Images – State Library and Tasmanian Archives Blog

Recently Digitised Material: January-June 2022

This blog features some of the recently digitised items from the Tasmanian Archives and the State Library of Tasmania heritage collections.

Read on to find out about new additions to our digital collections! To discover even more, you can also search our catalogue and Tasmanian Names Index or visit us on Flickr, YouTube and Instagram.

In this blog:

Thomas Bock’s notes on photography, including Talbot’s calotype process and daguerreotypes – Ref: ALL34/1/1
Star of Tasmanian shipboard journal (1859-60) – Ref: NS7221/1/1
Journals of Separate Prison wardens, Tasman Peninsula (1860, 1863) – Ref CON91/1/2-3
Descriptive Lists of Male and Female Convicts to Be Embarked for Van Diemen’s Land from Various Prisons in the United Kingdom, (1839-50). Ref: CON114/1/1-8
Convict credit and gratuity books, Tasman Peninsula (1865-68). Ref: CON130/1/1-3
Register of Convicts for Whom Enquiries were Made (1850-68). Ref: GO121/1/1
Tasmanian Birth Registers (1921) – RGD33/2/5 to 8
Female Admissions, Royal Derwent Hospital (1898-1903) – Ref: AB365/1/13
Copies of Wills Recording Granting of Probate (1868-1874) – Ref: AD960/1/8, AD960/1/9
Daguerreotype and ambrotype portraits – Ref: NS5465/1/1-3
Launceston Collection of Photographs of Ships – Ref: LMSS761/1/1-490
Hobart Town by Ensign Kemp from behind my quarters / W.H. Kemp
Artworks by Knud Geelmuyden Bull
Mount Wellington from Bellerive, artist unknown
Mount Lyell mines map,1896
Glass plate negatives from AA Rollings Collection – Ref: NS1553/2/1 to 34

Recently Digitised Material: October-December 2021

This blog features some of the recently digitised items from the Tasmanian Archives and the State Library of Tasmania.

Read on to find out more about our new additions to our digital collections! To discover even more, you can also search our catalogue and Tasmanian Names Index or visit us on Flickr, YouTube and Instagram.

In this blog:

Photographs of Tasmanian Cricket Teams – Ref: PH40/1/3625-27
Photographs of Launceston and Perth– Ref: NS7193/1/5-8
Artwork of Launceston Mechanics Institute – Ref: LPIC41/1/1
Artwork of Hobart Town, on the River Derwent, Van Diemen’s Land by W.J. Huggins (Allport)
Photograph of Twin Ferry Kangaroo, Hobart – Ref: PH30/1/3269
Advertisement for Weaver and Co, Wellington Bridge Hobart by T Midwood – Ref: NS6760/1/7
Glass Plate Negatives by A Rollings of Sorell Area – Ref: NS1553/1/1010-1099
Register of Convicts B, M-Z 1835-47 – Ref: CON22/1/4
Register of payment of salaries to officers of the police, 1855-57 – Ref: AUD45/1/1-3
Journal of a voyage from Liverpool to VDL, 1833 – Ref: NS5739/1/1
Copies of Wills Recording Granting of Probate – Ref: AD960/1/6, AD960/1/7
Film of opening of Launceston library after refit – Ref: AG279/1/2
Film of the Launceston children’s library – Ref: AG279/1/1

Recently Digitised Material: October-December 2020

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this post contains images and voices of deceased persons.

This blog features some of the recently digitised items from the Tasmanian Archives and the State Library of Tasmania. Each year, we place items online to help promote and preserve our rare and special collections. These images and films are just a tiny sample of an amazing treasure trove of Tasmania’s heritage. From colonial artwork to convict records, fragile glass plate negatives to rare films, private letters to government records, our collections (including the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts and the W L Crowther Collection) tell millions of stories from Tasmania and around the world.

Read on to find out more about our new additions to our digital collections! To discover even more, you can also search our catalogue or visit us on Flickr and YouTube.

In this blog:

Peter Laurie Reid Carte-De-Visite Collection, c1860 – Ref: NS1442/1/1 to 53
Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 – Ref: NS6607/1/1 to 14
Stereoscopic Photographs of Emu Bay Burnie, c1890 – Ref: NS6664/1/1 to 5
Stereoscopic photographs taken by George Benjamin Davies for submission to the Postal Stereoscopic Society of Australia, c1921 – Ref: NS6538/1/1 to 33
Tasmanian Government Tourist Bureau photographs – AA375
Photograph of Fanny Cochrane Smith and Horace Watson recording Tasmanian Aboriginal Songs: NS1553/1/1798
Illustrated Travelogue July 1919 – Ref: NS6853
Fountain in Governor’s garden, Port Arthur – Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts
Drawing of George Meredith, Senior – Ref: LMSS12/1/72
Photographs from the Trustees of the Tasmanian Public Library – Ref: SLT23
Wills Image Replacement Project: AD960/1/1
Diary of Police Duties kept by Charles H. Brown, District Constable, Coal Mines, Tasman Peninsula 1853 – Ref: CON129/1/1
Index to General Correspondence, 1836-7 – Ref: CSO4

Continue reading “Recently Digitised Material: October-December 2020”

Recently Digitised Material

This blog features some of the recently digitised items from the Tasmanian Archives and the State Library of Tasmania. Each year, we place items online to help promote and preserve our rare and special collections. These images and films are just a tiny sample of an amazing treasure trove of Tasmania’s heritage. From colonial artwork to convict records, from fragile glass plate negatives to rare films, from private letters to government records, our collections (including the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts and the W L Crowther Collection) tell literally millions of stories from Tasmania and around the world.

Read on to find out more about our new additions to our digital collections! To discover even more, you can also search our catalogue or visit us on Flickr and YouTube.

In this blog:

Glass Plate Negatives of Sea Captains, c1920 – Ref: NS6192
Stereoscopic Views of the ‘Franklin Relics,’ 1860 – Ref: NS1155
Mt Biscoff Tin Mine Photographs – Ref: NS6719
Gentleman Jim, 1942 – Reference: Ref: NS4264/1/5
Hobart High School Photos – Ref: AG162/1/6
Charles Street School Register 1902-08 – Ref: AB753/1/1
Return of Convicts Embarked for Port Arthur by the Ships Tamar, Isabella, Shamrock, and Lady Franklin (1834-1855). Ref: CON126/1/1
Return of Money Forfeited by Prisoners at Port Arthur (1864). Ref: CON132/1/1
Letter from the Colonial Secretary to the Commandant, Port Arthur (1834). Ref: CON86/1/2
Film: Timber Makes News, 1947 – Ref: AC672/1/219
Film: Les Skelly talking about Tiger Hill, 1986-9 – Ref: NS1391/1/1
Film: Burnie Mill, 1956 – Ref: AC672/1/1

Continue reading “Recently Digitised Material”

Esther’s Story, Part One: The Whaler’s Log

In November of 1865, a five year old girl named Esther sat in a house in Sandy Bay, writing lines in a small, leather-bound book. Some days, she had geography lessons. Some days, she was in trouble. Some days, she just needed to memorize her new address. Two months came and went, and the little girl wrote line after line. Her notebook had once belonged to her Uncle William, and recorded his whaling voyages to the Pacific Ocean and the Timor Sea. In the spaces in-between the stories of whales and gales, little Esther did her school work. So did her Aunt Charlotte, who copied out poems and ballads for the little girl to memorize. Aunt Charlotte knew that logbook well, for it was the record of her own honeymoon at sea, nine years earlier. Now it became a part of a different family story – of tragedy, loss, love, abandonment, and survival.

Esther’s Story is actually the story of three nineteenth-century women: Esther Mary Paul (Lithgow), her mother Cecilia Eliza (Rowland) Paul, and her aunt Charlotte Ann (Rowland) Jacobs. Over Family History Month, we’ll follow these women through three blogs and fifty years of their lives, using digital collections together with library and archival resources. It’s a tale of adventure, improvisation, and resilience, but it’s also something else. It’s a reminder – of how our own historical present can change how we think about the past. Read on to discover more.

Collecting history as it happens – COVID-19 Stories campaigns across Australia

A Libraries Tasmania and TMAG partnership, COVID-19 Stories, is reaching out to Tasmanians to capture their stories and records of the pandemic. COVID-19 Stories is just one of many projects across Australia aiming to preserve memories of this historic time. Stories – big and small – are needed to fully record this story. With enough public input these wide-ranging projects will allow us to capture the diverse experiences of our community as we faced, and carried on through, a life-changing, worldwide pandemic.

COVID-19 STORIES Submission – J Davidson

The Conservation Treatment of CRO5/1/33

About 170 years ago, a prominent Hobart doctor made a series of anatomical drawings for local medical students. Dr Edward Swarbreck Hall’s stunning illustrations later ended up in the hands of his fellow medical practitioner, Sir William Crowther, who donated them (with the rest of his considerable collection) to the State Library of Tasmania. But the drawings were in poor condition, neglected for well over a century, and they needed urgent conservation treatment before they could be displayed. What follows is the story of how our conservator, Stephanie McDonald, brought one of the drawings back to life for Lauren Black’s new exhibition, A Complex Beauty at the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition will soon be available online as a ‘walk-through’ digital experience (in the meantime, you can check it out on Flickr). Read on to discover more!

Reading, Writing & Arithmetic: The Public School Curriculum 150 Years Ago

What would you have learned at a Tasmanian public school in 1869? Mostly, just reading, writing and arithmetic, from a teacher not much older than yourself, in a class of 40-60 students, and in a textbook that your grandfather might have read in Ireland thirty years earlier. The texts might have been boring and out of date, but the reasons why are fascinating. That’s because the public school curriculum in 1869 was deliberately designed to be bland and uninteresting, in order to avoid social conflict. What follows is the story of a journey – from the idea that education needed to reform and contain children, to the radical idea that children in public schools should be inspired to learn, and to become curious and informed citizens. Read on to discover more!

For an audio introduction to this story, check out our interview with ABC Radio!

Continue reading “Reading, Writing & Arithmetic: The Public School Curriculum 150 Years Ago”

Island Life: The Volunteer Work and Photographs of Trauti and David Reynolds

At the end of National Volunteers Week, we wanted to take a moment both to thank our volunteers, and to highlight a new collection that tells stories of volunteering in Tasmania’s historic and wild places. These are the photograph albums of Trauti and David Reynolds, which document their volunteer and conservation work around Tasmania over many years. Thanks to their generous donation, these albums are now digitized and available to everyone.

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Life at The Steppes

A stop at The Steppes was once essential for every traveller in Tasmania’s Central Highlands. On our list of recently digitised materials is a sketchbook of birds and plants by Marjorie (Madge) Wilson, who was the last resident of the house at The Steppes.

Continue reading “Life at The Steppes”