Country Women’s Association (Tasmanian Archives: NG3954)
In 2011, the State Secretary of the Country Women’s Association first contacted the Tasmanian Archives to initiate a donation of their records. In 2023 the records came to us, and we commenced listing.
This collection opens the opportunity for researchers to discover more about the Country Women’s Association’s impacts on the Tasmanian community. For those interested in family research, the records reflect the opinions and actions of individual members and their dedication to local concerns. The collection also reveals details about rural communities around the state, and how members banded together in times of need.
Continue reading “Country Women’s Association (Tasmanian Archives: NG3954)”Recently Digitised Material – July 2024
Read on to discover some of the newly digitised Tasmanian Archives and State Library of Tasmania Heritage collections from His Majesty’s Theatre Hobart, Beaconsfield Mines, land grant application registrations and more! To discover more material from our collections, search our catalogue and Tasmanian Names Index or visit us on Flickr, YouTube and Instagram.
Continue reading “Recently Digitised Material – July 2024”Filtered through the Factory Part Two: Sarah Birmingham
In part one of this blog, we looked at the Cascades Female Factory admission register (Female House of Correction, Hobart – Register of Female Convicts admitted to the Factory, showing Number of Days Victualled, Tasmanian Archives: CON139/1/1), which records female convicts who passed through the ‘Female Factory’ from June 1833 to March 1834. This record tells us where the women were coming from (their assigned employer, police office or other institution), how long they were held in the Factory and where, or to whom, they were sent. You can search the data from CON139 in the Tasmanian Names Index.
This time, we are looking at a female convict who had a child in the institution.
Continue reading “Filtered through the Factory Part Two: Sarah Birmingham”Filtered through the Factory Part One: Mary Armstrong
The value of Tasmania’s convict records lies in the detailed information they provide on each person. But there are still gaps in our knowledge due to events not being recorded or records not being preserved in the Archives. Sometimes a single volume or scrap of paper shows us how much more we could have known if the record had survived in its entirety. One such item is a volume from the Cascades Female House of Correction (Female House of Correction, Hobart – Register of Female Convicts admitted to the Factory, showing Number of Days Victualled, Tasmanian Archives: CON139/1/1, which records female convicts who passed through the ‘Female Factory’ in 1833-1834. This record tells us where the women were coming from (their assigned employer, police office or other institution), how long they were held in the Factory and where (or to whom) they were sent.
While this volume has not been newly discovered, we have now completed the task of transcribing the data and linking the relevant pages to convicts’ entries in the Tasmanian Names Index. This includes 766 female convicts and 212 of their children. Search the data from CON139 in the Tasmanian Names Index.
Read on to find out more about the significance of this volume, and the story of one of the women it records.
Continue reading “Filtered through the Factory Part One: Mary Armstrong”Sewing for freedom: clothes production at the Cascades Female Factory
This blog is one of a series that explores in greater depth some of the fascinating stories that we uncovered while researching Duck Trousers, Straw Bonnets, and Bluey: Stories of fabrics and clothing in Tasmania, an exhibition currently on display in the State Library of Tasmania and Tasmanian Archives Reading Room in Hobart. These blogs are designed to complement the exhibition, expanding some elements of the exhibition story walls to provide more context and different perspectives.
Female Factories in colonial Van Diemen’s Land were arrival and hiring depots, as well as somewhere to house those who were unfit for service outside, whether ill, rebellious, or pregnant with nowhere else to go. They were also the instrument of systematic and severe punishment of convict women for often minor offences and were also known as a ‘Female House of Correction’. Thanks to the Convict Department’s aims of strict discipline, control and reform through hard labour, which it was hoped would earn enough money to help to cover costs, women worked long hours at tasks including standing for hours in the cold at outdoor laundry tubs, picking apart old tar-laden ropes, spinning wool, and sewing and clothes-making.
Continue reading “Sewing for freedom: clothes production at the Cascades Female Factory”Recently Digitised Material 2023
Read more to explore some of the newly digitised highlights from the Tasmanian Archives and State Library Heritage 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:
- From my camera: Masterton photo album Launceston, 1908
- Austin’s Ferry by George Boyes, c1830-40
- Glass Plate Negatives and Lantern Slides of Bridport and north east Tasmania c1900 (Ref: NS787)
- Photographs taken by T R G Williams of Scottsdale and north east Tasmania c1900 (Ref: NS786)
- The Mount Bischoff Mail 1881
- Photographs of ‘Tornado’ at Queenstown, 1918 (Ref: NS7240/1/1-11)
- Rough sketches in V D Land by J W Mansfield, 1844
- Aerial view of Sandy Bay and University of Tasmania 1962 (Ref: PH40/1/1093)
- Lantern Slides of Neilson Alonso’s voyages to the Antarctic in 1927 and 1930 (Ref: CRO75/1/1-69)
- Photographic albums of Beattie Jordan’s dance school (c1920-40). (Ref: NS648)
- Album of Photographs of Tasmania compiled by RC Coulter, 1860-1920
- Map including DEntrecasteaux Channel and Derwent River 1897. (Ref: MAP1/1/101)
- Locket including hand-coloured photographs of W and L Arnold (Ref: NS7404/1/1)
- Album of Tasmania (Ref: PH20/1/66)
- Images of blankets and woollen cloth manufacture in Launceston, 1950-60. (Ref: ED330)
- Lithograph of the trial of Jones of Pont-y-pool
- Scrapbook of Henrietta Maria Garrett.
- Plans, Architectural Drawings, Elevations and Sections of Public Buildings (PWD266)
- Hobart from Knocklofty (aka Hobart seen from the west) / Melvin Vaniman (Ref: NS7407/1/1)
- Photographs from the Launceston Manuscript Collection (Ref: LMSS726)
- Photographs Taken by Ebenezer Cumings (1900-1904) (Ref: LMSS725)
- Launceston Collection of Photographs of Ships (Ref: LMSS761)
- Diary of Alexander Laing 1868] (Ref: NS906/1/1-3)
- Laura’s Brookville diaries (1819-1894).
- Prisoners Barracks, Hobart – Registers of Rations issued to Prisoners (1841-51) (Ref: CON96)
- Letterbooks of Correspondence addressed to the Commandant, Launceston (1826-41) – (Ref: CSO36)
- Report on Parochial Schools within Archdeaconry of Hobart Town by Arthur Davenport, 1849 (Ref: MM83/1/1)
- Logs and other journals of ships on whaling and trading voyages (Ref: CRO82)
- Oversize Chart of Convict Department Task Work of Female Convicts, 1852 (Ref: GO33/1/100)
- Plan of cemetery, St James Colebrook, 1850 (Ref: NS6504/1/1)
- Master Set of Burial Plot Maps, Cornelian Bay Cemetery, 1915-16 (Ref: AF86/1/1-2)
Tasmanian Textiles and Clothing in Film
For the moving visual addition to the Duck Trousers, Straw Bonnets, and Bluey exhibition now showing in the State Library Reading Room, we were able to find a few gems from the late Tasmanian Film Corporation. The Tasmanian Film Corporation was the last incarnation of the Tasmanian Government film unit, which was established in 1946 by the Lands and Surveys Department. It would evolve into the Department of Film Production in 1960 to oversee the full range of film production in the state before being transformed into the government owned commercial business model in the guise of The Tasmanian Film Corporation in 1977. If it moves, we’ll shoot it was a witty commercial made in 1968 by the Department of Film Production about their services.
Continue reading “Tasmanian Textiles and Clothing in Film”Conservation of a tastevin
The Conservation team was recently tasked with the treatment of a silver cup that belonged to a prominent Tasmanian, with links to a historic French fraternity. Read on to find out more about this unusual item and how it has been conserved.
Continue reading “Conservation of a tastevin”The Race to a Thousand Pounds: Unravelling Tasmania’s Woollen Industry (Part Three: Success or Misfortune?)
This blog is one in a series published by the State Library and Archive team that explores in greater depth some of the fascinating stories that we uncovered while researching our current exhibition, Duck Trousers, Straw Bonnets, and Bluey: Stories of fabrics and clothing in Tasmania. These blogs are designed to complement the exhibition, expanding information presented on the story walls to provide more context and other perspectives. This blog is the last of three blogs that extends the research presented on the “Tale of two Woollen Mills” story wall.
Continue reading “The Race to a Thousand Pounds: Unravelling Tasmania’s Woollen Industry (Part Three: Success or Misfortune?)”The Race to a Thousand Pounds: Unravelling Tasmania’s Woollen Industry (Part Two: To the South)
This blog is one in a series published by the State Library and Archive team that explores in greater depth some of the fascinating stories that we uncovered while researching our current exhibition, Duck Trousers, Straw Bonnets, and Bluey: Stories of fabrics and clothing in Tasmania. These blogs are designed to complement the exhibition, expanding information presented on the story walls to provide more context and other perspectives. This blog is the second of three blogs that extends the research presented on the “Tale of two Woollen Mills” story wall.
Continue reading “The Race to a Thousand Pounds: Unravelling Tasmania’s Woollen Industry (Part Two: To the South)”