Elizabeth Brown – State Library and Tasmanian Archives Blog

Tasmania Reads: An Application to the Orphan School (Part Two: The Answer and Historical Background)

The State Library is issuing a challenge to Tasmanians to read five different examples of nineteenth century handwriting from our Heritage Collections, each featuring a different set of records held in the State Archives.

Tasmania Reads: An Application to the Orphan School (Part One: The Challenge)

The scripts are selected to give you insights into some of the key strengths of our collection and we hope they will pique your interest to explore further.

Your Transcription Challenge

This final challenge is, for me, the most difficult to read both for its content and style. It is an application to the Colonial Secretary for the immediate admission of John Garrity to the newly opened orphanage at New Town. The orphan school catered for the children of convicts under sentence, as well as the children of the free when the parents were unable or unwilling to care for them.

Tasmanian Archives: General Correspondence, Colonial Secretary’s Office CSO5/1/86 File 1885 page 154.

The Answer…

will be published in our blog this afternoon. Stay tuned!

Tasmania Reads: Reading a Convict Record (Part Two: The Answer and Historical Background)

The State Library and Archive Service is issuing a challenge to Tasmanians to read five different examples of nineteenth-century handwriting from our Heritage Collections, each featuring a different set of records held in the State Archives.

Tasmania Reads: Reading a Convict Record (Part One: The Challenge)

The scripts are selected to give you insights into some of the key strengths of our collection and we hope they will pique your interest to explore further.

Tasmania Reads: Reading an Account of the Voyage of a Convict Transport (Part Two: The Answer and Historical Background)

Tasmania Reads: Reading an Account of the Voyage of a Convict Transport (Part One: The Challenge)

The scripts are selected to give you insights into some of the key strengths of our collection and we hope they will pique your interest to explore further.

As the week progresses, the challenge will get a bit more difficult, as you become more familiar with reading script.

Each challenge will consist of two blogs. The morning blog will contain your transcription challenge, while the afternoon blog will provide the answer, as well as historical background to the events discussed in the challenge task. There will also be recommendations of other resources held in the Libraries Tasmania collections on the topic for you to explore.

Your Transcription Challenge

Your first challenge is to transcribe a passage from the account of the voyage of the Female Transport, Garland Grove (2) in 1842/1843:

Tasmanian Archives: Abraham Harvey, Reminiscences of a Voyage on the Female Convict Ship *Garland Grove*, p.4 (1842-43), NS816/1/1. Abraham Harvey was the 2^nd Officer on board the *Garland Grove*, which left England in August 1842 and arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in January 1843.

The Answer …

will be published in our blog this afternoon. Stay tuned!

The Tasmanian Archives research files: giving remote researchers access to the same research material as locals.

Prior to the electronic submission of research enquiries, clients would mail their requests to the Archives Office of Tasmania at 91 Murray Street, Hobart. When replying, State Archives staff kept their research notes filed in manila folders. Over time, clients occasionally added their research notes to these folders. Known internally as the Correspondence Files, these records are still used daily by Archives staff in response to visitor enquiries and when answering enquiries from remote clients.

Up until now the only way to access these files was to visit us or to submit a research enquiry. These files can now be discovered through a simple search in the Tasmanian Names Index.

From “Dangerously Foul Air” to Free School Milk: A Brief History of Public Health in Tasmanian Public Schools, 1900-1975

Schools with no toilets and no sinks to wash your hands. Sick children labelled as “mentally deficient” because of their swollen adenoids and tonsils. Adolescents with a full set of dentures, little children cleaning their teeth with the corner of a sooty towel. A generation of teenagers with curved spines and poor eyesight from bending over their school desks in poorly lit and freezing cold classrooms. This was the picture of public health in Tasmanian schools in 1906. Over the next 75 years, schools found themselves on the front lines of the battle against contagious disease, poor nutrition and poor health. Over time, Tasmanian public schools became a crucial part of the Tasmanian public health system, and transformed the lives of thousands of Tasmanian children. Read on to find out more about this fascinating story.

Adventurous Beginnings – Te Bibilia Tapu Ra

Books travel. Throughout their lives, they are passed from hand to hand: given, borrowed, stolen, buried, discovered. Like all travelers, they also gather stories. This is the story of the Raratongan Bible, Te Bibilia Tapu Ra, in the Australian Collection of the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office. It begins on a Pacific island and ends in Tasmania, and its story is fascinating. Interested? Read on!

Continue reading “Adventurous Beginnings – Te Bibilia Tapu Ra”