John West arrived in Tasmania in 1838. He became the Congregational Minister in Launceston and quickly emerged as a prominent leader of the community. He was one of the founders of the Examiner newspaper in 1842 and wrote many leading articles. His most significant political role was as leader of the movement to bring convict transportation to an end. His powerful oratory and persuasive prose attracted the attention of John Fairfax who invited him to become the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, a post he held with distinction until his death in 1873.
West’s greatest contribution to Tasmania was the writing of his two volume History of Tasmania published in Launceston in 1852. One of the most distinctive features of the book is that West devotes just under 100 pages to the First Tasmanians. He was a man of his time, but he treats them seriously and with empathy in a way not matched in the great majority of Australian historical works until the last decades of the 20th century. West was quite clear that what Tasmania experienced was a war, an idea which is still contested even today.
– Henry Reynolds
