Tasmania, as with most of the world, was coping with severe economic depression during the nineteen thirties. The State Government initiated capital works programmes to employ those who were ‘on sustenance’ as it was called. It was considered beneficial to the physical and mental welfare of the
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In 2012 a bowl featuring the ship Star of Tasmania was offered for sale by Gowans Auction House in Hobart; Other items related to this ship have appeared for sale over the years. It must have been a very special vessel. From Launceston’s Cornwall Chronicle on Saturday,
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When I was growing up on a farm in north-west Tasmania our fences were mainly barbed wire, supported by blackberries. I loved seeing the English style hawthorn hedges when we ventured further south, especially driving through sheep country in the Midlands. Here is an account of hawthorn
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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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Anyone growing up in rural Tasmania in the old days would be aware of the lunch basket, often taken out to the paddock by small children. And if a piece of cake or a biscuit disappeared on the way….well who could blame them? My farmer’s wife mother
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Times change and today, September 21 2020, the final 7.45am news bulletin will be heard on the ABC. A SAD DAY……… Growing up in rural Tasmania during the 1950s, the 7.45am ABC news bulletin was the signal for me and my siblings to set off down our
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William Singleton was my great-great grandfather. He was transported to Tasmania for life in 1828, aboard the convict ship Manilus. As with most convicts his crime was theft, in this case cheese, bread and bacon. Oh dear, a seventeen year old brickie’s lad gets very hungry. During
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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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The following extract on whaling is from The Mercury, July 1929, re-posted from The New York Post. Please don’t take offence at its tone my fellow Taswegians; The whaling industry is to be restored to Hobart, capital of Tasmania, the little island lying south of Australia. This
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When the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition opened in 1888, produce from the small community of Ulverstone, Tasmania was represented by leather and skins from Mr T. L. Button, ploughs of polished iron and varnished blackwood from Mr L. Titmouse and…..cordials and aerated waters from Mr R. R. Hunter.
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