Southern Tasmania – 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

The Lady Conductor and the Score of ‘The Toreador’

A single item, sitting on a library shelf, can be the thread of a story that weaves through locations and generations. This one is a ‘musical score’ – the sheets of music notes used for a performance – owned by a notable (but little known) Tasmanian woman.

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: July-September 2021

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

In this blog:

Richard Simson Photographic Collection – Ref: NS6351/1/1-95
Albums of Gladys Midwood – Ref: NS6759/1/2-3
Photographic Albums by Margaret Smithies, Ernest George Record and the McDowell family
Tasmanian Government Railways
1920s aerial view of Hobart city block bounded by Murray, Harrington, Liverpool and Melville Street looking North from behind His Majesty’s Theatre and Hobart Rivulet – Ref: NS892/1/61
Artworks of Launceston
Emu Bay by Thomas Unwin
The Pests of the Prince by Henry Manly
TGR Williams glass plate negatives – Ref: NS1409/1/46-48
Judges notes on capital offences committed at Norfolk Island, 1846 – Ref: CSO20/1/449
Burial Plot Maps, Cornelian Bay Cemetery 1915-16 – Ref: AF86/1/1
Wills from AD960/1/5
1829 journal written from London to Van Diemans Land by John Owen Lord – Ref: NS301/1/2

Hidden figures: Tom Midwood, caricatures and Tasmanian Railway Records

Sometime in the 1990s it came to the attention of the National Archives (then responsible for Tasmanian railway records) that a large collection of railway plans was languishing in haphazard storage at the Inveresk Railyards in Launceston. Archivists were dispatched to investigate and encountered a chaotic situation. Records had been stored anywhere and everywhere, including stuck up a disused chimney! Many had been badly affected by the 1929 floods and by the incursion of soot from coal-fired steam engines. However, the collection was one of marvellous significance, documenting Tasmania’s railway infrastructure. The archivists made a case for the preservation of this collection and secured funding to perform the mammoth task of cleaning, organising and properly storing the recovered hoard. In the process they found something quite unexpected.

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 Three: The Cascades Female Factory and Brickfields Invalid Depot, 1870-1877

In 1870, a horrific assault took place at the Cascades Female Factory. At eight o’clock in the morning on the 13th of July, a woman named Eliza Osborne beat an elderly woman named Ellen Conway with the iron dinner bell. She hit her in the head so hard that the bell cracked. Ellen Conway was a 73 year old ex-convict who had been sent to the depot for begging. One of the people who rushed to her side to help her was the nurse, Mrs Cecilia Eliza Paul. A few kilometers away (about 25 minutes’ walk), the nurse’s daughter ten year old Esther Mary Paul was also a witness – to her uncle George’s marriage at the family home at Cross Street, Sandy Bay.

This week in Esther’s story, we break away from the whaling logbook where we first found her as a five year old girl. Now we’ll trace her and her parents through two institutions which housed the most vulnerable people in Hobart in the 1870s – the Brickfields Invalid Depot and the Cascades Establishment. To piece that story together, we have to jump forward and backward in time a little bit, but I promise it is worth the journey!

Esther’s Story, Part Two: Getting By in Hobart, 1860-1870

“Cross Street, Sandy Bay Road,” “Be a good girl, Esther,” “Esther shall not go out again,” “Bombay is in Asia, ABC,” “Evil communication corrupts,” “Love your grandmother Esther” – each of these were written over and over again in a whaler’s logbook, and signed “Esther Mary Paul” in November or December, 1865. What was little Esther doing writing these lines, in -between and alongside the records of her uncle and aunt’s adventures at sea long before she was born? Was she being educated or punished, or both? Where was she living and why was she there? In this continuing story of little Esther Mary Paul and the whaling logbook in the Crowther Collection, we’ll try to piece together Esther’s young life. It’s a tale of sorrow, struggle, and abandonment, but also of strength, resilience, and love.

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.