JOHN OSBORNE, TASMANIA’S ‘MR PINEAPPLE’

JOHN OSBORNE, TASMANIA'S  'MR PINEAPPLE'

In 1938 the Tasmanian newspaper The Mercury published the following, circa 1840s portrait of Mr John Osborne, one of the State’s pioneering horticulturalists. It’s impossible to make out from the reproduction, but he is holding….a pineapple! Osborne was born in Staffordshire England, on Christmas Day 1804. He

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DIP OUT! EXTRAORDINARY LETTERS FOLLOW THE 1975 DISMISSAL

DIP OUT! EXTRAORDINARY LETTERS FOLLOW  THE 1975 DISMISSAL

Many of us were fascinated to read the recently released, vice-regal correspondence leading up to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975 . However, as a born and bred Tasmanian I was intrigued by two letters written the following year, but prompted by the same

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DR RATTEN AND THE FLU EPIDEMIC IN TASMANIA

DR RATTEN AND THE FLU EPIDEMIC IN TASMANIA

In 1919 Dr Victor Ratten was Surgeon Superintendent of the Hobart General Hospital. At the time he was fighting accusations that the medical certificate he had obtained in Chicago ten years earlier was fraudulent. He was a man of supreme self-confidence, never allowing the charges to distract

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