as noted above). More extensive and comprehensive research into the related records was not undertaken until 2002 when TMAG began receiving funding under the Australian Government’s ‘Return of Indigenous Cultural Property’ project (in 2018 the Indigenous Repatriation Program, IRP). In the 1980s, there were neither sufficient related records and information given to the Aboriginal Community, nor adequate support given for the management of returned Ancestral remains, or for the ongoing trauma caused by their removal and return. An important instance of this mismanagement was the return of Waubedabar (Waubedema or Waubedimia) who was returned in 1985 and her remains cremated, only for it to be discovered in 2005 that half of her skeleton was still held in TMAG’s zoological collections. Waubedabar’s handing back, and cremation had to be done again in 2007, and the trauma and grief was experienced by the Community once more.
18 Zoe Rimmer and Rebe Taylor
PART TWO: MISTREATMENT AND MISREPRESENTATION OF TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL CULTURE AND PEOPLE
Removal of petroglyphs
In 1961, TMAG instigated the removal of rock engravings from Preminghana, or Mt Cameron West, on Tasmania’s northwest coast. Tasmanian Aboriginal Community members and archaeologists regard this ‘removal’ as having been destructive to some of the most important petroglyphs (huge rock engravings) in the world and of a site of deep - cultural significance (TAC 2015, Tiagarra 2018).
Then-Tasmanian Museum Director, Dr William Bryden, stated that TMAG should remove the Aboriginal stone carvings because they were ‘being destroyed by erosion’. Permission to access the area was granted by the Van Diemen’s Land Company manager, and a tractor, trailer and labourers were hired and paid for by TMAG. The Director and Mr R. Roth excavated Aboriginal middens in the region during the removal (Meston 1931, Trustees’ Minutes 2 Feb and 5 Oct 1961).
The removal broke the carvings; one larger petroglyph was pieced together and mounted using concrete in the Tasmanian Museum and was on display by mid-1962 until 2005 (Trustees’ Minutes 7 June 1962). Archaeologist Rhys Jones told fellow archaeologist and interviewer Mike Smith that when Australia’s leading archaeologist, John Mulvaney, visited Tasmania’ northwest coast in the 1960s, he was ‘absolutely shocked’ by what he saw: ‘they had sawn off the face of the carvings’ and there ‘were bits of carvings lying all around, all broken’. Moreover, Mulvaney understood that the reason TMAG had removed the petroglyphs was ‘because Launceston [QVMAG] already had one... and there was a great rivalry’ (Jones & Smith 1997).
Removal of Tasmanian Aboriginal stone artefacts
From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, collectors have removed tens of thousands of Tasmanian Aboriginal stone tools from sites across the island, including middens, quarries, and campsites. This has left a deficit of important cultural material and erased part of the record of earlier land use, occupation, and cultural practice for today’s Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
Some of these prodigious collectors were members of the Royal Society, including Sir William Crowther, Fritz Noetling and Robert Legge. These men’ formed large personal collections of stone tools from across Tasmania from the early twentieth century and deposited them in museums locally and overseas. Stone tools make up the largest part of the overseas Tasmanian Aboriginal collections. These collectors. influenced leading scholars in Europe and beyond through their correspondence and publications in which they advanced the idea that Tasmanian Aborigines represented the earliest, or most primitive stage of human cultural evolution: the Old
Stone Age or Palaeolithic (Noetling 1907, Crowther 1949, Taylor 2017, p. 24, p. 64).
The correspondence of Henry Ling Roth and James Backhouse Walker
Henry Ling Roth’s The Aborigines of Tasmania (1890) was the first anthropological account of the subject, and its second edition (1899) remained the most influential book on Tasmanian Aborigines until the late twentieth century. This book advanced and perpetuated the idea that Tasmanian Aborigines were ‘extinct’ and one of the most primitive ‘races on Earth.
Roth was inspired to rework his first edition after reading a claim in Nature magazine that Fanny Smith (or Fanny ‘Cochrane’ Smith) was a ‘full blood’ Aboriginal, not a ‘half caste’ as he had been led to believe (Roth 1889). Roth wrote to the Society to determine the veracity of his claim. Over the next ten years, a Royal Society Councillor James Backhouse Walker carried out research into Fanny Smith on Roth’s behalf to determine this and other questions. Taylor (2016, 2017, pp. 91-105) gives an account of this correspondence and details its holdings in the University of Tasmania and the Manchester Museum. Walker was assisted by Hobart photographer J.W. Beattie, who was elected as a Fellow of the Society in 1890 and who helped establish the historical and geographical section of the Society in 1899 (Roe 1979).
The research and the conclusions drawn by Walker (and consequently by Roth) influenced how people understood Tasmanian Aboriginal people and their culture for most of the twentieth century. It was deeply insensitive and disrespectful to Fanny Smith, her family and to the wider Tasmanian Aboriginal Community. The research carried out for Roth, undertaken or organised by Walker included photographing Fanny Smith at her home in order to determine her ‘racial status’; obtaining a sample of her hair; removing family photographs from the Smith family (and not returning them); and asking her friends about her ‘mental’ and ‘physical details’ including her ancestry and the shape of her teeth.
Walker, with other members of the Society recorded Fanny Smith singing in language in 1898, but they agreed that she did not have any other Aboriginal cultural information that was ‘valuable’ because she was, in their opinion, ‘manifestly a half-caste’ (Taylor 2017, p. 95).
Other research carried out by Walker for Roth included: * attempting repeatedly to obtain six Tasmanian Aboriginal
skulls kept by Edward Cotton of Kelvedon (Bishop Montgomery also tried);
* organising the study of nineteen Aboriginal skulls housed in TMAG in Hobart;
* trying to extract a piece of hair for study from an ochred lock that once belonged to Wurati (Worreddy) or Manalakina (Mannalargenna);
* sending Roth a piece of hair belonging to Trukanini;
* sending Roth a shell necklace, but then claiming it was not ‘genuine’ as it was made by a ‘half-caste’ Islander (whom Walker stated ‘are not Aborigines’);
The Report to inform an Apology to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community by the Royal Society of Tasmania 19
* compiling language lists, memories and other accounts from settlers that Walker regarded having more authority than the ‘half-caste’ Islanders, or Fanny Smith and her family.
CONCLUDING REMARKS: MISREPRESENTATIONS OF TASMANIAN ABORIGINAL PEOPLE AND CULTURE
As institutions of knowledge, expertise and authority, the Royal Society of Tasmania with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery helped construct and perpetuate myths through an ongoing process of colonisation. For many years, the Society (and from 1885 TMAG) have labelled, measured, categorised, and degraded Tasmanian Aboriginal people to suit European ideologies and racial theories. For 140 years, the collection and curation of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and culture by TMAG was heavily informed by the ideas of ‘primitivism’ and ‘extinction’, that were used, as Langford (1983) puts it: to ‘soften the guilt of invasion and the destruction of a society’ (Burk 2015).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors thank the Report’s expert readers: Gaye Sculthorpe, Paul Turnbull, Maggie Walter and TMAG’s Tasmanian Aboriginal Advisory Council. We acknowledge that Zoe Rimmer’s time to research and co-write the report was kindly provided by TMAG. The authors acknowledge that the Royal Society of Tasmania commissioned the Report and granted permission to have it published.
REFERENCES
Abbie, A. 1964: A Survey of the Tasmanian Aboriginal collection in the Tasmanian Museum, Anatomy Department, University of Tasmania, with an introduction by W.E.L.H. Crowther.
Berry, R.J.A. & Robertson, A.W.D. 1909: Preliminary communication on fifty-three Tasmanian Crania, forty-two of which are now recorded for the first time. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 22(1): 47-58.
Burk, C. 2015: This Exhibition is About Now: Tasmanian Aboriginality at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Museum Anthropology 38(2): 149-162.
Crowther, W.E.L.H. 1921: Description of two Tasmanian Aboriginal Crania. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania: 168-172.
Crowther, W.E.L.H. 1949: On the Formation and Disposal of a Collection. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania: 83-92. :
Crowther, W.E.L.H & Lord, C. 1920: A descriptive catalogue of the osteological specimens relating to the Tasmanian Aborigines contained in the Tasmanian Museum. Japers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania: 137-152.
Cubillo, FE. 2010: Repatriating Our Ancestors: Who Will Speak for the Dead? In Turnbull, P and Pickering, M (eds): The Long Way Home. The Meaning and Value of Repatriation. New York and Oxford, Berghan Books in association with the National Museum of Australia Press: 30-36.
Evans, C. 2011: “A Funny Old Hobby”: Sir William Crowther’s Collection of Aboriginal Remains. Kanunnah 4: 1-25.
Jones, R. & Smith, M. 1997: Rhys Jones interviewed by Mike Smith, sound recording, and transcript. ORAL TRC 2677 (transcript), National Library of Australia, Bib ID: 628228, TRC 2677.
Langford, R. 1983: Our Heritage — Your Playground. Australian Archaeology 16: 1-6.
Lawson, T. 2014: The Last Man: A British Genocide in Tasmania. London, I. B. Taurus: 263 pp.
MacDonald, H. 2005: Human Remains: Episodes in Human Dissection. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press: 220
PP.
Meston, A.L. 1931: Aboriginal rock-carvings on the north-west coast of Tasmania. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania: 12-19.
Meumann, EO. c.1973: An Anthroscopic and Anthropometric Study of the Skeleton of a Full-Blood Female Tasmanian Aborigine (Trukanini). Unpublished Honours Thesis, Department of Anatomy, University of Tasmania, Hobart.
Noetling, F. 1907: Notes on the Tasmanian Amorpholithes. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania: 1-37.
Petrow, S. 1997: The Last Man: The Mutilation of William Lanne in 1869 and its Aftermath. Australian Cultural History 16: 18-44.
Roe, M. 1979: Beattie, John Watt (1859-1930). Australian
. Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/ biography/beattie-john-watt-5 171/text8687, published first in hardcopy 1979 (accessed 14 July 2021).
Roth, H.L. 1889: A Surviving Tasmanian Aborigine. Nature 41/5: December.
Roth, H.L. 1890: The Aborigines of Tasmania. London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Truber & Co: 224 pp.
Roth, H.L. 1899: The Aborigines of Tasmania. Halifax, E King & Sons: 228 pp. :
Ryan, L. 1974: Report to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies on Truganini. In Mollison, B.C. and Everitt, C.: A Chronology of events affecting Tasmanian Aboriginal people since contact by whites c. 1772-1976. Copy accessed is held in the TMAG folder created 2008: ‘RICP [Return of Indigenous Cultural Property] — Roy. Soc. Of Tas. Archives’.
Somerville, J. 1944: The Royal Society of Tasmania, 1843-1943. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania: 199-222.
Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Inc. (TAC) 1997: Free Exchange or Captive Culture? The Tasmanian Aboriginal Perspective on Museums and Repatriation. Paper delivered at the Museums Association Seminar: Museums and Repatriation, London, 4 November 1997.
Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Inc. (TAC) 2015: Preminghana Healthy Country Plan 2015, http://tacinc.com.au/ wp-content/uploads/2015/07/20150529_Preminghana- Healthy-Country-Plan-_-Final.pdf. (accessed 1 September 2021)
Taylor, R. 2016: The First Stone and the Last Tasmanian: the colonial correspondence of Edward Burnett Tylor and Henry Ling Roth. In Robert K. and Helen G. (eds.): Before the Field: Social Anthropology in the colonial period. Special edition, Oceania 86(3): November: DOI 10.1002/ocea.5145
Taylor, R. 2017: Into the Heart of Tasmania: A Search for Human Antiquity. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press: 270 pp.
Tiagarra 2018: The petroglyph debate. https://tiagarra.weebly.com/ petroglyphs.html, (accessed 28 March 2018).
Turnbull, P. 2017: Science, Museums and Collecting the Indigenous Dead in Colonial Australia. Palgrave Studies in Pacific History, Palgrave Macmillan, Switzerland: 428 pp.
von Oppeln, C.A. 2007: Crowther, Sir William Edward Lodewyk Hamilton (1887-1981). Australian Dictionary
20
of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ crowther-sir-william-edward-lodewyk-hamilton-12374/ text22237, published first in hardcopy 2007 (accessed 27 March 2018).
Wise, T. 2003: The Royal Society and the Tasmanian Aborigines in the nineteenth century. Unpublished Honours thesis, School of History and Classics, University of Tasmania, Hobart.
(accepted 3 November 2021)
Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, Volume 155(2), 2021 21
VAN DIEMEN’S LAND AND THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851 by Michael Roe (with six plates)
Roe, M. 2021 (15:xii): Van Diemen’s Land and the Great Exhibition of 1851. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 155(2): 21-36. ISSN: 0080-4703. 119/319 Macquarie Street, Tasmania 7004, Australia. Email: owenmichaelroe@gmail.com
Imperial authorities questioned whether so distant Van Diemen’s Land could participate in the “Great Exhibition to be held at London’s Crystal Palace in 1851, but as it transpired, the locals made a notable showing. Aspiring to display the positives of ‘his’ colony, Lieutenant-Governor Sir William Denison was the driving force behind this participation, with Joseph Milligan his chief aide and members of the local Royal Society notably assisting. The range and types of exhibits were remarkable and fascinating. Contributions came from various local quarters, one of interest being an ex-convict with whom Denison had some political liaison, whereas, conversely, Denison’s critics tended to abstain from involvement. Women played a role in contributing exhibition pieces, as did Aboriginal Tasmanians — Milligan no doubt crucial in orchestrating this. Denison was especially concerned to display Tasmanian timber, and other primary produce, but the thrust of the Exhibition was to celebrate human skills, and the contributions of manufactured goods and superior hand-crafted items conformed to that pattern. The world saw exhibits bespeaking an active, achieving society, and although the Vandiemonian contribution won modest notice in the British press, locals gained a share of the many awards granted to exhibitors. Not that the whole story
was triumphant — some jealousies resulted and its difficulties and tensions also told of time and place. Key Words: Van Diemen’s Land, Great Exhibition 1851, Sir William Denison, Vandiemonian, Tasmaniana.
INTRODUCTION
On 12 April 1850 Britain’s Secretary of State for the Colonies, Earl Grey, signed a despatch to Lieutenant-Governor Sir William Denison that enclosed a prospectus of the Great Exhibition to be held in London a year hence, under the active patronage of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort and supervised by distinguished Commissioners (TA GO 1/1/77, Inward Dispatch, 12 April 1850). Grey told Denison his hope was that Britain’s colonies would have their part in this undertaking but remarked that the vast distance between Van Diemen’s Land and the London metropolis might force an exception in this instance. The cited deadline for submissions was 1 March 1851. Instead, Denison, evera man of determined and self-righteous action, seized the chance to tell the world of his domain’s resource, and, as it transpired, he largely succeeded in conquering the tyranny of distance.
As an engineer by training, and of a family active in Britain’s industrial boom, Denison fitted the Exhibition task. Among his pertinent activities since taking office in 1847 was to energise the Royal Society of Van Diemen’s Land, achieving its fusion with the older “Tasmanian Society’, and appointing Joseph Milligan as salaried Secretary (conjoint with his Superintendence of the Aboriginal station at Oyster Cover). Milligan and the Society were to be the Governor's instruments in the Exhibition project. Denison had anticipated Grey’s approach, prompting Royal Society discussion on 4 and 18 July 1850 of a possible Tasmanian display at the Exhibition (RST Council Meeting Minutes 4 & 18 July 1850, RSA/A2). Grey’s despatch arrived in early August, and on the 15th Denison reported its content at
a further Society meeting. “His Excellency mentioned oils of the Black and Sperm Whales, or the finest samples of wheat — of wool, of furs, of timber useful and ornamental; of our coals and also of such manufactures as we possess.’ (ibid.). There was now appointed a ‘general’ committee to oversee the task, but immediate action lay with a sub- committee comprising Denison, Milligan, Robert Officer, W.S. Sharland and Hugh Hull. Within days it met and prepared a statement as to the materials that might be offered.
The statement was endorsed by the ‘general’ committee on the 24th, which now further determined to ask approval from the Legislative Council for expenditure up to £250, and to ask Charles McLachlan, an important figure in local business and politics at the time, to be its London agent. Both moves won acquiescence. Invitations then went to some fifty individuals inviting them to join further committees that would vet submissions, and such committees were duly formed (Hobart Town Gazette 3 September 1850, p. 702).
Another initiative was to establish an action group in Launceston, with Joseph Milligan’s brother Alexander appointed the leader. An interesting member was R.C. Gunn, erstwhile authority of the Tasmanian Society and important in its merger with the Royal Society of Van Diemen’s Land. Gunn now managed properties of the late Robert Lawrence, whose daughter and widow had both married into the Milligan family. Also serving on the northern committee were Presbyterian leader R.K. Ewing, Anglican counterpart R.R. Davies, naturalist-surgeon James Grant, and Charles and Andrew Henty. All were Royal Society members (Launceston Examiner 2 July 1850, p. 4).
22 Michael Roe
A despatch from Denison to Grey dated 26 August acknowledged the latter’s April communiqué and told of pertinent events, back to July (TA CO 280/62). It affirmed that the colony would meet its quota of available space (1200 super feet, half for corridors and half for items), but accepted possible difficulty in meeting the 1 March deadline. Could Grey seek lenience for this distant place?
The Hobart Town Gazette of 3 September published this ‘statement’ from the Society, calling for submissions, stressing how brief was the time in which to act, and setting a context:
The committee desire to impress upon the Landowners,
Merchants, Tradesmen, and Inhabitants generally of this
Island, that it is of last importance than no inferior or second-rate sample of our staple products, such as wheat and wool, should be exhibited where they will stand in juxtaposition and have to bear comparison with the finest commodities of a similar description from the most favoured regions of the world: and that it is quite
as essential, in order to secure a just appreciation of the importance and value of our ornamental timbers and other raw material the produce of the Island, that the best crafismanship which the Colony is possessed of should be bestowed upon them,—bearing in mind that here also comparison must be sustained with the finest materials, and the highest efforts of the best workmen
of the world at the present time.
Confident that Tasmanian wheat, wool, and timbers, whether for ship-building or ornamental purposes, need not shrink in comparison for a prize in the eyes of the civilised world, and solicitous that no advantage which the Colony possesses should from apathy or inadvertence be thrown away, the Committee repeats that they are most anxious to have it in their power to forward for exposition the finest samples which the Island affords; and they earnestly therefore, entreat persons possessed of first-rate qualities to forward samples without delay,
Great Britain, confident in the vast and varied resources of an empire on which the sun never sets, and in the possession of machinery, engineering shill and artisanship all but omnipotent, has challenged the world to competition. Let us not think that we bring a feeble and inefficient contingent to the aid of our mighty Fatherland. We have corn, wool, and oil, for mans necessities and his comfort — we have coal and iron to give him power and command —we have timber (not to be surpassed in the world) for ship-building and for ornamental purposes; at once elements of national strength, and a guarantee for advancement in commerce, civilisation, and refinement.
(Hobart Town Gazette 3 September 1850, p. 701)
These Churchillian words probably came from Denison’s hand, with the committees assisting. Denison authorised that the government printer issue 500 copies of this statement for general distribution (TA CSO 24/1/173/5010).
Joseph Milligan and the committees now set to garnering exhibits. Presumably government officers joined the task but
there is little information as to how the process proceeded. What inducements were held out to prospective exhibitors? How stringent were the committees in vetting items? While no answers can be given, a little more is known of the northern committee than the southern ones, as it reported to the Royal Society in Hobart in mid-September of ‘doing all in their power [but] they were not sanguine that they will be able to affect a great deal’ (RST Council Meeting Minutes 18 September 1850, RSA/A2). Yet this committee did advertise in the press, as it seems no southern group did. One important decision of the committee-in-chief was to send exhibits by the Derwent, at £5 per ton (excepting £3 for ‘long timber).
Papers received from the Colonial Office in mid- November might have added to the committees’ burden. The London elite spelled out exhibitors’ responsibility for packaging their wares and post-Exhibition disposal. As against this, Customs duties would not be exacted. Bronze medal prizes would be awarded, with honourable mentions following. Multiple juries would determine award winners, and all this was outlined in the Hobart Town Gazette (26 November 1850, pp. 1023-1026).
Local politics
Local politics had some bearing on future developments. In the background lay the passage in Britain (August 1850) of the Australian Colonies Government Act; this was to come into force a year hence and thereby the local Legislative Council would expand, with a majority of elected members (Townsley 1977). Vandiemonian support for such reform came largely from elites, anxious to secure further power over their domain; backing came also from the press, especially the Hobart Town Courier. Overall, these forces sought the end of convict transportation to Tasmania, so Denison and Earl Grey, who strongly supported transportation, became the targets of their attack. The Grey—Denison sponsorship of the Exhibition perhaps tainted it among these opponents of the Governor and deterred them from participating. While that claim must be hesitant, there can be no doubt that Denison saw the Exhibition as offering scope to display what his governance had achieved.
The story has a further side. While one must hesitate in proposing that colonial elites resiled from supporting the Exhibition, a corollary has more force: the roll of local exhibiters clinches that the project won favour from a ‘rising middle class’ such as has been the dynamic of change in many a society. In turn, Van Diemen’s Land’s history ensured that ex-convicts were prominent among mobile types. This makes all the more interesting (whether as cause, effect, or mere coincidence) a current surge of politics from that quarter: early in October 1850 was founded the “Tasmanian Union’, strong in support of Denison and still stronger in antipathy to anti-transportationists, seen as determined to impose monstrous stigma on all ex-convicts (Roe 2016). Feeling was mutual: ‘they return, like dogs to their vomit, and seek to play off Sir William Denison as the friend of the prisoner, said Zhe Courier of Union leadership (Zhe Courier 9 November 1850, p. 2).
Meanwhile, Milligan and the committees persevered. Proposed exhibits were gathered in Hobart and some final vetting then applied. The Advertiser, alone among established journals in supporting Denison, noticed in mid-November that items were now on display and for three days before exhibits went aboard the Derwent, they stood in the ballroom of Government House. Everyone
— but especially ‘operatives’ — were invited to see them; —
responders approached 2000 (The Britannia And Trades Advocate 21 November 1850, p. 2; The Cornwall Chronicle 28 November 1850, p. 847).
A Denison despatch joined the cargo, repeating earlier doubts as to meeting the 1 March deadline, and again seeking Grey’s support for lenience ‘in favour of a Colony at so great a distance, the Inhabitants of which have exerted themselves so strenuously’ (Denison & Denison 2004, p. 139, p. 148). Denison remarked that the exhibits included several from government institutions, convict stations and the Orphan School, and asked that should any money arise from post-Exhibition sale of the school’s offerings, that it goes to the children. The colony’s splendid timbers, continued Denison, well might come before Admiralty’s notice. Also, aboard Derwent was an overview of the exhibits and their proposed arrangement, provided by Milligan as the author. Meanwhile, Lady Denison told her mother that ‘we really muster a very respectable assortment’ of items, and likewise invoked the Exhibition as she wrote to a British friend in March 1851, encouraging the recipient to pressure her influential husband to boost Tasmanian timber.
Derwent sailed in mid-December 1850 and arrived in London on 31 March 1851, stretching the deadline by a mere 30 days. McLachlan helped in getting exhibits to display, but evidently more active was Edward Barnard, the ‘Colonial Agent —a shadowy but important office. Onerous enough, the couple’s task was minuscule compared to the overall preparations needed for the Exhibition’s debut in Hyde Park’s Crystal Palace on 1 May. The official Catalogue (Catalogue 1851) became ready just a day before and its big volumes pulsed with descriptive detail, further supported by a decorative poster advertised in the I//ustrated London News on 24 May (pl. 1). Robert Ellis (British Museum Librarian and editor-in-chief) noted apropos Tasmania *,..some interesting and attractive articles of furniture, ... a few specimens of textile manufacture, ... a remarkable number of specimens of fur, ... woods applicable for every purpose of art or use’ (Routledge 1851, p. 992). ‘Huron’ [sic] pine received special praise, that solecism often repeated; “Tasmania and “Van Diemen’s Land’ were used randomly (as in this paper).
While Van Diemen’s Land’s independence was perhaps overly stated as a country among Britain's possessions in Australasia, its extensive contribution of objects was correctly noted (pl. 2). A full list of local exhibits is contained in the Catalogue, with many columns detailing their use or collection, drawing from Milligan’s personal account (Catalogue 1851, Vol. 2, pp. 992-1000). They must be read with care as obviously Milligan presented the items in the best possible light. Some exhibitors remain mysterious; such entries as those for Denison, the Milligans,
Van Diemen’s Land and the Great Exhibition of 1851 23
McLachlan and more modest others indicate the channel of collection rather than the creator of the item. The Catalogue included at least one entry — having Denison’s particular esteem — that never made the Exhibition. This was a mighty Blue Gum Eucalyptus globulus plank cut at Long Bay in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and hailing from the Huon yard of eminent shipwright John Watson (pl. 3). Its size proved overwhelming. The enormous plank at its original size (length 146 ft, breadth 20 in., depth 6 in.) was too much for the Derwent and had to be transported by another vessel (Zhe Courier 15 January 1851, p. 2; Outward despatch, 23 January 1851, TA CO 280/73. The Australasia which left Hobart in late January 1851 carried a document revising the entry lists originally sent by the Derwent; this account presumably told of the plank’s trouble, but it arrived too late to be corrected in the Catalogue. The plank was last reported at Manchester, on the way hailed by the London Times as ‘supposed to be the longest ... in the world’ (Zhe Courier 17 November 1852, p. 2). Presumably, items damaged in transit which included some honey, hops and wheat/flour, also made the Catalogue but not the ‘Palace’.
CATALOGUE OF EXHIBITORS AND EXHIBITS
Withal, the Catalogue offers an insight into the fascinating and rich diversity of Tasmaniana (https://catalog.hathitrust. org/Record/001511518, 177-182), presented here under exhibitors’ names with its associated detail:
“ABBOTT, John: ‘iron-sand, a fine emery-like substance which occurs in thin layers on the sea-shores of Long Bay in D’Entrecasteaux Channel’.
ADCOCK, Mrs. Mary, Hobart: two canisters of preserved meat.
AKERS, C.S. (Royal Engineers) Lieutenant C.S.: N[orfolk] I[sland] pine.
ANDERSON (? possibly ARMSTRONG), Hobart: set of ladies’ tortoiseshell combs.
BARNARD, James, Hobart: swansdown skins.
BICHENO, J.E.: alum, found near Bridgewater; limestone from the Western Marshes ‘at a place noted for extensive caverns, and from Mount ‘Wellington foothills.
BLACKBURN, J., and THOMSON, J.: model of Bridgewater bridge, ‘constructed of Huon pine ... on the scale of an inch to a foot ... erected by the exhibitors from their own design ... constructed by W. Armstrong, under the direction of W.P. Kay ... the length of the bridge is 960 flee]t., the breadth of the roadway is 24 ft., and it is raised upon piles, the number of which is 363; the piles measure from 65 to 90 ft. each in length, and are driven through mud and soft clay ... The whole length of the bridge and causeway is 3,3312 ft. The work was begun in 1833 by Colonel, now the Right Hon Sir George Arthur, and completed in 1849 under the Government of his Excellency Sir W.T. Denison, at an entire cost of upwards of £50,000. The navigation
24
Michael Roe
’ a Lk EXGRAVED BY J. WILLIAMSOX, THE MEULDING DAAWR BY J, 1. WILLIAME; THE BORDER RY ¢ THOMAS, FROM APRAICK BY WILLIAM SANYEY, TEE WE
GIVEN WITH THE “ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS,” MAY 26, 86H.
.
PLATE 1 — The beautifully illustrated London Great Exhibition poster, which appeared in the Illustrated London News in May 1851. (Special & Rare Collections, Morris Miller Library, UTAS)
Van Diemen’s Land and the Great Exhibition of 1851 25
We Vv. BRITISH POSSESSIGAS {N AUSTRALASIA.
SIDS
EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO.—AUSTRALIA. VAN DIEMEN’S LAND.—NEW ZEALAND.
THe countries represented under this head, and above enumerated, have sent interesting collections of native produce of ditterent kinds, Of these, the collection from Van Diemen’s Land is the most extensive, com- prising objects sent by a considerable number of exhibitors, In each instance, however, the attempt lad been made to send for exhibition such articles as represented best the peculiar products of the country exhibiting. Many of the objects are of great importance tu the merchant secking a new source for known materials.—R. E.
PLATE 2 — Repute of Van Diemen’s Land in the British Colonies (Catalogue 1851, Vol 2, p. 988).
Wartsox, Joun, Hobart Torn,
346 Plank of blue gum (Fucalyplus globulus) 5 length, 146 ft., breadth, 20 in., depth, 6 in.
[The various species of Eucalyptus attain generally a yreat size both in girth and length in sheltered situations, where the forest is thick, where there is no grass, and where injury las never or very rarely been sustained froin bush-fires. Blue gum has been measured upwards of 90 feet round near Tolosa, on the northern aspect of Mount Wellington range, and on the southern side, according. to the Rey. T. J. Ewing, one of the species has been measured 102 ft. at 3 or 4 ft. from the ground. Another Eucalyptus, called stringy bark, exists near the Cam River, on the north coast, measuring 64 ft. of solid timber at -£ ft. from the ground; the tree, having some- what the form of a four-sided colunmin with its angles bevelled, is 200 ft. to the first limb, where it is estimated to be more than 4 ft. in diameter, giving the enormous cubie measurement in the trunk alone of more than 1,000 tons of timber. ]
PLATE 3 —- Information about the ‘big plank’ as recorded in the exhibition catalogue. The plank was not subsequently displayed at the exhibition due to difficulties in transport (Catalogue 1851, Vol 2, p. 999).
26 Michael Roe
of the river has been secured by the construction of a moveable platform, or rolling bridge ... The longitudinal beams upon which rests the platform or roadway of the moveable or rolling portion of the bridge, are shod with iron, and travel upon large flanged wheels, fixed upon a pier intended for the purpose, and the mode of moving this rolling part is by powerful crab-winches, working on toothed rails fixed on the framing of the bridge, worked by men standing on the moving part and moving with it. The lateral platforms are also moved in and out by crab winches fixed on the framing below.’ -[Thomson also exhibited a ‘coloured, sectional elevation’ of the mighty work.]
BONNEY, Joseph, Perth; Tasmanian birds, in case; manna, ‘an exudation from the white gum-tree ... its properties are similar too, but less powerful than those of the manna of the druggist’.
BOYD, James: Marble from Maria Island cut and dressed as paperweights. -
BROCK, Henry, Hobart: ‘common seamen’s biscuits’; ship biscuits.
BROWN, John, Launceston; blackwood sideboard; top of star loo table in Huon pine and blackwood; lady's table of muskwood.
BROWN, Fielding, Hobart: candlestick in NI ironwood, the tops from root of NI pine.
BROWN & COMPANY, Hobart: white wheat, casks in Huon pine and blackwood, with wattle hoops; oil of black whale, sperm whale, and black fish.
BROWNRIGG, Francis, Reverend: muskwood.
BURGESS, Mrs. Emma, Hobart: ‘worsted work, representing a branch from a blue gum tree in flower, with four birds of Tasmania perched on the twigs. The birds are a redbreast, a small honey-sucker, a pardalote, and the blue-headed wren. The frames of this and the next are of the timber of the myrtle-tree of Van Diemen’s Land, made by Mr. Pearson [Pierson], of Hobart Town; ‘worsted work, representing a group of indigenous flowers of Tasmania. In the centre is a waratah; immediately over it is a head of the grass-tree of Mount Wellington, in flower, then in order come Acacia vercillata, Billiardiera longiflora, Acacaia armata (an exotic), Richea Sp., Acacia mollissima, Acacia verniciflua, Casuarina quadrivalvis, Pomaderris, Boronia variabilis, Tetratheca sp.. Solanum laciniatum
BUTTON, Thomas, Launceston: dressed kangaroo skin; parchment.
BUTTON, William, Launceston: samples of glue; solution of mimosa bark (noted for its tanning efficacy); dressed kangaroo skin. 5
CHAMPION, William, Hobart: ‘round turnover table [of muskwood] with brass work and springs of Tasmanian manufacture.’ [See also Hamilton and Moses, below.]
CLAYTON, Henry, Norfolk Plains: flour, cask in wattle.
CLEBURNE, Richard., Hobart: soap.
COX, Francis: Tasmanian insects, in case.
DAVIES, Archdeacon R:R.: rug of black opossum skins; ditto, brush-kangaroo.
DEANE, DRAY, & DEANE: wheat. [This was a London
firm specialising in agricultural machinery, seemingly agents for McPherson & Francis (see below).]
DENISON: Blue gum log; stringy bark; blackwood; sassafras; myrtle; tobacco leaf (NI]); arrow-root (NI); maize (NI); cayenne pepper (NI); wheats — Farmer's friend, white velvet; James's Essex; golden drop, white Kent, mother of plenty, velvet, white Lammas (all ND); Chidham wheat; muskwood; myrtle; cedar or pencil pine; celery-topped pine; dripstone (NI); rosewood; roll of tweed (‘manufactured by the inhabitants of Cascades’ establishment’); loo-top table, dogwood; ‘pedestals for the same’; sofa-table top, chess board inlaid; rug of various furs — brush kangaroo/wallaby; forest kangaroo; black opossum; native cat (eastern quoll); tiger-cat (spotted-tail quoll); six tanned platypus skins; section of honey suckle tree; ditto, she-oak; NI maple; blue gum sections; limestone (Maria Island); calcareous grit (NI); blood juice, derived from a tree (NI); walking stick made from whale bone; coffee (NI); potash from blackwood, wattle, oak, peppermint; blue gum; red ochre from jasperous iron ore; yellow ochre; marl; white oak; pine; iron-wood (NI).
DE LITTLE, Robert, Launceston: galena from the Tamar; iron ore from York River.
DIXON, James, Isis: flax (‘this exhibitor ... is endeavouring to establish the cultivation of the flax in Tasmania’); box of dried apples (‘generally, more fruits are dried in the northern than the southern side of Van Diemen’s Land’).
DOUGLAS RIVER COAL COMPANY: two bushels of coal. .
DOWLING, Henry: Tasmanian Calendar (Woods ... Kalendar], 1848, °49, and ’50.
DUNN, Hobart: Mylitta Australis, native bread from the Snug Estate, North West Bay. “The native bread of Tasmania, which grows underground, like the truffle of England, and, like it, has a peculiar smell. It is edible. Having formed in a half-roasted state, portion of the diet of aborigines, and has been successfully tried in soup and in puddings. This specimen is unusually large, having weighed 14% lbs in 1846, at present it weighs 10% lbs’.
FENTON, Mrs. Elizabeth: honey.
FLEGG, Charles, Hobart: Wellington boots of kangaroo skin.
FOWLER, W., Maria Island: dogwood; muskwood; [s]he-oak; ironwood.
FRASER, Andrew, Hobart: pair of carriage wheels, made of blackwood and blue gum.
FREEMAN, Edward, Reverend, Brown’s River: veneers of Tasmanian oak, [s]he-oak, cherry tree, and honeysuckle tree; myrtle tree knot.
GRANT, James, Fingal (of Tullochgorum): three ram fleeces, weighing up to 4 lbs.
GUNN, William, Launceston: mutton-bird feathers (‘much used for pillows, bolsters, and mattresses’); with Alexander MILLIGAN: mutton-bird oil (‘said to possess value as a liniment in rheumatism, and it burns with a clear bright light. The sooty petrel frequents certain low sandy islands in Bass’s Straits in vast numbers during the
summer, burrowing to lay its solitary egg, and literally undermining the ground.’) HADDON, Captain W.C., Royal Engineers: muskwood. HAMILTON, William, Hobart: ‘hall chair of blackwood
with a raised shield cut on the back, kangaroo and emu _.
for supporters, surmounted by a rose, with thistle on one side and shamrock on the other;’ ‘small round table
of Huon pine with chess-board in the centre.’ [Almost ‘
certainly the maker of item under ‘Champion’ above, see Watson 1993, Lake 2009.]
HART, Charles(?), Hobart: glue; neats’ feet oil; oil from sheep trotters.
HAYNES, John, Hobart confectioner: various pickles — red cabbage, walnut, cauliflower, onions, ‘mixed’, tomato sauce.
HOOD, R.V., Hobart: silver wattle; muskwood; blackwood; Huon pine; myrtle; ‘huron [sic] pine picture frame, with gilt moulding; the gold leaf made by Mr. Hood;’ myrtlewood picture frame; ‘gold leaf, manufactured from Californian gold; gold-beaters’ skin.’ [See also, Royal Society, below.]
HULL, Hugh, Hobart: ‘Half section of the trunk of the Tolosa tree (Pittiiscorum bicolar). This is the wood of which the aborigines made their waddies or clubs.’ [See also J. Milligan, below.]
INCE, W.H., London: ‘A list of Australian birds, belonging to the late John Matthew Robert Ince, Esq., commander of H.M.S. “Pilot,” and collected during the surveying service of H.M.S. “Fly”. [There followed a 43-strong listing. “These specimens illustrate the ornithology of Van Diemen’s Land as well as that of the Great Main of New Holland, said the Catalogue, and expert advice (D. Abbott, pers. comm.) suggests that but few items were of Tasmanian provenance. Ince died soon after his Tasmanian sojourn, his father evidently instigating the exhibit].
JENNINGS, T.D., Hobart: Huon pine churn.
KEMP, George: cornelian, from the shore ‘opposite Hobart’.
KERMODE, R.Q., Mona Vale: fine wool.
LIPSCOMBE, Frederick, Hobart: white Lammas wheat; dressed flax; ham (‘cured by Mr. Marshall’); Huon pine table.
LOWES, T:Y., Hobart: Mylitta Australis [native bread], obtained at Glenorchy seventeen years ago; shark oil.
LUMSDEN, Andrew, Hobart: loo table-top, Huon pine, and pedestal.
McLACHLAN, Charles: specimen of ‘silicised’ [silicified] wood. “This magnificent tree was discovered on the estate of Richard Barker, Esq. of Macquarie Plains; ... it was 12 ft. high, and imbedded in lava, and distinctly surrounded by two flows of scoria, which at some distant day had brought out the juices of the tree to its surface, and because by a combination of silex [silica], completely vitrified, and surrounded the tree with a glossy surface, the interior of the tree producing opal wood. On a minute examination of the wood by Dr. [Joseph Dalton] Hooker, when here in the “Erebus,” it has been discovered to be a species of tree not growing in the neighbourhood, and appears to be of
Van Diemen’ Land and the Great Exhibition of 1851 27
the pine or coniferous species. It is conjectured it was originally thrown up by an eruption of a volcano to a considerable height and came down with its heavy end first upon a bed of sand and had there remained for ages. In describing the tree he says: — “The manner in which the outer layers of wood, when exposed by the removal of the bark, separate into the ultimate fibres of which it is composed, forming an amianthus-like mass on the ventricle of the stump in one place, and covering the ground with a white powder commonly called native pounce, is very curious.” It is 10 ft. high, and when first discovered 3 ft. 6 ins. diameter, and has been excavated at very considerable expense and labour and was in a perfectly perpendicular position on the point of a ridge of rocks.”
McKENZIE, Mrs. Flora, Bothwell: knitted gloves and lady’s cape of opossum fur.
McNAUGHTAN, Alexander, Hobart: velvet wheat, white wheat; ‘superfine flour’; muskwood; writing desk and dressing case, both made of muskwood, inlaid with blackwood, she-oak, and myrtle.
McPHERSON & FRANCIS, Hobart: wheat sample, ‘weighing 65% lbs. per imperial bushel’. [John McPherson and James Francis ran a provedore business; Francis seems the likely grower.]
MARRIOTT, Archdeacon E.A.: muskwood picture frame; walking-stick of Tasmania oak.
MARSHALL, George, Pittwater: wheat and oats.
MARSHALL, Hobart: whip and whip-thongs.
MILLIGAN, Alexander: ‘biscuit, manufactured of Tasmanian flour.’ [See also ‘Gunn’, above.]
MILLIGAN, Joseph: Sassafras bark (‘used medicinally as a bitter and a stomachic’); hones for edged tools; resin of the grass-tree (‘highly inflammable, yielding, on combustion, a clear white flame and rich fragrant odour, ... said to be used in churches in place of frankincense; it dyes calico a nankin colour, and may become the basis of a varnish ... very abundant in Flinders Island and neighbouring islands’); cross section of trunk of ironwood Lignum vitae (‘the density and hardness of this wood is such as to have led to its application in making sheaves for ships’ blocks’); carpenter’s bench-screw; three pairs of shoe-lasts; ‘necklaces of shells, as worn by the aborigines of Tasmania (The shell composing these necklaces seems to be closely related to the Phasianella. It is very abundant in the various bays and sinuosities of the island. It possesses a nacreous brilliant lustre, which is disclosed by removal of the cuticle, and this the aborigines’ effect by soaking in vinegar, and using friction. Various tints, black, blue, and green, are afterwards given by boiling with tea, charcoal, &c.)’; all three volumes of the Zasmanian Journal |of Natural History]; snuff box, ironwood; ditto, muskwood; ditto, Huon pine; ditto (‘globular’), from tooth of a sperm whale; ladies’ thread-holder, turned; ladies’ puff-box, turned; goblet, turned; ‘section of Richea pandanifolia, obtained Macquarie Harbour ... sliced, bevelled, and French-polished, to show the pith, medullary, rays and beautiful markings ... grows like a palm and attains
28 Michael Roe
the height of thirty to forty feet;’, Macquarie Harbour pinkwood (‘attains an elevation of from 100 to 150 feet, ... chiefly on the western side of the island... fine-grained and very hard, ... used for making sheaves’ for ships’ blocks’); Huon pine butter-churn; ‘seven baskets made by the aborigines of Tasmania; four models of Aboriginal canoes made of the bark of Melalueca squarrosa which the natives used to cross to Brune Island,’ ‘model of a water-pitcher, made by the aborigines ... of the broad- leaved kelp, and is large enough to hold a quart or two of water. The only other vessel possessed by the aborigines for carrying a supply of water was a sea-shell, a large cymba, occasionally cast upon the northern shore of Van Diemen’s Land, which contained about a quart’.
With Hugh HULL: kino from various eucalypts, ‘said to be equal, as a medicinal agent, to the kino from the East Indies.’
MOSES, Samuel, Hobart: ‘jaw of a sperm whale, with forty-eight teeth; whalebone, ‘an important export.’ MOSES, CHAMPION & Co: eight sperm whale teeth. MURRAY, William, Hobart: box of starch (‘there are now several starch manufactories in Hobart Town.’); box of
Huon pine; mould candles.
OAKDEN, Philip, Launceston: two Leicester fleeces (‘the produce of sheep imported from the best flocks in England in 1837, is exhibited to show the improvement in the softness and silky appearance of the fleece, which is attributed to the climate.)
PATTERSON, Hobart: malt, cask in wattle.
PECK, George: cribbage boards, veneered and inlaid.
PEARSON, Leonard, Hobart: pier table of polished blackwood. [See also Burgess, above.] ;
QUEEN’S ORPHAN SCHOOLS: woollen gloves; woollen socks and stockings; knitted shawl.
QUINN, M., Hobart: polished blue gum; maple veneer.
REES (REEVES?): ‘wattle-bark, chopped, as it is prepared for the tan-pits’.
REEVES, I.G., Hobart: various leather samples including skins of kangaroo and calf; leather racks in horse (‘cordovan’) hide; ‘skin-wool’. [See also Royal Society, below:]
REGAN, John, Hobart: Nine dressed kangaroo skins, tanned with wattle bark.
RICHARDSON BROTHERS & CO, London: two wool specimens.
ROBINSON, Charles, Westbury: gun-stock of polished blackwood.
ROLWEGAN, George, Hobart: ‘Book printed and published in Van Diemen’s Land, bound in colonial calf, gilt and letter with gold leaf manufactured in Hobart Town from Californian gold.” [This evidently was the first volume of the Royal Society’s Papers, further noticed below.]
ROUT, William, Hobart: cheese; honey; linen; leather portmanteau; rope lines; four brushes. ‘Tanned skins with the hair on of the Thylacinus cynocephalus.’ “The thylacine is peculiar to Van Diemen’s Land, and as its ravages amongst the flocks of the settlers are as destructive as those of the wolf in other countries, it is hunted down with great perseverance, and will probably be the first of
existing quadrupeds which will be extirpated.’ ‘Six tanned skins of the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus. The platypus of the colonists.’ ‘Combines with the hair and fur of a mammalian quadruped, the webbed feet and the beak of a duck, while the male has spurs on its legs like a cock. In its internal anatomy ... offers many resemblances to both birds and reptiles and forms the nearest link in the mammalian series to the oviparous classes;’ horsehair; honey; beeswax; ‘in no country, it is supposed do bees thrive better than in Van Diemen’s Land ... now become naturalized in the forests, and many of the hollow trees are filled with the produce’.
(COUNCIL OF) ROYAL SOCIETY OF VAN DIEMEN’S LAND: Volume One of its Papers and Proceedings. ‘Printed by Messrs. Best, and bound by Mr. Rolwegan, Collins Street, Hobart Town. The lithographs by Mr. Thomas Brown[e], Macquarie Street ... Bound in colonial calf skin, tanned and dressed by Mr. Reeves. Gilt and lettered with gold leaf, manufactured from Californian gold, by Mr. Hood, Collins Street, Hobart Town.’
SCREEN, William, Hobart, ex-mariner publican: walking- stick, of whale bone, ‘with round head and cut to resemble a man-rope knot’.
SHARLAND, Mrs. Frances, George Town: ‘pressed algae, collected by the exhibitor’.
SHARLAND, W-S. [as agent of female kin?]: ‘carriage-rug made of skins of the black opossum, lined with skins of the native cat;’ ‘thread lace, made by a girl eleven years of age.’
SLY, James, Hobart: pair of dress boots, in kangaroo skin and bullock hide.
SMITH, C.T:: hops; fine wool; cheese.
SMITH, Philip, Ross: wool.
SMITH, Naval Lieutenant: jams — raspberry and currant, green gooseberry, red gooseberry, quince; Epsom salts; wattle-tree gum from near Mount Dromedary (‘equal to the gum-arabic of the shops).
STRACHAN, Richard, Bonnington: two boxes of salt.
STRUTT, William, Hobart: Marble from Maria Island, partially dressed.
SYMONDS, E., Hobart: corn, barley, willow rods, ‘fire- screen for chair back,’ of willow, locally grown, dressed and dyed; bottle basket; fishing basket; double-handed baskets; book basket; knife basket; child’s basket; key basket, open basket, long basket, straw (from NI) hat; sieve hoop of Huon pine.
TIBBS, Charles: Hobart: crockery from Hobart’s Domain clay.
TOOTH, Edwin, Bagdad: malt; lambs’ wool gloves.
VALENTINE, William., Campbell Town: “Three pieces of Huron [sic] pine, bored in the solid piece, with stops &c. (Two of these are bored in solid pine and are found to yield a softer and more mellow tone than those made of wood not so hard in the grain. It is considered that the tube, being free from joints and glue, and made of very durable wood, when properly seasoned, will be little influenced by atmospheric changes. The small pipe has a stopper, which being removed, an octave above will
be produced. The stopped pipe is regarded as a novelty;
it gives a very soft note, well adapted for the treble half of the stop-dispance [diapason] of a chamber-organ. The third is exhibited to show how an open pipe of the usual construction may be tuned by means of a stopper, without injury to its use.)’.
VON STIEGLITZ, Mrs. Anne, Break O’ Day: lady’s cape
of possum fur.
WALKER, Abraham, Norfolk Plains: plumbago (black —
lead); ‘found ... in a shaft where lodes of lead and copper are expected to be realised’.
WALKER, John, Hobart: pearl barley; fine flour; white wheat; casks by a Hobart cooper named Johnson.
WARD, Charles, Hobart: ‘Bushman’s ankle-boots, of colonial material; shoe-blacking.
WATCHORN, William, Hobart: tallow (‘The exhibitor claims to have been the first to export tallow to England from the colony;’ see below).
WATSON, John, Hobart: plank of blue gum, 146 feet by twenty inches by six inches. “Ihe various species of Eucalyptus attain generally a great size in girth and length in sheltered situations ... Blue gum has been measured upwards of 90 feet round near Tolosa, on the northern aspects of Mount Wellington range, and on the southern side ... 102 ft. at 3 or 4 ft. from the ground. Another Eucalyptus, called stringy bark, exists near the Cam River, on the north coast, measuring 64 ft. of solid timber at 4 ft. from the ground; the tree, having somewhat the form of a four-sided column with its angles bevelled, is 200 ft. to the first limb, where it is estimated to be more than 4 ft. in diameter, giving the enormous cubic measurement in the trunk alone of more than 1,000 tons of timber.’)
WHITESIDES, James, Hobart: polished blackwood; myrtlewood; muskwood (Lake 2009).
WISEMAN, John, Hobart: whip, ‘thong of colonial leather, and the stick a young sassafras of Tasmania; ‘two ladies’ riding whips of whalebone, tipped with silver by Mr. [Charles] Jones; whip for stock-hunting; stock-hunter’s saddle; stock-hunter’s breastplate.
NOTABLE ITEMS
In the gaze of eternity, premier position must go to an item that scarcely met criteria for exhibition — the ‘silicised wood’ appearing under Charles McLachlan’s name (pl. 4). The renowned J.D. Hooker was in Hobart as a member of the Erebus Antarctic venture in 1841, and this wood came to be discussed between him and Charles Darwin (Darwin 1845). McLachlan might have gone to pains to secure it for the Exhibition but exactly when the item was removed to London is unclear.
It transpired that ancient Vandiemonian timber won display, as did various specimens of the colony's latter- day timber. They received approval, notwithstanding the absence of John Watson’s mighty plank. Perhaps yet more attractive were the items of art/craft in wood. William Hamilton is famed as a maker of fine furniture and the Catalogue’s notice of his exhibited chair told of its splendid
Van Diemen’s Land and the Great Exhibition of 1851 29
conflation of imperial and local symbols. This style was to be adopted as its (continuing) insignia by the first Hobart municipal council — as explained below, a pro- Denison group, upheld by the ex-convict interest and
- its sympathisers. Hamilton was a free migrant, but that
he allied with the municipal council’s backers is further hinted by another work of his being exhibited by its owner, William Champion — very much a Tasmanian Union man, ex-convict and publican. The liquor interest was strong behind the Union, Champion's pub notable too for being a centre of local trade unionism, a modest but interesting element in the social mix.
Another free-migrant furniture-maker to exhibit was Andrew Lumsden. Britain’s ‘Antiques Road Show’ television program reported that the table he exhibited in 1851 went spurned for decades, but that after its television appearance on the program it returned to Australia and was valued at up to £150 000 (Tassell & Morris-Nunn 1984, pp. 109-110; Crouch 1994). A similar Lumsden table brought some £30 in early 1960s Hobart and and fetched a thousand times that in 2011 (author’s knowledge). One Launceston furniture-maker to exhibit was the talented John Brown, who in 1849 had proposed that his fellow-craftsmen
should exhibit their wares in Britain. Of other exhibits in
wood the most intriguing is William Valentine’s ‘Huron’ pine organ-work.
Two ‘gentry’ ladies of local birth and Denisonian affinity presented items celebrating nature. The appeal of Emma Burgess’s tapestry was embellished by a frame from another skilled wood craftsman, Leonard Pearson. Emma was born in 1827, daughter of James Ross, once the teacher of George Arthur’s children and a commanding journalist of the colony’s earlier days; her husband, Murray, was the son of a senior bureaucrat and himself able in like service. Frances (Schaw) Sharland was the daughter of an old-Eton soldier turned Arthurian administrator, and wife of W.S. Sharland, Legislative Councillor allied to the Governor. Her algae won ‘unbounded admiration’ from British savants. The Sharlands’ daughter Julia (born 1837) was the likely eleven-year-old thread-lacer, and if so, then she was another native-born exhibitor. Anne von Stieglitz, Elisabeth Fenton and Flora McKenzie ranked among ‘gentry’, but were of overseas birth.
The girls from the Orphan School who contributed their handicrafts added to the story of femininity (and presumably native birth). Other pertinent women were inmates of the Cascades ‘women’s prison’ whose tweed appeared under Denison’s name — the sole obvious convict contribution, although that was not spelt out. The preserved meats of Mrs Adcock, illiterate spouse of a Hobart ‘pork butcher’, might seem a mundane offering, yet a London journalist saw them as promising Australia’s capacity to boost the livelihood of British workers, and her produce won further praise (Zhe Courier 4 February 1852, p. 4). For posterity, much more important were items entered by Joseph Milligan, as Superintendent of the Aboriginal station at Oyster Cove. Aboriginal women surely had the greater part in making the baskets, shell necklaces and kelp water-pail (pl. 5), but like the
30 Michael Roe
Orphanage girls and Cascades women (and the putative Sharland daughter too), they were all anonymous. Leatherware’s chief protagonist was I.G. Reeves, who claimed in May 1851 that the product had garnered £30 000 in exports through the past year. A free migrant, Reeves was ultra-active in pro-Denison politics; the speech exalting leather (and also citing the Exhibition as an ‘imperishable monument of the industrial arts’) belonged to that story. Reeves further appeared in the Catalogue for his calf-skin binding of the Royal Society Papers. After leaving the
island he won election to Victoria’s Legislative Assembly.
PRAISE FOR THE COLONY
That Tasmania's effort achieved Denison’s purpose has been this paper’s theme, and various commentators spoke to appropriate effect. Prime among them was Secretary of State Earl Grey. Speaking in the House of Lords, on 9 May 1851, Grey said of the island, ‘considering its population it
made a better show than any other colony that we possessed’ (House of Lords Historical Hansard 9 May 1851; Denison & Denison 2004, p. 161). Lady Denison remarked on being ‘mightily pleased at this, partly because I am very anxious for the honour and credit of this colony, but chiefly because I think it is in great measure due to William that we have succeeded so well’.
Less partial opinion yet echoed Grey's approval. Overall, the Empire did not rally all that strongly to the Exhibition, succumbing to such difficulties as the Earl himself had seen likely to disbar Van Diemen’s Land (Hollingshead 1862, Auerbach & Hoffenberg 2008). Sheer bulk showed the island’s effort — thence came 80 ‘packages’ to London as against, for example, 12 from New South Wales, and 29 from South Australia. Occupation of space in the Crystal Palace echoed these statistics, and the story went beyond numbers. A Sydney Morning Herald correspondent from London told that ‘We must give our sister Tasmania the pas, whether as regards the number of her contributors or the ability and care with which the descriptive part has been
McLactitay, —. 348 Specimens of silicized woud from Van Diemen's
Land,
(This magnificent tree was discovered on the estate of Richard Barker, E=q., of Macquarie Plains, Van: Diemen's Land, 32 miles from the City of Hobart Town, in the district of New Norfolk; it was 12 ft. hivh, and invbedded in lava, and distinctly surrounded by two flows of scoria, which at some distant day had brought out the juices of the tree to its surface, and became by a combination of silex, completely vitrified, and surrounded the tree with a glossy surface, the interior of the tree producing opal woud. On a minute examination of the wood by Dr. Hooker, when here in the “ Erebus,” it las been dix covered to be a species of tree not growing in the neighbourhood, and appears to be of the pine or coni- ferous species. It is conjectured it was orisinally thrown up by an eruption of a voleano to a considerable height, and came down with its heavy end first upona bed of sand, and hac there remained for ages, In deserihing the tree he says :—“ The manner in which the outer Tay ers of wo nd, when exposed by the removal of the bark, separate into the ultimate fibres of which it is composed, forming an amianthus-like mass on the ventricle of the stump in one place, and covering the ground with a white powder commonly called native pounce, is very curivus.” It is 10 tt. high, and when first discovered, 3 ft. 6 ins. diameter, and has been excavated at very considerable expense nnd labour, und was in a perfectly perpendicular position on
the point of a ridge of rocks. ]
PLATE 4 a The exhibits of silicised (petrified) wood attracted much attention; the magnificent specimens were Originally collected from Macquarie Plains near New Norfolk (Catalogue 1851, Vol 2, p. 999).
executed.’ London’s Morning Herald made a like colonial comparison and judged that “Van Diemen’s Land has a much larger and more varied display and has already made considerable advances in native manufactures’. Another London voice declared that “Van Diemen’s Land sends by far the most complete and valuable collection from the Australian colonies, while The Illustrated London News
affirmed that “Van Diemen’s Land makes a gay display of
fancy woods and possum skins’. A further commentator praised the colony’s advance in ‘native manufactures’, somewhat surprised that ‘worsted work should be sent to the Exhibition from the antipodes’. Scientific luminaries applauded Milligan’s work as presenting ‘the most clearly arranged and the most explanatory of all the catalogues’, while a popular Guide to the Great Exhibition affirmed that the Vandiemonian display:
... is most satisfactorily abundant in its ocular evidences
of civilization. Their cloths, preserved meats (beef-steak
to wit! [Mrs Adcock’ second hit]), enamelled hides
and excellent furniture, almost equalling our own for
make and taste of execution, are triumphant proof of
the progress of knowledge and industry over brute force
and self-contented un-intellectuality.
(Routledge & Co 1851, pp. 121-122)
Appropriate to all this was John Tallis’s inclusion of a stunning map of Tasmania in the newly published //ustrated Atlas and Modern History of the World, celebrating the Exhibition (Tallis & Martin 1851, p. 59).
Van Diemen’ Land and the Great Exhibition of 1851 31
ABORIGINAL CONCERNS
At least one British voice was different, protesting the fate of the island’s ‘now extinct Aborigines’: In our forty years possession of that settlement we have utterly destroyed them, by as atrocious a series of oppressions as ever were perpetrated by the unscrupulous strong upon the defenceless feeble. Yer these poor people had tastes and industry too. Their bread appears to be worth reviving as a new truffle for soup by the gourmands of Hobart Town. The specimen of the root exhibited weighs 14lb. They obtained a brilliant shell necklace by soaking and rubbing off the cuticle, and gaining various tints by hot decoctions of herbs. They procured paint by burning iron ore and reducing it to powder by grindstones. They converted sea-shells and sea-weeds into convenient water-vessels; they wove baskets and they constructed boats with safe catamarans. All these things are exhibited. Surely, then, the men whom their greedy supplanters admit to have done this, and whom the least possible pains ever bestowed upon them proved to be capable of much more, ought not to have been hunted down, as we know they were, and then almost inveigled to be shut up in an island too small for even the few remaining. (The Courier 3
September 1851, p. 3, quoting from The Illustrated London News 24 May 1851)
This remarkable piece appeared in The Illustrated London News, and duly in Hobart’s The Courier — without comment, a loud silence.
PLATE 5 — Model canoe and kelp water-pitcher made by Tasmanian Aborigines and sent by J. Milligan to the Great Exhibition. Associated information provided with the images. A. Model canoe, or catamaran, made from Melaleuca squarossa [tea-tree] and Leptospermum [paper bark] bark. Made from bundles of bark, tied together with plant fibres. Both tips are broken with one tip detached. Height 26.40 cm, width 16.50 cm, depth: 78.20 cm. The model was exhibited at the 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, London: catalogue number 282. B. Water vessel made of Bull Kelp (Durvillaea potatorum) consisting of a single piece of dark brown coloured kelp. Sides are gathered together, and wooden sticks passed through the folds, preserving its shape. Handle is of twisted fibre, knotted together near the centre. British Museum Asset number 1613713295, image released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
32 Michael Roe
MEDALS AND AWARDS
The honours-awarding juries ignored such tragedy and awarded medals and certificates (Report of the Commissioners 1852). The Exhibition Medal was reported to be one of the most magnificent ever produced by the celebrated firm of Allen and Moore from Birmingham (Hobarton Guardian 22 October 1851, p. 3), (pl. 6). A consolidated list of locals appeared in The Courier (14 May 1853, p. 3), although some ambiguities remain (Royal Society of Tasmania 1854, pp. 490-492). Probably Tasmania's overall record was barely above average—yet that sufficed. Denison and Milligan both received ‘Prize Medals’ for their services, and further ones for their contribution: minerals and rocks specified in the former instance and ‘raw materials’ in the latter (doubtless referring primarily to timber, but ‘his’ Norfolk Island pepper also scored at this level). Further prize medallists were Boyd, Brownrigg, Douglas River Coal Company, Dowling, Fowler, Hadden, Hood, McNaughtan, McPherson & Francis, Alexander Milligan (as agent for W.B. Dean—see below) and Whitesides. Honourable Mentions went to Akers, Boyd, Brown & Company, W. Button, Denison (for Norfolk Island’s arrowroot and blood-juice), Dixon, Euston, Freeman, Grant, Hull (woods), Lipscombe (for both his own flax and Marshall’s ham exhibited by him), J. Milligan (for unspecified ‘produce’), Moses, Murray, Quinn, Rolwegan, Rout, Smith (the Naval man, for his gum), Tooth (for his malt) and J. Walker. Then came ‘Exhibitor’s Medals’ which were bestowed upon Adcock, Armstrong, Barnard, Bicheno, Brown, T. Button, Champion, Cleburne, Fraser, Dixon, Gunn, Hamilton, Hood, Hull, Kermode, Lowes, McKenzie, G. Marshall, Moses, Murray, Patterson, Pearson, Marriott, Peck, Reeves, Robinson, C.T. Smith, P. Smith, Strutt, W.S. Sharland, Symonds, Thomson, Tibbs, Valentine, A. Walker, J. Walker, Ward, Wiseman. Virtually all the rest got a certificate. One went even to non-exhibitor John Watson while the Bridgewater model was ignored. Further lessening confidence in the judges is their placing in the lowest category such people as Lumsden, Frances Sharland and George Rolwegan.
‘The jurors’ commentary rarely went beyond the obvious (major citations included minerals generally and Douglas River coal especially; wheat, flour and biscuit; flax and apples; pickles, sauces, resin and gums; Norfolk Island products including ‘blood juice’ as dye-stuff, honey; woods generally, walking sticks and snuff boxes). One near exception lay in praising Denison and others for a ‘very remarkable and interesting collection of the woods of Van Diemen’s Land’. Specifically praised was the blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) — ‘the beauty of this fine wood is admirably shown in some of the articles of furniture, in which its dark hue is well contrasted with the equally beautiful light wood of the Huon pine’. The variety of materials used for snuff-boxes provoked comment, with a side-remark that whale-teeth were also used for ‘stick-heads and similar purposes’. Applause for Norfolk Island’s produce extended to its coffee, ‘a most desirable novelty’. It went thus for McPherson & Francis’s wheat and Dean's biscuit, the latter’s excellence contrasted with
poor British stuff recently being supplied to naval ships and convict transports. (Before migrating, Dean had made biscuit at the Royal Arsenal, Deptford.) A further reference cited ‘good, dried apples grown in the colony’ obviously Dixon’s; pickles and sauces, obviously Haynes’s, also were commended. While gaining no award, Ince’s ornithology was cited as an exemplar of ‘cultivation of science by the officers of the British Navy’.
Another verdict honoured nutriment of the mind (Report of the Commissioners 1852, p. 407, complemented at p. 426 (Rolwegan’s bookbinding) and p. 452). “The jury have examined, with real interest, several works printed in Van Diemen’s Land, at Hobart Town, several of them by Henry Dowling, such as the Tasmanian Journal [of Natural Science], went a soliloquy; ‘Print is a gift almost as necessary to man as speech, for the manifestation of his thoughts’. An almost-explicit message went that the distant colony had recognised such profundity, whereas overall like work made a poor showing at the Exhibition. In mistaking Dowling’s home-place, the jurors failed to recognise this major contribution from Launceston. Their compliment presumably embraced the Royal Society's first Papers, printed by Dowling and melding skills of ‘Daguerreotype and Lithographic Artist’ Thomas Browne, the similarly expert R.V. Hood, and bookbinder Rolwegan (its putative exhibitor), not to mention learned authors. All were heroes of Vandiemonian culture.
AFTERMATH
After its amazing success, the London Exhibition closed on 15 October 1851 and Tasmanian exhibits (like all others) had to be deployed. Queen Victoria accepted the Royal Society's Papers (see Examiner 31 March 1852; receipt of thanks from British Museum and Linnaean Society at Royal Society meetings, February and July 1852; Examiner 22 May 1852 (Geological Society), Examiner 31 March 1852 (proposed ‘National Museum’); Report of the Commissioners 1852, pp. 165-171 has material relating to a proposed “Trade Collection’, seemingly the founding idea behind the Sydenham project; an extensive list of promised items from Tasmania appears). Minerals went to the Geological Society of London, other items to the Linnaean Society, the British Museum, and the display that continued in the Crystal Palace when re-located (until 1936) to suburban Sydenham. Today the British Museum holds at least the ‘silicised wood’ and most of the Aboriginal artefacts. ‘To see those [objects] that were made by people during colonial times raises our spirits and warms our being, Patsy Cameron said of the latter when they toured Australia in 2014 (https://www. nma.gov.au/exhibitions/encounters). After the exhibition on their return, the shell necklaces were included in an ‘Indigenous Australia’ exhibition at the British Museum. Charles McLachlan probably was happy to deal with Prestigious disposals, but rank-and-file items proved burdensome (TA CSO 24/1/173/5010). Exhibitors had been asked in advance whether they wanted their goods to be sold or to name recipients in Britain. Sales were
Van Diemen’s Land and the Great Exhibition of 1851 33
PLATE 6 — The Bronze Exhibitor Medal awarded to many exhibitors. Medal held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (size 44 mm diameter, Accession number 1469). (Image from https://shapingtasmania.tmag.tas.gov.au/object.aspx?ID=80)
negligible, save that one table (almost certainly Lumsden’s) brought £5. Denison’s hopes for benefit to orphan children doubtless withered. McLachlan wrote in November that he had been sending off remittances ‘down to the pair of boots for “Elizabeth Brown at the Shoulder of Mutton, opposite St Andrew’s Church, Ipswich, England”’. All this had incurred some £100 debt. He had distributed copies of Milligan’s Catalogue data to various parties ‘interested in the welfare of the colony and concluded (in telling words) that Canada stood first in the list and Van Diemen’s Land second, in the productions from the British Colonies, but both had a political object in view, the former to induce Emigrants to go to that Colony, the latter to show what a Convict Colony can do ... I have now closed the (to me) very troublesome matter, in which there has been a great deal of work with but little thanks from any quarter. (McLachlan, TA CSO 24/1/173/5010)
Thanks, however, did come fromi the Royal Society of,
Tasmania, and expenses were met. Another sour note in McLachlan’s letter told that award of prizes had caused such ill-feeling as to make the Commissioners regret having so embarked. If the judges’ grading of Tasmaniana was indicative, critics had reason for complaint.
As the Exhibition proceeded in London, it kept a place in Vandiemonian affairs. At a massive anti-transportation meeting in July 1851 John West deplored that at the Crystal Palace there ‘would be concentrated the productions of the labour of free men in [all] the quarters of the globe, except a few contributions from Van Diemen’s Land’ (The Courier 16 July 1851, pp. 1-3, 1 October 1851, p. 2 (‘rhetoric’); Tasmanian Colonist 20 November 1851, p. 1 (Watchorn)). Whereas Lady Denison enthused at Earl Grey’s applause for local effort, The Courier disparaged it: ‘to such paltry shifts
of rhetoric are our rulers driven to find a defence of their
policy’. The paper to give most regard to the Exhibition was a newcomer, the Hobarton Guardian, owned by John Davies as he became a hero among erstwhile convicts. October 1851 saw the anti-Denisonians victorious at the first polls for a part-elective Legislative Council. (An unsuccessful candidate was William Watchorn, whose tallow appeared at the Exhibition. A campaign lithograph presented Watchorn as ‘Old Greasy’. Ata campaign meeting Watchorn ‘asked if his name was to be vilified and abused for sending to the Great Exhibition the fat of the land’. Here he was interrupted by tremendous peals of laughter’).
The new legislature soon heard criticism of the Royal Society for being ‘exclusive’, the Society’s link with Denison probably feeding this animus. Yet 1852 added to the Exhibition’s honour. Early February heard news of awards to locals of ‘prize medals’ (Zhe Courier 15 September 1852, p.3, and 17 November 1852, p. 2). Public lectures applauded the Exhibition as evidence of a ‘growing spirit of universal philanthropy and benevolence’ and ‘progress of civilization, refinement, and social happiness.’ In September the actual medals arrived, honoured at a Royal Society meeting for ‘beauty, ... elegance, ... high finish’. Local talk, perhaps well-founded, now declared W.B. Dean’s biscuit and McPherson & Francis’s wheat to have ranked superior above all Exhibition competitors.
Political action went in step. September—October 1852 saw the organising of a massive petition that told the Colonial Office of support for Denison. Now, too, Victoria’s legislature passed an Act forbidding entry thither of conditionally pardoned ex-convicts (Petrow 2012). Hobart’s pro-Denisonians responded with furious and justified vehemence. One mighty protest saw the Governor and his lady attend, to massive cheers. “The arrangements ... were looked upon by our colonists much in the same light as the people of England viewed the Great Exhibition,’ one
34 Michael Roe
organiser said, nicely linking that event with local politics (Hobarton Guardian 18 December 1852, pp. 2-3). The protest belonged to a campaign by pro-Denison, anti- transportation candidates for the first election of municipal councils in Hobart and Launceston. On 2 January this party triumphed in the capital.
Although news might have percolated earlier, not until May 1853 did there come the remaining medals and certificates, together with (for every exhibitor) books of jurors’ reports (Report of the Commissioners 1852, The Courier 14 May 1853, pp. 2-3, Denison & Denison 2004, p- 213). The generally distributed item was a compacted First Report of the Commissioners 1852 published by Clowes and Sons, London. Presentation sets comprised a four- volume version of the Catalogue, four of Reports of the Juries, plus First Report of the Commissioners (The Courier 17 December 1853, p. 2). In September, Lady Denison wrote of yet further bounty: ‘a most beautiful illustrated catalogue and history of the great Exhibition, in eight or nine immense volumes splendidly bound ... we have had so much amusement in looking over these beautiful books before transferring them to the public library.’ (Denison & Denison 2004, p. 213). The items remain phenomenal — enormous, and luxuriant in gilt, plush, leather, and illustration. The series was displayed at a Royal Society meeting in December 1853, together with a case holding samples of the various award medals. Three of the giant books remain in the State Library of Tasmania and the medal case remains at TMAG.
Against these positives there stood a story illustrating the tensions that Charles McLachlan had told to follow from prize awards. As already shown, the fine Exhibition biscuit made by Launceston baker-businessman W.B. Dean was submitted under the name of Alexander Milligan, Secretary of the northern committee. When prize medals arrived in September 1852 one was designated for Milligan. He might have thought he had earned it, but Dean demanded what indeed was /is award, threatening physical force and legal action. Milligan soon forwarded the medal, with apology. Dean continued angry and the issue revived in mid-1853 after the arrival of those further rewards. Milligan again kept what Dean saw as due to himself, and resiled only after more lawyer-talk. All this Milligan told to the Launceston Examiner, which had broached the issue in terms sympathetic to Dean (Launceston Examiner 28 June 1853, p.5, 2 July 1853, p. 672).
The alliance between Denison and commoners lasted throughout his term. Its later stages saw the ‘Oddfellows’ Friendly Society become important in bonding such Hobart people as had earlier joined the Tasmanian Union and voted the winning municipal ticket. Current Oddfellows’ head was Charles Jones, ex-convict, skilled silversmith, publican and contributor — via Wiseman’s whips — to the Exhibition (O’Driscoll 1987). While already patron of the Oddfellows, Denison was inducted as a member just before leaving the island in January 1855 to become Governor of New South Wales and Governor-General of the Australian colonies, the Exhibition chapter perhaps helping to win
him such promotion. Venue for the Oddfellows’ induction was Government House, with Jones officiating: so strange Van Diemen’s Land could be! Oddfellows dominated the continuing farewells to the Governor and surely gave much of a £2000 testimonial now presented to him. The money duly funded what Denison described as ‘a very magnificent silver centre-piece embodying in addition to the old stereotyped forms, groups characteristic of the employment of the people or of the nature of the productions of the country’ (meaning Tasmania). Whaler, shepherd, sawyer, splitter, ploughman, kangaroo, emu, platypus, ‘sassafras and other native shrubs’ — all were there. The motifs were chosen by Denison, their resonance with the Exhibition
quite likely deliberate.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Sincere appreciation is extended to Professor Stefan Petrow for critiquing the manuscript and to Ms Heather Excell and Ms Wendy Rimer, Special & Rare Collections UTAS, for provision of plate 1 and sourcing some references. The Royal Society of Tasmania records are held at Special & Rare Collections, Library and Cultural Collections, University of Tasmania. Tasmanian Archives (TA) records are held by Libraries Tasmania.
REFERENCES
Auerbach, J.A. & Hoffenberg, P.H. (eds) 2008: Britain, the Empire, and the World at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot: 238 pp.
Catalogue 1851: Official descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851. Four Volumes. Spicer Brothers, London: 3268 pp. (Available at: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32 044021206354 &view=lup&seq=7 &skin=2021)
Crouch, C. 1994: James Lumsden, master cabinetmaker and the 1851 Great Exhibition. Australiana 16(3): 64-67.
Darwin, C.R. 1845: Letter from Darwin, C.R. to Hooker, J.D. 7 January 1845. (Available at: hteps://www.darwinproject. ac.uk/letter/DCP-LET T-814.xml)
Denison, W.T. & Denison, C. 2004: (Davis, R. & Petrow, S., eds) Varieties of Vice Regal Life (Van Diemens Land Section). Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart: 298 pp.
Hollingshead, J. 1862: A Concise History of the International Exhibition of 1851. Her Majesty's Commissioners, London: 184 pp.
Lake, R. 2009: Tasmania furniture history sources. Australiana 31(4): 29-32.
O’Driscoll, B.Y. 1987: Charles Jones, convict silversmith of Van Diemen’s Land. Australiana 9(1): 19-24.
Petrow, S. 2012: Convict-phobia: Combating Vandiemonian convicts in 1850s and 1860s Victoria. Journal of Australian Colonial History 14: 260-71.
Report of the Commissioners 1852: Reports by the Juries on the subjects in the thirty classes into which the exhibition was divided. Spicer Brothers, wholesale stationers; W. Clowes and Sons, contractors to the Royal Commission, Blackfriars, London: 1024 pp. (Available at: https://archive.org/details/ reportsbyjurieso00grea)
Roe, M. 2016: The establishment of local self-government in Hobart and Launceston. Tasmanian Historical Research Association Papers 63: 24-50.
Routledge, G. & Co. 1851: A Guide to the Great Exhibition. Soho Square, London: 231 pp. (Available at: https:// openlibrary.org/books/OL25462793M/A_Guide_to_the_ Great_Exhibition)
Royal Society of Tasmania 1854: Proceedings of the monthly meetings of The Royal Society for January to December 1853. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania,
Van Diemen’ Land and the Great Exhibition of 1851 35
2(3): pp. 479-524. (Available at: https://eprints.utas.edu. au/20034/1/proceedings-RST-1853.pdf)
Tallis, J. & Martin, R. M. 1851: Tallis’ illustrated atlas and modern history of the world: geographical, political, commercial & statistical. J. Tallis 8 Co, London: 85 plates, 168 pp. (Available at: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-230862577)
_ Tassell, C. & Morris-Nunn, M. 1984: Launceston’s Industrial
Heritage. Australian Heritage Commission & Launceston Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston, 2 Vols: 506 pp. Townsley, W.A. 1977: The Struggle for Self Government in Tasmania, 2nd edition. Government Printer, Hobart: 173 pp. Watson, A. 1993: A champion table. Australiana 15(4): 98-101.
(accepted 8 July 2021)
Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society. of Tasmania, Volume 155(2), 2021 37
VEGETATION CHANGE IN AN URBAN GRASSY WOODLAND SINCE THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
by Ellen R. Sorensen and Jamie B. Kirkpatrick (with two text-figures, one table, eighteen plates and three appendices)
Sorensen, E.R. & Kirkpatrick, J.B. 2021 (15:xii). Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland since the early nineteenth century. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Iasmania 155(2): 37-54. ISSN 0080-4703. School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 78, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia. (ES and JK*). *Author for correspondence. Email: j.kirkpatrick@utas.edu.au
Our understanding of the history of vegetation change after the British invasion of Tasmania is limited. The Queens Domain in Hobart is an area of remnant grassy woodland that provides the opportunity to document such vegetation change and its causes using historical images and reports. Tree removal, stock grazing, and the consequent reduction in the incidence of fire appear to have resulted in a decline in tree cover after European settlement, reaching a nadir during 1861-1880. Paint- ings and photographs indicated a sharp increase in tree cover between 1921 and 1941, associated with the banning of stock grazing. This increase appears to have been encouraged, rather than hindered, by the increasing frequency of low-intensity fire resulting from a reduction in grazing pressure.
Key Words: artwork, Queens Domain, grassy woodland, stock grazing, burning, Tasmania, vegetation reconstruction,
disturbance regime.
INTRODUCTION
‘The vegetation created through management by Indigenous peoples has been much modified since the British invasion of ‘Tasmania (Kirkpatrick 1994, Fletcher etal. 2020). Clearance of land for agriculture has been the major impact. Among the ecosystems most suited to agricultural pursuits have been the temperate grasslands and grassy woodlands, the remnants of which are among the most modified ecosystems in Australia (Kirkpatrick et al. 1995).
The Queens Domain (the “Domain”) is a remnant of grassy woodland in inner-city Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Since the 1960s there has been a well-documented transition from Eucalyptus viminalis grassy woodland to E. viminalis- Allocasuarina verticillata woodland/forest or A. verticillata open/closed forest over much of the Domain (Kirkpatrick 1986, 2004, Kirkpatrick et al. 2007). The woody thickening documented for the Domain since the 1960s has also
occurred on coastal sand dunes (Hayes & Kirkpatrick 2012,
Guy & Kirkpatrick 2018), in coastal heath (Bargmann & Kirkpatrick 2015) and in grasslands and grassy woodlands elsewhere in Tasmania (Kirkpatrick er al. 2007, Romanin er al. 2016). The openness of woodland and forest vegetation in the mid-twentieth century has been postulated to be the result ofa combination of burning and heavy grazing, with the removal or reduction of either or both disturbances allowing woody thickening to occur (Kirkpatrick er al. 2007). Grazing following burning promotes lawn grassland (Leonard et al. 2010) and may eliminate or reduce woody regrowth (Roberts et al. 2011, Hazeldine & Kirkpatrick 2015). The vegetation changes on the Domain that occurred between European settlement in 1803 and the 1960s have not been systematically documented. In fact, there is a dearth of centuries-scale documentation of changes to the
ecosystem post-colonisation in Australia, with a tendency to instead compare the present vegetation to a pre-European baseline (Lunt 2002). While these comparisons are useful for understanding changes to vegetation patterns, they can overlook the fact that present patterns are a result of past actions (Lunt 2002). Grasslands and grassy woodlands in Australia have been particularly subjected to changes to disturbance regimes post-colonisation due to the ease with which they could be used for agriculture. They are therefore well-represented within the literature on pre-invasion vegetation (e.g., Fensham 1989, Lunt 2002).
Common sources for historical vegetation recon- struction include government records, maps, surveyors’ reports, management plans, aerial photographs and anecdotal communication. The accuracy of the vegetation reconstruction is dependent on the quality of the sources (Shea et al. 2014, Yang er al. 2014, Sevara et al. 2018, Beller et al, 2020). The Queens Domain has a wealth of written and photographic historical material from which to extract information about vegetation change, land use change, management regimes and ecological processes that have occurred over the past two centuries. This paper builds on the general historical observations of Terry (1999), Sheridan (2002) and Cahalan (2016) to establish the history of structural change in the vegetation of the Domain by comparing the historic vegetation with the current state, and an analysis of temporal changes in tree cover, based on artworks and photographs (app. 1). We relate these observed changes to variation in disturbance regimes deduced from printed information. The purpose of this work is to bridge the gap in knowledge of disturbance regimes and their impacts on native vegetation from the time of British invasion to the decade-scale analyses of vegetation change undertaken by Kirkpatrick (1986, 2004).
38 Ellen R. Sorensen and Jamie B. Kirkpatrick
FIG. 1 — The Queens Domain, Hobart. 526487 E 5254165 N, GDA2020/MGAS5. (Source: LIST map)
History
The area has been known variously as the Government Domain, the Queens Domain and the Government Paddock (Cahalan 2016). The term “domain” refers to the grounds associated with the residence of the Governor (Terry 1999). The area was chosen as the location of Government House in 1811 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie (Terry 1999). However, the people of Hobart considered the area to be a “common” and responded angrily to the Government’s attempts to exclude them and to the “alienation” of the area for various industries, such as slaughter-yards and quarries (Cahalan 2016). Calls for the Domain to be made “inalienable” began as early as 1836 (The Hobart Town Courier 23 Sept. 1836, p. 4; app..2.1). The Domain would eventually be made inalienable through the Queen’ Domain and Launceston Swamp Bill 1858, the same year that the construction of Government House was finished (Terry 1999). However, parts of the Domain were still developed, and by the twentieth century the Domain would house several quarries, the shipyards, two cricket grounds, the Beaumaris Zoo, the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, a railway and the University of Tasmania (Terry 1999). The Queens Domain Improvement Committee was formed in 1875.
It consisted of members of the Royal Society of Tasmania with an interest in the management of the Domain, many of whom were influenced by the English park-like ideal of landscape design (Terry 1999). This committee was given legal power through the Queens Domain Committee Act 1889, reporting to the Minister for Lands and Works (The Mercury 25 Sept. 1889, p. 3; app. 2.2). In 1917, management of the Domain was transferred to the Hobart City Council, where it remains today (Inspiring Place 2013).
METHODS Study area
The Queens Domain is an urban park located in Hobart, Tasmania (42°52'07.74" § 147°19'49.31" E, fig. 1), with a maximum elevation of 90 m. The underlying geology is predominately Jurassic dolerite, on which dermosols form, with some Tertiary lacustrine sediments along the foreshore (Kirkpatrick 2004). The current area of the Domain is approximately 230 ha (Inspiring Place 2013). The boundary of the Domain has changed throughout the centuries (pl. 1) and once encompassed approximately 260 ha (Sheridan
Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland since the early nineteenth century
PLATE 1 — Close up of the Queens Domain taken from Plan of Hobart and its vicinity — Battery Point & Domain Point are copied from
Mr Scott’s survey the remainder by W. S. Sharland, 1827. Digitised image from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/AI/AF394- 1-4. .
2002), with much of the loss resulting from clearance for roads and other uses. Some locations discussed in this paper therefore may no longer fall within the boundaries of the present Domain, which currently includes the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Government House, its grounds and the Cenotaph as well as the bush and sport grounds, but not the Brooker Highway or the University of Tasmania campus buildings. In this work, we have primarily
investigated any parts of the Domain that at any time were’
covered with predominantly native vegetation.
The Domain is bordered by the Derwent River to the east and ringed by the Brooker Highway which provides access to the city suburbs and greater Hobart area. The most dominant plant communities according to TASVEG 4.0 are Eucalyptus viminalis grassy forest and woodland (DVG), Allocasuarina verticillata forest (NAV), Eucalyptus pulchella forest and woodland (DPU), Eucalyptus globulus dry forest and woodland (DGL), and lowland Themeda triandra grassland (GTL) (DPIPWE 2020).
Data collection and analysis
Historical images and written records referring to the Domain were accessed using Trove and Libraries Tasmania
(https://trove.nla.gov.au, https:// libraries.tas.gov.au, accessed
June—October 2020). The plates used to estimate changes
in vegetation cover over time are provided in appendix 1. A list of all newspaper sources including article title describing existing vegetation and changes in management on the Domain are provided in appendix 2. Appendix 3 contains a list of all the historic images used in the comparative analysis of changes in vegetation over time. These images were organised into a geographic region based on the area depicted in the image, or where the image was taken, these categories being Domain West, Domain East, Domain North, Domain South, Entire Domain (comprising paintings where all or a large part of the Domain could be seen, as well as aerial photographs), Foreshore, and additional Categories
for Government House and Botanical Gardens. While the
landscapes of the Botanical Gardens, Government House and other human infrastructure are an important part of the history of the Queens Domain and make up a substantial portion of the photographic record, images of these locations were only included in subsequent analyses insofar as they depicted the native vegetation. The outline tree cover visible in images was estimated to the nearest ten percent, Where there was sufficient clarity in the images, a determination of vegetation community was made. The images were divided
40 Ellen R. Sorensen and Jamie B. Kirkpatrick
into time periods, mostly of 20-year intervals. The mean cover of trees was compared between these time periods using one-way analysis of variance with Tukey’s test in the statistical computer program Minitab (Version 16). Images with insufficient tree cover information or inexact dates were excluded from analysis. The total number of images included in the analysis was 92.
The images were analysed to establish whether there were sufficient geographic features or landmarks present to determine an approximate location for repeat photographs. Google Earth Terrain View was used to gain the approximate GPS locations from which the original images were taken. Six sites were then chosen for rephotographing based on our confidence in the image location, and the evenness of their distribution across the Domain. Two images were taken from the western side, two from the eastern side, and one each in the north and south. On the ground, the approximate locations were then cross-referenced with the historical images. The dominant plant species and vegetation structure were recorded. ;
RESULTS
Five of the six rephotographed locations showed an increase in density compared to its historic state, with one location being the same (table 1). The nineteenth-century understoreys were largely dominated by grasses with few or no understorey shrubs. In the late twentieth century there was a transition from open grassy woodland to shrubby E£. globulus-E. pulchella forest and woodland in the west, from open grassy woodland to A. verticillata forest on the.east, and from open grassy woodland to E. viminalis-E. globulus grassy forest and woodland in the south. In the northern section, the vegetation changed much less than elsewhere.
There was significant differentiation in tree cover between time periods (ANOVA, F = BY rp (P= (ON) Between 1841 and 1901 the mean cover for all periods was significantly less than that for the 1991-2020 mean. The period of lowest tree cover occurred from 1861 to 1880 (fig. 2). Tree cover was highly variable within periods in the nineteenth century, with a gradual decrease in mean cover until 1861-1880 (fig. 2). Mean cover was then low until 1901-1920, then increased dramatically in the next two periods (fig. 2). The last two periods had high levels of mean cover and low variability (fig. 2).
Pre-colonial and early colonial era ~
Reconstructing the landscape of the Domain prior to European occupation is challenging as there are no depictions or descriptions of its vegetation prior to British invasion. The Domain was occupied by the muwinina Aboriginal people, with records of shell middens on the eastern shoreline indicating that the site was used for at least 5000 years prior to colonisation (Kerrison & Binns 1984). The vegetation structure at the time of colonisation was likely to have been woodland or grassy woodland which is likely to have been maintained by patch burning by the muwinina people and
grazing by native herbivores (Kirkpatrick 2004). The native — tree composition is likely to have been similar to that of today,
A general picture of the vegetation surrounding the Sullivans Cove colony can be gained from James Backhouse Walker who, working from the diaries and letters of the early colonisers, described the area around the settlement as consisting of “... dense tangles of tea-tree scrub .., with ... huge gum trees, ... and ... slopes covered with trees” (Walker 1889, p. 226). The area of the creek which formed the Domain’s southwestern border was described as a “swampy flat” with the beach running round the “wooded slope” to what is now Macquarie Point (Walker 1889, p. 226). Later sources refer to the Domain being “wooded down to the very beach” in the early years post~ colonisation (app. 2.3). The View of Sullivans Cove (possibly by George William Evans 1804, pl. 2) depicts the initial camp in the Sullivans Cove settlement, with trees shown in the foreground on the southwestern shoreline of what would become the Domain.
In the early years after colonisation the Domain is described as being “in a state approaching nature” and “well-wooded with natural trees” (app. 2.4) as well as “park-like lands [...] which never carried timber and scrub very thickly” (app. 2.5). Land clearance occurred shortly after colonisation, with four allotments totalling over 20 ha granted on the southern foreshore area between 1804 and 1805. Early clearing can be seen in a rough sketch made by Deputy-Surveyor G.P. Harris entitled Hobart ca. 1805 (pl. 3). No further allotments were granted after the Domain was claimed for the Government in 1818 (Terry 1999).
Tree removal has been a major disturbance throughout the European use of the Domain, occurring “as soon as the tents were pitched” after the arrival of the early colonists (Walker 1889). Individual settlers were permitted to remove trees on the Domain for firewood and other uses until 1816 (app. 2.6). The practice continued illegally in subsequent decades to such an extent that it was feared the Domain
Tree cover (%)
) SS Ss DS AWS Dp p= of ¥ RY Re CP ky ok oy c
xy Y ” Re iV Or
FIG. 2 — Change in tree cover depicted on images between periods. The line connects the means for periods. Each dot represents an individual image.
Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland since the early nineteenth century 41
TABLE 1 — Comparison of vegetation between historic images and 2020
Title of image Year Location Vegetation Tree 2020 Vegetation 2020 (appendix and plate cover tree reference) estimate cover View from the 1826-— North Open grassy 60% Open grassy woodland, tallest 60% Domain looking N.W 1853 woodland. Eucalyptus layer dominated by E. viminalis with across New Town sp., in tree layer, scattered E. globulus.Understorey Bay, Bellevue in height estimate consists of juvenile eucalypts, foreground (app. 1, between 8-15m. Allocasuarina verticillata, Exocarpos pl. 7) Allocasuarina cupressiformis, Acacia mearnsii, both verticillata seen in adult & juvenile. understorey and in Range of native grasses (Themeda * background. Some triandra, Poa spp.) in understorey. tussocks can be seen. Government House, 1866 South Open grassy woodland 30% E. viminalis- E. globulus forest and 50% Hobart Town, and the land with scattered woodland. Understorey of Bursaria, River Derwent from Eucalyptus sp., in tree Allocasuarina verticillata, Acacia the Domain (app. 1, later. Range of heights melanoxylon, and Acacia mearnsii. pl. 9) to >12 m. Understorey Various native grasses including grass-dominant with Themeda triandra, Poa spp., Lomandra small shrubs. longifolia. Large amount of fallen branches, bark, leaf litter. Comelian Bay, ~1890 East Open grassy woodland 10% Allocasuarina verticillata forest with 60% Hobart (app. 1, pl. with tussocks and scattered E. viminalis. Understorey 11) scattered Eucalyptus consists of Bursaria spinosa spp. Allocasuarina and Acacia mearnsii. Grasses verticillata and include Themeda triandra., Poa Bursaria spinosa in spp., Lomandra longifoilia. Many understorey. Allocasuarina verticillata seedlings. Lots of litter from Allocasuarina. verticillata. View of Hobart from ~1900 West Tree layer of 10% Shrubby Eucalyptus pulchella/globulus 70% the Domain showing : Eucalyptus viminalis forest. Very dense understorey, Campbell Street and E. pulchella, tall Dodonea viscosa dominant with and the Park Street and large in diameter. Bursaria spinosa. Grass layer is dense, intersection (app. 1, Grassy understorey, with large tussocks of Lomandra pl. 13) no shrubs or small longifolia. Thick layer of leaf litter. trees. North Hobart - View 1910 West Tree layer consists 10% Shrubby Eucalyptus globulus 70% from Domain of sparse, juvenile E. forest, very dense understorey with c 1910s (app. 1, pl. globulus. Understorey Dodonea viscosa dominant as well 15) grass-dominant with as Acacia dealbata, Acacia mearnsii, various species of Allocasuarina verticillata, Bursaria native grasses spinosa, Exocarpos cupressiformis. Lower strata consisting of range of native grasses including Lomandra longifolia., Poa, etc. Lots of leaf litter, fallen branches, etc. View of the Eastern 1920 East Canopy layer eucalypt- 40% Allocasuarina verticillata forest with 70% Shore from the :
Domain Road (app. 1, pl. 17)
dominate, understorey of younger eucalypts and Bursaria. Understorey open, grass layer not seen
scattered eucalypts, Bursaria spinosa also present in understorey.
NN
would become bare (apps 2.7, 2.8). Between 1810 and 1850, landscape paintings show most of the Domain as being wooded across the hill, although the density of tree cover varies somewhat with artistic interpretation. Clearing was concentrated in the southern section, particularly near the shoreline, as indicated by images taken from within the Domain. The southern section of the Domain is depicted as an open grassy woodland with tall eucalypts with few or no understorey shrubs in images from the early decades
after colonisation, such as T:E. Chapman's In Paddock (1836) and Taken in the Paddock, Hobart Town, V.D.L. (1837, pl. 4) (apps 3.16, 3.17).
The openness of the understorey of this lowland area of the Domain is likely to have been similar to its pre-colonial state, as this area would probably have been favoured by the muwinina people for hunting (Kirkpatrick 2004); however, indicators of European modification such as stumps (Ryan 2009) are present in many images from this time.
42. Ellen R. Sorensen and Jamie B. Kirkpatrick
PLATE 2 — View of Sullivan's Cove. Inscribed by Lt. John Bowen, although variously attributed to George William Evans and G.P. Harris, 1804. Trees in right-side foreground are on the southwestern shoreline of the Domain. Digitised item from the
State Library of New South Wales, https://search.sl.nsw. gov.au/permalink/f/1 cvjue2/ ADLIB110326130
fo Pe . S. Covers ra ¢ 2 uggaty » nd “a > . “. CAnpences popes 6. Prez hae Phe a , SuancengOviythe. A, Gane ? Kevse 7. Wore Zaks
: ,
PLATE 3 — Hobart Town ca. 1805, G.P. Harris, 1805. The southern shoreline of the Domain can be seen on the far- right side, inscribed with the number 10. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov. au/nla.obj-135224422
Stock grazing replaced burning and grazing by marsupials as the major disturbance controlling the understorey, keeping down the length of the grass and impeding shrub and tree establishment. Cattle grazing was banned along with tree removal in 1816 (app. 2.6). However, stock and stockkeepers continued to “trespass” onto the Domain for decades, resulting in the Domain being fenced and constables being stationed for the purpose of impounding stock (apps 2.9, 2.10). In the 1820s, illegal grazing was so rampant that accusations were made that the Domain fence was intentionally kept in a state of disrepair so that profit could be made from impounding the trespassing stock (app. 2.11). The issuing of grazing licenses in the 1840s (app. 2.12) did not appear to have any impact on reducing stock numbers, with the Domain described as being “overrun with wild bullocks and flocks of sheep” (app. 2.13).
1850s—1900
Grazing appeared to occur throughout the Domain. Hobart Town from the Domain by Knud Bull (app. 3.26) depicts a shepherd and a flock of sheep at the northern end of the Domain, while View of Rossbank Observatory, 1854 (app. 3.27), by the same artist, shows a similar scene near the southern shoreline of the Domain. These clearly indicate the differences in vegetation between these two sections of the Domain in this period. The vegetation in the first image appears dense, forest-like, and “well-wooded”, while in the second image, the area is open and grassy, with stumps and logs indicative of tree clearance (Ryan 2009). Newspapers at this time refer to both the threat to humans and the impact on young trees occurring as a result of the high stock levels
on the Domain (apps 2.14, 2.15).
Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland since the early nineteenth century 43
PLATE 4 — Taken in the Paddock, Hobart Town, V.D.L. 1837, T.E. Chapman. No longer available online. Stump can be seen in the right foreground.
By the mid- to late-nineteenth century, there are abundant references to the decline of the vegetation on the Domain. Charles E. Walch, well-known bookseller, preacher, and future Chairman of the Queens Domain Committee, wrote a lengthy Letter to the Editor in 1874 decrying the “halfa century of utter neglect” and the “[defacing of] its natural beauties” to clear land for the various buildings, quarries, slaughter-yards, and fences on the Domain, as well as for the “extensive” grounds of Government House (app. 2.3). Over a period of years Walch observed the loss of trees across the Domain “partly from rapid natural decay, and partly by man’s destroying hand”, noting that the western slope of the Domain in particular was “quite bare, while
many of the trees still standing are in the last stages of.
decay” (app. 2.3). Another source noted that the western slope of the Domain, known to be well-wooded in the 1850s, was almost bare by the 1860s due to the regular system of depredation of illegal tree removal that occurred due to the lack of police supervision (app. 2.8).
The Superintendent of the Royal Society Gardens, Francis Abbott, in a paper read to the Royal Society of Tasmania in 1875, spoke of the need for the “improvement” of the Domain, and drew attention to the causes for the “stunted appearance” of the trees on the Domain:
In the first place, there can be no doubt that between 20 and 30 years ago, many of the largest gum trees were cut down [...] during the whole of this time the surface has been depastured by sheep and cattle, which has had the combined effect of consolidating the surface,
PLATE 5 — River Derwent, from the Queen’s Domain, Hobart, Elite Studio, 1884. A similar view of the Derwent River can be seen in plate 4. Digitised item from Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office, https:// stors.tas.gov.au/ILS/SD_ILS-634418
and preventing any seedling trees from springing up to supply the place of those removed. The wattles again present a most unsightly and stunted appearance, and [...] are evidently hastening to decay [...] partly due to the cause just mentioned, and partly to the fact that the lower branches have generally been browsed off when the trees were young. Again, the depasturing of cattle has not only consolidated the surface, but it has kept the grass close grazed, which may be considered as removing natures mulching, the effect of which is that the rains, instead of soaking into the ground, rush precipitately to the water-courses [...] and what little does enter the soil is quickly dried up by the sun and wind. (Abbott 1875, p. 33)
Former Surveyor-General J.E. Calder described the “many unsightly trees that disfigure the surface [...] and give one the very poorest idea of Tasmania’s forest lands” (app. 2.16). Notably, Calder asserts that the Domain, previously being “ancient forest [...] in vigorous growth” began to decline after the “slaughter of the forest trees” was permitted to form what would become the Royal Society Gardens, as well as the ending of police patrols of the Domain’s borders for stock impounding (app. 2.16).
It is evident from these descriptions that the Domain was suffering from both a decline in the quantity of trees and in the health of the remaining trees; however, most of the decline was concentrated in the Domain’s southern area. Abbott notes that the “upper portions” of the Domain have “sufficient” “natural arboreal vegetation’, consisting of E. viminalis and E. amygdalina, as well as several trees of “blue gum, native cherry, she-oak, native box, and banksia” (Abbott 1882). This is one of the very few references to understorey vegetation on the Domain, other than to the “twisted” wattles growing on the eastern shore near Government House (app. 2.17) and reports of Acacia mearnsii springing up after fires (app. 2.18). Photographs from this time demonstrate the sparse distribution of eucalypts and lack of understorey (pl. 5).
44 Ellen R. Sorensen and Jamie B. Kirkpatrick
Mounting public pressure resulted in management changes on the Domain. Cattle grazing was banned in 1881, although sheep grazing was permitted to continue (app. 2.19). This was praised as a “step in the right direction”, although concerns were raised that sheep would be insufficient for managing the length of the grass (Crouch 1881). The 1890s saw the formalisation of the Queens Domain Committee, whose notable works in this period include the intentional thinning of the Domain’s remaining eucalypts, to maintain a “park-like” appearance (app. 2.20), the planting of the pinetum near the Botanical Gardens, where a “few standing gum trees” would be allowed to remain (app. 2.21), the lopping of over _a hundred unhealthy eucalypts (app. 2.18), the levelling
and replanting of the quarry opposite Government House (app. 2.22), the planting of (non-native) eucalypts on the eastern slope of the Domain between Government House and Cornelian Bay (app. 2.23) and the development or expansion of roads (apps 2.24, 2.25, 2.26).
1900s—1950s
Two decades of cattle exclusion had caused the grasses on the Domain to become a fire hazard; in 1905, the Queens Domain Committee debated the benefits of the reintroduction of cattle on fuel loads versus the potential damage to the new plantations that dotted the Domain (app. 2.27). Cattle would eventually be reintroduced on an ad-hoc basis to control the grass, although they quickly became abundant, roving in droves of “up to 20” and causing damage to young trees planted along the roads (apps 2.28, 2.29). Dry weather and lack of water in the early 1910s caused the death of several plantings, and accidental fires had caused “grave losses” to young trees, while “larger gums have become so weakened by fires around their roots that it now becomes imperative an earnest effort made to re-clothe at once the more frequented parts of the Domain with young eucalypts” (app. 2.29). Planned burns were undertaken to remove the grass fuel load and protect the plantations from further damage from bushfires (app. 2.28).
PLATE 6 — Photograph - Hobart - Domain - Soldiers pM! - tree plantations, 1914-1918. Digitised item rom Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/N =1- 48J2K$init=NS869-1-48 2 aa
In 1917, funding concerns, as well as a lack of partici- pation from committee members, prompted the Queens Domain Committee to recommend management of the Domain be taken over by the Hobart City Council, which subsequently happened (app. 2.30). This change in management led to a “speedy improvement” in the Domain’s “park-like aspect” (app. 2.31).
One of the major planting regimes in the early twentieth century was the Soldiers Avenue, a double-lined avenue of Cedrus deodara extending from the southern to the northern section of the Domain Hill established after the First World War (app. 2.32, pl. 6). The scattered distribution and poor condition of £. viminalis on the southern slope of the Domiain surrounding the juvenile Cedrus behind protective guards can be seen in plate 6. Many of the introduced trees, being unsuited to the soils of the Domain, died shortly after being planted (app. 2.33) and work was required to improve the view of the avenue (app. 2.34).
Beginning in 1920 and continuing until the mid- twentieth century there was an organised effort to “reclothe” many of the bare areas of the Domain with native trees (apps 2.35, 2.36) with most of these plantings occurring on the western slope of the Domain from behind the Hobart High School grounds to the northwestern section (apps 2.37, 2.38). The eastern section of the Domain was said to be “well clothed with indigenous trees” but on the shallower soils of the western slope, “trees were not so abundant and healthy” and were therefore in need of restoration (app. 2.39).
Over a thousand trees, including Australian natives such as A. mearnsii, A. verticillata, E. globulus and A. pycnantha (not native to Tasmania) as well as exotics including ashes, silver birches and conifers (apps 2.40, 41): were planted in this section of the Domain over the decades, as well as around the cricket ground (app. 2.36) and the former zoo site (app. 2.42). Wattles were planted yearly as a part of the Tasmanian Wattle League's annual Wattle Day events (app. 2.41).
Many mature trees, said to be either dead or suffering from dry rot, were removed from the northwestern section
of the Domain in the early 1930s, with many of the
trees remaining being lopped (app. 2.43). This area was described as a “forest of gaunt skeletons” (app. 2.44) after the removal, but a year later it was described as “refreshingly green” due to the “rejuvenation” of the trees as a result of pruning (app. 2.45).
The sanctioned removal of trees, the illegal removal of trees by vandals and the “withering away” of many of the juvenile trees (app. 2.46) resulted in parts of the western section of the Domain being described as “denuded” and “flea bitten” (app. 2.47). One Letter to the Editor attributed the continued poor state of the Domain’s vegetation to the fact that “[owing] to the destruction of the original forests [...] the Domain is no longer an ideal environment for eucalypts” (app. 2.48). The lack of an understorey to provide nutrients, combined with the constant assault on the vegetation from strong winds, and the “poor, stony soil” meant that no tree planted could be expected to survive “more than a few years” (app. 2.48). Still, the replanting
Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland since the early nineteenth century 45
of bare patches with native vegetation continued until the 1950s on the western section of the Domain as well as on the apex of the hill (app. 2.49).
The grazing of cattle ceased indefinitely in the 1920s, and the extreme length and dryness of the grass led to an increase in grass fires on the Domain (apps 2.50, 2.51, Kirkpatrick 2004). There are numerous references to fires on the Domain throughout the twentieth century, some being small and easily contained, some burning up to 20 acres of grass and causing significant damage to trees (app. 2.53). Major fires occurred in 1952 on both the western and eastern sides of the Domain where more than 15 acres of grass was burned (apps 2.53, 2.54) and again in 1953 when 91 fires burned in Hobart within a period of three weeks, most of these occurring on the Domain (app. 2.55). The destructiveness of this fire season led to half of the grass area of the Domain being burned off (app. 2.56) and the introduction of mowing and cutting to control
the grass (app. 2.56).
DISCUSSION
The results from the comparison of historic images with the modern vegetation indicate an increase in tree cover, which is in line with the pattern of woody thickening observed on the Domain since 1974 (Kirkpatrick 2004). The major change to disturbance regimes on the Domain after colonisation was the replacement of Aboriginal fire regimes with high-intensity stock grazing. This was extremely common in grasslands and grassy woodlands post-colonisation (Fensham 1989, Lunt 1998b, Franco & Morgan 2007). The encroachment of shrubs into grasslands and grassy woodlands after the removal of grazing as a disturbance regime is also common (Lunt 2002). The encroachment of A. verticillata into eucalypt forest and woodland observed by Kirkpatrick (2004) probably began after the severe fire seasons of the early 1950s, as the transition from eucalypt grassland to Allocasuarina forest occurs in the absence of disturbance or after low-level fires (Lunt 1998a, Lunt 1998b). The grassy woodland structure of the Domain was maintained by the introduction of grazing after the removal of Aboriginal fire regimes; however, the increase in stock levels with the introduction of grazing licenses, in conjunction with the removal of trees for land clearance, firewood, shipbuilding and other purposes, was suggested to have resulted in soil
compaction, exposure to increased wind, soil drying, and soil
water repellence which contributed to tree dieback (Bailey 2012). High grazing levels would have also contributed to the lack of recruitment of eucalypt seedlings, both for natural regeneration and those planted by the Queens Domain Committee in the late nineteenth century (Lunt 1991, Zacharek 1997). Grazing also probably impeded the growth of A. verticillata seedlings. Given the current abundance of this species on the Domain (Kirkpatrick 2004), it is notable that there are relatively few mentions of A. verticillata in the historic record. Abbott (1882) states that there were “a few trees” of A. verticillata in the northern section of the Domain, which is logical considering the comparative lack of
disturbance that occurred in this area. “She-oaks” were also amongst the species planted in the early twentieth century on the western slopes of the Domain. Low-intensity sheep grazing was found to reduce the regeneration of A. verticillata seedlings on Kangaroo Island (Pepper 1997). It is likely that the reduced grazing pressure following the removal
_ of cattle from the Domain in 1881, provided sufficient
disturbance to prevent the establishment of A. verticillata in much of the Domain until the 1950s. Some species on the
* Domain, such as 7’ triandra, may also have benefited from
the cessation of grazing (Kirkpatrick 1986, Zacharek 1997). Grasses were noted to increase in abundance following the removal of cattle, although no species was specified. It is evident that the exclusion of cattle and the increase in fuel loads, in combination with warm and dry weather in the early twentieth century, resulted in increased fire frequency (Leonard et al. 2010).
In a long-term study of vegetation dynamics in a coastal grassy woodland, with similar patterns of disturbance regimes change to the Domain, Lunt (1998a) observed that the two phases of European management were marked by a lack of understanding of the impact of the previous management decisions on the present vegetation. This was not the case in the second phase of European land management on the Domain. The members of the Queens Domain Committee, many of whom were members of the Royal Society possessing extensive botanical knowledge, were well aware of the causes of the decline in vegetation on the Domain, as evidenced by the letters read by Abbott in 1875 and 1882. However, this understanding did not appear to have a corresponding influence on the success of “improvement” works on the Domain. Many of the Committee's strategies were informed by colonial ideals that valued an English park-like landscape and European deciduous species (Lum 2018) over the “rugged wilderness” of the Tasmanian bush (Hobart Town Daily Mercury 22 May 1860, p. 2, app. 2.57). This perspective needs to be considered when analysing historical descriptions of the Domain, particularly the use of terms such as “improvement”, a word rooted in the philosophy espoused by Lancelot “Capability” Brown and other nineteenth- century European landscape architects (Lum 2018).
Limitations
Landscape paintings have considerable value for establishing the vegetation structure and composition of historic landscapes (Ryan 2009): however, considering the subjectivity of landscape paintings is essential when using them as sources for reconstruction (Fensham 1989, Farag-Miller etal. 2013). Australian landscape artists were often not concerned with creating an accurate representation of vegetation, but more with conveying an image of the Australian landscape that would be appealing to prospective settlers (Romanin et al. 2016). Images of the Tasmanian landscape painted by John Glover, for example, were captivating toan English audience due to their ability to convey the exotic vegetation while at once evoking the atmosphere of an English park (Lum 2018). Ryan (2009) notes the accuracy of early colonial
46 Ellen R. Sorensen and Jamie B. Kirkpatrick
artists in depicting vegetation structure. It is possible to identify eucalypts, tussocks, and understorey shrubs in many paintings of the Domain even if the artwork is stylised. Due to the quantity of images depicting the Domain, it was also possible to cross-reference several of the landscape paintings from the mid-nineteenth century with photographs from the same era to establish accuracy.
Written historical material can be used to support the image record (Ryan 2009). Some assumptions must be made however when assessing the language used by early colonial writers to describe vegetation. Early colonial surveyors described the grassland and grassy woodland vegetation of the Midlands as “thinly timbered”, “moderately wooded” and “interspersed with wood” (Fensham 1989), while the Domain was described as “well-wooded” without thick timber. Lunt (1998a) notes the subjectivity of terms such as “thickly timbered”, noting that they can only be interpreted in comparison with the surrounding landscape. “Well- wooded” could be interpreted to mean densely wooded (although Fensham (1989) notes that “forested” would be the more commonly used phrase), or that the wood itself was in good condition. While objective records such as surveyors’ field notes and maps are often used for historic reconstruction (Bickford & Mackey 2004), there are few of these sources available for the Domain. As the Domain has been an important place for the people of Hobart since before colonisation, it has the benefit of a wealth of informal historical records relating to its land use, particularly in the newspaper record. While this record is invaluable in reconstructing the patterns of land use, it is also essential to acknowledge the subjectivity of opinion. For example, one article from the Mercury in 1883 dismisses improvement works on the Domain by saying that only “here and there a chair erected, and a tree planted and guarded, give evidence they are doing something”, while another from the Daily Telegraph in the same year commends the “highly successful” management for “here and there” planting shrubs and constructing “convenient and substantial seats” (app. 2.58, 2.59). Despite these limitations, the present study has benefited from the abundance of references and the descriptive language about the vegetation that would not necessarily be found in surveyors’ journals. Phrases such as the “slaughter of forest trees” and “forest[s] of gaunt skeletons” demonstrate both the severity with which the Domain was perceived to be in decline, as well as how much the people of Hobart cared about the state of the “people’s park” (Cahalan 2016).
CONCLUSION
This study has documented the changes to disturbance regimes that have occurred in the Queens Domain following the British invasion and European settlement. The Domain has had periods of high and low tree cover caused by the introduction and exclusion of disturbances. Indigenous fire regimes and grazing from native herbivores were replaced by grazing from cattle maintaining the open grassy woodland structure of the Domain, but also impeding the growth of
new trees. Tree removal and land clearing resulted in the reduction of tree cover on the Domain. The cessation of these processes has contributed to the woody thickening of the Domain that has occurred since the mid-twentieth century.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Jan Jenkinson for his help in the field and his unwavering support. We also thank Drs Jayne Balmer and Mick Brown for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this paper.
REFERENCES
Abbott, F. 1875: Letter read to the Royal Society, 8 June 1875. Papers and Proceedings and Report of the Royal Society of Tasmania 1: 32-34.
Abbott, EF 1882. Letter read to the Domain Improvement Committee, 22 Nov 1882. Printed for the Parliament of Tasmania for the Minister of Lands and Works, 20 Sept.1887. (hetps://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/tpl/ PP Web/1887/1887pp120.pdf)
Bailey, T.G. 2012: Eucalypt regeneration and ecological restoration of remnant woodlands in Tasmania, Australia. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, Hobart.
Bargmann, T. & Kirkpatrick, J.B. 2015: Transition from heathland to scrub in south-eastern Tasmania: extent of change since the 1970s, floristic depletion and management implications. Biodiversity Conservation 24: 213-228.
Beller, E.E., McClenachan, L., Zavaleat, E.S. & Larsen, L.G. 2020: Past forward: recommendations from. historical
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Bickford, S. & Mackey, B. 2004: Reconstructing pre-impact vegetation cover in modified landscapes using environmental modelling, historical surveys and remnant vegetation data: a case study in the Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia. Journal of Biogeography 31: 787-805.
Cahalan, S. 2016: The Queen’s Domain and the People’s Temper: Contest for Public Natural Space in Urban Landscapes. Unpublished Hons thesis, University of Tasmania, Hobart.
Crouch, E.J. 1881: The Improvement of the Queens Domain. Papers & Proceedings and Report of the Royal Society of Tasmania: 33-36. y
DPIPWE 2020: TASVEG 4.0. Released July 2020. Tasmanian Vegetation Monitoring and Mapping Program, Natural and Cultural Heritage Division, Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment. http://www. dpipwe.tas.gov.au/tasveg c
Spears M., Miller, K. & Kirkpatrick, J. 2013: Determining the accuracy of historical landscape paintings. 7 Research 51: 49-58. oe Eg
Fensham, R.J. 1989: The Pre-European vegetation of the Midlands, Tasmania: a floristic and historical study. Journal of Biogeography 16: 29-45. 5
Fletcher, M.S., Hall, T. & Alexandra, A.N. 2020: The loss of an indigenous constructed landscape following British invasion of Australia: an insight into the deep human imprint on the Australian landscape. Ambio 50: 138-149.
Franco, J.A. & Morgan, J.W. 2007: Using historical records, aerial photography and dendroecological methods to determine vegetation changes in a grassy woodland since European settlement. Australian Journal of Botany 55: 1-9.
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Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland since the early nineteenth century 47
Hayes, M. & Kirkpatrick, J.B. 2012: Influence of Ammophila arenaria on half a century of vegetation change in eastern Tasmanian sand dune systems. Australian Journal of Botany 60: 450-460.
Hazeldine, A. & Kirkpatrick, J.B. 2015: Practical and theoretical implications of a browsing cascade in Tasmanian forest and woodland. Australian Journal of Botany 63: 135-143.
Inspiring Place. 2013: Queens Domain Master Plan 2013-2033. Hobart City Council, Hobart: 99 pp. (https://www. hobartcity.com.au/files/assets/public/parks-gardens-and- sportsgrounds/queens-domain-master-plan.pdf)
Kerrison, A.R. & Binns, M.A. 1984: A midden excavation — Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Hobart. Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 118: 53-63.
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Kirkpatrick, J. 1994: A Continent Transformed: Human Impact on the Natural Vegetation of Australia. Oxford University Press, Melbourne: 133 pp.
Kirkpatrick, J.B. 2004: Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland 1974-2000. Australian Journal of Botany. 52: 597-608.
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Leonard, S., Kirkpatrick, J. & Marsden-Smedley, J. 2010: Variation in the effects of vertebrate grazing on fire potential between grassland structural types. Journal of Applied Ecology 47: 876-883.
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Romanin, L.M., Hopf, E., Harbele, S.G. & Bowman, D.M.J.S. 2016: Fire regime and vegetation change in the transition rom eel to European land management in a
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Ryan, M.F. 2009: Does early Colonial art provide an accurate guide to the nature and structure of the pre-European forests and woodlands of South-Eastern Australia? A study focusing on Victoria and Tasmania. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Australian National University, Canberra: 167 pp.
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Sheridan, G. 2002: Historical Landscape of Queens Domain, Hobart. Hobart City Council, Hobart: 191 pp.
Terry, I. 1999: The People’s Park: Historical Overview of the Queens Domain, Hobart. Hobart City Council, Hobart: 121 pp.
Walker, eat ee ‘The sunding of Hobart by Lieutenant-Governor
ollins. Papers an j i oma aes A ae eaas of the Royal Society of
Yang; Y., Zhang, S., Yang, J., Chang, L., Bu, K. & Xing, X. 2014: te aes acon reconstruction methods of land use/ and cover. Journal of Geographic Sciences 24: 746-766.
Zacharek, A.R. 1997: Manone a restoration of native grassy woodland in the Midlands of Tasmania. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, Hobart.
(accepted 28 August 2021)
48 Ellen R. Sorensen and Jamie B. Kirkpatrick
APPENDIX 1: COMPARISON IMAGES
PLATE 7 — View from the Domain looking N.W across New Town Bay, Bellevue in foreground, George Thomas William Blamey, 1826-1853. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/144582954
PLATE 9 — Government House, Hobart Town, and the River Derwent from the Domain 1866, Samuel Gill. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135682499
PLATE 8 — Location of View from the Domain looking N.W across New Town Bay, Bellevue in foreground rephotographed in 2020.
PLATE 10 — Location of Government House, Hobart Town, and the River Derwent from the Domain rephotographed in 2020.
PLATE 11 — Cornelian Bay, Hobart 1890, A. Mather & Co. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/ AUTAS0016125396028$init=AUTAS001612539602
PLATE 12 — Location of Cornelian Bay, Hobart rephotographed in 2020.
Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland since the early nineteenth century 49
PLATE 14 — Location of View of Hobart from the Domain showing Campbell Street and the Park Street intersection PLATE 13 — View of Hobart from the Domain showing Campbell — tephotographed 2020.
Street and the Park Street intersection 1900, photographer
unknown. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.
tas.gov.au/Al/PH30-1-9578
=]
PLATE 16 — Location of North Hobart — Vie i = w from D
PLATE 15 — North Hobart — View from Domain 1910, James rephotographed 2020. AES:
Chandler. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.
tas.gov.au/Al/NS869-1-440
View pemdiboniaie DRIVE Wee br
eas { ™ pik PLATE 18 — View of the Eastern Shore from the Domain Road ee aes = . rephotographed 2020.
PLATE 17 — View of the Eastern Shore.from the Domain Road 1920, T. Crawford. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/Al/NS1013-1-515
50 Ellen R. Sorensen and Jamie B. Kirkpatrick
10
11.
id,
13.
14.
5}.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
APPENDIX 2: NEWSPAPER REFERENCES (accessed 13 October 2020)
. The Hobart Town Courier 1836: The Government Domain. 23
Sep, p. 4. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4174943
. The Mercury 1889: Parliament Of Tasmania. 25 Sep, p. 3.
Digitised item from National Library of Tasmania, hetp:// nla.goy.au/nla.news-article9220421
. The Mercury 1874: Our National Park. Mon 11 May, p. 3.
Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8929852
. The Mercury 1913: The Queen’s Domain. A Question of
Control. Improvement Committee Seeks Power. 7 Mar, p. 47. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10276977
. The Mercury 1922: Assessment Of Pastoral Properties. 10
October, p. 7. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article23642691
_ The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter 1816:
Government And General Orders. 17 Aug, p. 1. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article65 1435
. The Hobart Town Gazette 1826: Public Notice. 29 Jul, p. 1.
Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8791385
. The Mercury 1863: The Domain. 16 Oct, p. 2. Digitised item
from National Library of Australian, http://nla.gov.au/nla. news-article8821553
. The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter 1819:
Government Public Notices. 9 Jan, p. 1. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla. news-article655357 . The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter 1819: Govt. Public Notices. 3 Jul, p. 1. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news- article656399 Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser 1825: To The Editor Of The Colonial Times. 14 Oct, p. 3. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov. au/nla.news-article2446316 The Courier 1847: Public Works’ Department. 2 Oct, p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, hetp:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2970820 Launceston Advertiser 1844: Hobart Town. 23 May, p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, hetp:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article84770704 Colonial Times 1850: Domestic Intelligence. 18 Jun, p. 3. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, hetp:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8767368 The Mercury 1861: Bothwell Road Trust. 26 Jan, p. 3. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article8795933 The Mercury 1880: Domain Improvement. 12 Noy, p. 3. Digitised item from National Library of Tasmania, hetp:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article899008 1 The Mercury 1887: The Queen’s Domain. 26 Mar, p. 1. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9 132422 The Mercury 1891: Queen’s Domain. 24 Apr, p. 3. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-articlel12717437 The Mercury 1881. Queen’s Domain. 2 Feb, p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article8993100 The Mercury 1891: Queen’s Domain Committee. 18 Feb, p. 1. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, hetp:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1 2713609
21.
2),
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
ail.
3b.
ahh.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
The Colonist 1890: Tasmanian News. 24 May 1890, p. 20. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article200363553
Tasmanian News 1892: Queens Domain Committee. 15 Nov. p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page20138167
The Mercury 1894: Queens Domain Committee. 10 October, p. 4. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9338262
The Mercury 1895: Epitome Of News. 15 Jan, p 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article9330573
Tasmanian News 1894: Queens Domain Committee. 12 Sep, p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page20120735
The Mercury 1896: The Queens Domain Drives. 4 Jul, p. 1. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9377006
The Mercury 1905: Queens Domain Committee. 12 Sep, p. 5. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, hetp:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1 2318065
Daily Post 1917: Grass In The Domain. 29 Jan, p. 4. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article191165314
Daily Post 1915: Queens Domain. 13 Feb, p. 7. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.goy, au/nla.news-article189580609
Daily Post 1917: Queens Domain Committee. 9 Jun, p. 5. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article191185624
The Mercury 1919: Hobart City Council. 24 Dec, p. 8. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1 2397666
The Mercury 1919: Soldiers’ Avenue. 17 Feb, p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article12393697
The Mercury 1922: Passing Notes. 19 Aug, p. 10. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article23527667 .
The Mercury 1933: Returned Soldiers. 21 Jun, p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article24865446
The Mercury 1936: Wattle League. 27 Jul, p. 3. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla. news-article25213744
The Mercury 1937: Reclothing Domain. 23 Jul, p. 3. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article25415146
Examiner 1931: From The Capital. 1 Jul, p. 8. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla. news-article53928079
The Mercury 1931: Tree Planting, Queen’s Domain. 25 Aug, p. 10. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.goy.au/nla.news-article29921850
The Mercury 1944: Efforts To Beautify Domain. 23 Noy, p. 16. Digitised item from National Library Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26037444
The Mercury 1934: Hobart City Council. 11 Sep, p. 8. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article24962926
The Mercury 1948: 80 Trees Planted On Domain. 18 Aug, p. 6. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27773752
The Mercury 1943: City Schoolchildren Plant Trees In Domain. 8 Jul, p. 7. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article25991628
Vegetation change in an urban grassy woodland since the early nineteenth century 51
Appendix 2 cont.
43,
44,
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
ple
The Mercury 1932: Trees On Domain. 28 Jun, p. 6. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article29961217
The Mercury 1932: Letters. 7 Nov, p. 6. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news- article247 12828
The Mercury 1933: Arboreal Rejuvenation. 9 Mar, p. 6. Digitised item from National Library. of Australia, available http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article24700291
The Mercury 1932: Progress Associations. 21 Jan, p. 11. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29940679
The Mercury 1934: Day By Day. 13 Sep, p. 8. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla. news-article24963610
The Mercury 1932: Domain Gum Trees. 1 Jul, p. 6. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article24704827
The Mercury 1954: To Plant Trees On Domain. 24 Jul, p. 7. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27223010
The Mercury 1940: Letters To The Editor. 9 Jan 1940, p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.goy.au/nla.news-article25779509
The Mercury 1953: Domain Grass. 2 Nov, p. 4. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla. news-article27 185423
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
The Mercury 1940: Several Houses Threatened. 12 Mar, p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article25781731
The Mercury 1952: Quelled Domain Fire. 25 Feb, pao: Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27081669
The Mercury 1952: Fire Brigade Kept Busy. 14 Apr, p. 5. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27077980
The Mercury 1953: Move To Prevent Fire Danger On Queen's Domain. 18 Feb, p. 6. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27 148351
The Mercury 1953: Firemen Burn Off Grass. 20 Feb, PS Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http:// nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27 147621
The Hobart Town Daily Mercury 1860: The Mercury. 22 May, p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19469133
The Mercury 1883: Friday Morning. 19 Jan, p. 2. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article9022186
59. Daily Telegraph 1883: Our Hobart Letter. 6 Sep, p. 3. Digitised
item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article1 49423842
52 Ellen R. Sorensen and Jamie B. Kirkpatrick
APPENDIX 3: IMAGE REFERENCES (accessed 14 October 2020 unless otherwise specified)
Hobart Town ca. 1805, G.P. Harris. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135224422
Sketch of Hobart Town 1817, Lt. C. Jeffreys. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/AI/PH30-1- 2653
Hobart Town, Van Dieman’s Land from Mount Nelson 1820, Joseph Lycett. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, http://nla. gov.au/nla.obj-134642888
South West View of Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land 1820, George William Evans. Digitised item from State Library of New South Wales, http://digital.sl.nsw. gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?embe dded=true&Xtoolbar=false&dps_pid=IE3238855&_ ga=2.14471039.978739024.1602748466- 1941299773.1597127201
Hobart Town, Van Dieman’s Land 1820, Joseph Lycett. https://stors. tas.gov.au/ 144585098
Copy of Drawing ‘Hobart Town Looking South West from Domain’ 1822, J.W. Beattie. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, https://stors.tas.gov.au/AI/NS2511-1-308
North east view of Hobart Town, Van Dieman’s Land 1823, Joseph Lycett. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, https://stors.tas.gov.au/ILS/SD_ILS-700846
View of Hobart from the Top of Mt Nelson with Hobart Town in the Distance 1825, Joseph Lycett. Digitised item from State Library Victoria, http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/129734
Hobart from a sketch 1827, E.R. Pretyman collection. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/AI/ NS1013-1-1547
Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land 1828, G.W. Evans/R.G. Reeve. Digitised item from National Libraries of Tasmania, hetp:// nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135297750
Panorama of Hobart 1828, Augustus Earle. Digitised item from State Library of New South Wales, https://search.sl.nsw. gov.au/permalink/f/1cvjue2/ADLIB1 10328958
Painting of Hobart from Upper Murray Street 1830, J.W. Beattie collection. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https:// stors.tas.gov.au/PH30-1-629J2K $init=PH30-1-629
Beattie sketch of Hobart from Battery Point 1830, J.W. Beattie collection. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https:// stors.tas.gov.au/AI/PH30-1-630
Hobart town, taken from the garden where I lived 1832, John Glover. Digitised item from State Library of New South Wales, https://search.sl.nsw.gov.au/permalink/f/1cvjue2/ ADLIB110314722
Hobart Town as seen from the top of Mount Nelson 1836, Benjamin Duterrau. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, hetp://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135290119
In Paddock, Hobarton, V.D.L. 1836, TE. Chapman. No longer available online.
Taken in the Paddock, Hobart Town, V.D.L. 1837, T.E. Chapman. No longer available online.
Rade D'Hobart Town (Ie Van-Diemen) dessine par le Breton 1841, Eugene Circeri. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/ILS/SD_ILS-174369
Hobart Town ec. from Mount Nelson 1844, J.S. Prout. Digitised item from National Gallery of Victoria, https://www.ngy. vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/28582/
Hobart Town from the government paddock 1844, J.S. Prout. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://librariestas. ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/library/search/ detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ ILS:606097/one?qu=hobart+town+from+government+pad dock+%5Bpicture%5D+j+s+prout
Hobart Town from the Domain 1844, James William Mansfield. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas. gov.au/ILS/SD_ILS-606597
HMS Anson (Female Convict Hulk), Off Queens Domain 1844-1850. Unknown artist. No longer available online.
Hobart Town and the Derwent River, Van Diemens Land, from a sketch by Capt. Hext, 4th, The Kings Own Regiment 1845, Charles Hutchins. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/ILS/SD_ILS-97377
City of Hobarton from Knocklofty 1850, Frederick Strange. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.obj-135299575
Hobart Town Regatta 1852, Ludwig Becker. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/ILS/SD_ILS- 155438
View of Rossbank Observatory 1854, Knud Bull. Digitised item from State Library of New South Wales, hetp:// digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?e mbedded=true&toolbar=false&dps_pid=IE91937408&_ ga=2.106792011.978739024.1602748466- 1941299773.1597127201
Hobart Town from the Domain 1854-1956, Knud Bull. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov. au/144584778
View of Part of Hobart Town from the windmill 1855, J.B. Henderson. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, hetp:// nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135174519
Government House, Hobart from railway track 1859, no author. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas. gov.au/AI/LPIC147-3-154
Government House, Hobart 1859, J Walch. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/AI/LPIC147- 3-174
Government House looking southeast 1860-1870, Morton Allport library. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https:// stors.tas.gov.au/ILS/SD_ILS-629778
Patent Slip, Queens Domain 1865, W.L. Crowther library. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/ILS/ SD_ILS-158083
Government House, Hobart Town, and the River Derwent from the Domain 1866, Samuel Gill. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135682499
Government House, Hobartown, Tasmania, Monday 22 June 1868, Stanley Leighton. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-138907943
Regatta at Hobart Town, Tasmania, in honour of the visit of ‘H.R.H’ Duke of Edinburgh, and Hobart Town, the Capital of Tasmania 1868, Illustrated London News. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/ILS/ SD_ILS-735049
Government House, Hobarton, Tasmania 1869, George Penkivil Slade. Digitised item from National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-138988325
The Derwent Near Government House 1870, unknown artist. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas. gov.au/AI/PH1-1-25
Hobart Town 1879, A.C. Cooke. Digitised item from Libraries
- Tasmania, https://stors.tas.gov.au/ILS/SD_ILS-94421
Domain Slip, showing shoreline looking south 1880, unknown artist. Digitised item from Libraries Tasmania, https://stors.tas.