Expedition under Lieutenant-Governor Collins in 1803-4

The Origin of the expedition and the voyage to Port Phillip. In former papers which I have had the honor to read before the Royal Society, I have endeavoured to trace the influence of French rivalry in hastening the English settlement of Australia. I have shown that to the pioneer work of French navigators we owe the first admirable surveys of the southern coasts of Tasmania, and that it was wholly due to the apprehensions that those surveys excited that Governor King sent Lieut. Bowen from Port Jackson to take possession of the Derwent. I have also briefly touched on the explorations of our own English sailors in the neighbourhood of the Derwent and in Bass' Strait, and the influence of their reports in deciding the choice of localities for new colonies, while I have followed the misfortunes of the unlucky settlement at Risdon, and described its collapse after a short and troubled life of little more than half a year. The real history of Tasmania as an English colony begins with the departure from England, in the spring of 1803, of the expedition of Lieutenant-Governor Collins, the founder of Hobart; and it is with the origin and misadventures of that expedition on its way to the Derwent that I have to deal in the present paper. The project of the English Government to found a colony on the shores of Bass' Strait, and the unsuccessful attempt of Governor Collins to plant that settlement at Port Phillip in 1803, may at first sight appear to be beyond the scope of the history of Tasmania, and to belong exclusively to that of Victoria. But Collins' expedition has absolutely nothing to do with the history of our Victorian neighbours. The sandhills of Port Phillip merely served for a month or two as a resting place for the colonists on their way to the Derwent. The short stay of Collins' people on Victorian soil was only an incident in their passage from England to Van Diemen's Land, like their touching at Rio or the Cape; and the story of those months is an essential part of the history of the first settlers of Hobart

The deportation of the Norfolk Islanders to the Derwent in 1808

Our Government has availed itself of Mr. Bonwick's special knowledge to secure copies of the papers he has researched from the English State Record Office relating to the settlement and earliest history of Tasmania. Of this period no contemporary records have been preserved in our local archives ; our knowledge of those early times has hitherto been derived merely from vague and inaccurate tradition. The material supplied by Mr. Bonwick has enabled me to lay before the Royal Society the first authentic story of the planting of Tasmania and of the motives which led to it. In former papers we have seen how the occupation of our island came about. The next chapter in our colonial history to which I ask your attention is Norfolk Island, a small and solitary island, separated from us by more than a thousand miles of ocean, the fortunes of which have, nevertheless, been strangely interwoven with those of our own colony. It is most familiar to us as a synonym for cruelty and crime, a reminiscence of the days when the distant island formed a dependency and a part of the then penal settlement of Van Diemen's Land. To the majority this, which is within the memory of many still living amongst us, is the only known link between our colony and it—perhaps the only known fact respecting its earlier history. Comparatively few are aware that—with the single exception of Sydney — Norfolk Island is the oldest English colony in the South Seas. Perhaps still fewer know that to that same far-off island, so familiar to us in later days under another aspect, Tasmania was indebted for a large proportion of her earliest colonists. To this historical fact the familiar names of New Norfolk in the south, and Norfolk Plains in the north of this colony remain a perpetual but unappreciated memorial. The history of Norfolk Island and its early colonists thus becomes an essential part of the history of Tasmania. The history of its colonisation and settlement can be gathered from scattered references in the works of Collins and other contemporary writers, but Mr. Bonwick's researches in the Record Office enable me to lay before the Royal Society the first authentic story of the evacuation of the island and the transference of all its free settlers to the Derwent in 1808

The English at the Derwent, and the Risdon settlement.

The choice of such an unsuitable place as Risdon for the site of the first settlement has always been something of a puzzle; in order to understand the circumstances which led to this ill-advised selection, it will be necessary to go back some years, and follow the history of English discovery and exploration in the South of Tasmania. Historical account of the settlement of Risdon Cove, includes hand drawn maps

Some notes on the tribal divisions of the aborigines of Tasmania

The estimates of the aboriginal population of Tasmania before the advent of Europeans vary very considerably. G. A. Robinson always maintained that, in 1804, the number of the aborigines was from 6000 to 8000. Captain Kelly, in his evidence before Colonel Arthur's Committee in 1830, estimated the native population at 5000 ; but he supposed that the number was still very great in the unsettled parts of the colony, which we now know was not the case. On the other hand, Backhouse put the number as low as 700 to 1000. To sum up the result of our enquiry, we find, ( 1 ) That the aboriginal population probably did not exceed 2000 : (2) that there were four main groups of tribes ; viz. — (a) South ; (b) West and North-West ; (c) Central and East ; (d) North and North-East : (3) that these groups were divided by strongly marked differences of language : (4) that the Southern and Western tribes were completely isolated from those on the eastern side of the island, and that a similar separation existed between the North and North-Eastern tribes on the one hand, and those of the Centre and East on the other : (5) that within the groups each tribe and sub-tribe probably occupied a definite district which was recognised as its special territory : (6) that the tribes within each group, though generally leagued together, were at times at feud with each other : (7) that in later years, after the European occupation, the tribes—especially those of the east and centre of the island—laid aside their differences, and made common cause against the white intruders

The Tasmanian aborigines

To anthropologists the aborigines of Tasmania presented an exceedingly interesting object of study. Professor Tylor had remarked that in the tribes of Tasmania, only just extinct, we had men whose condition had changed but little since the early Stone Age, and whose life gave us some idea of the earliest prehistoric tribes of the old world, the Drift and Cave men of Europe. It is therefore much to be regretted that so little information remains respecting the Tasmanians in their wild state. G. A. Robinson was probably the only man who thoroughly understood the aborigines. He could have supplied valuable information as to their tribal usages and ways of thinking, yet, so far as I know, he has not left behind him even the briefest account of the people for whom he ran such risks, though there are still preserved in the Chief Secretary's office very voluminous reports of his expeditions. Mr. Bonwick's two books "The Last of the Tasmanians" and "The Daily life of the Tasmanians," deserve more than a passing mention. In these two works the author has collected a great mass of information respecting the history and customs of the aborigines. When, therefore, in 1890, Sir. H. Ling Roth published his work, "The Aborigines of Tasmania," he did no inconsiderable service to anthropology. The work is faithfully and conscientiously done, and the book is in every respect an admirable one. It throws a new light on the aborigines and adds largely to our knowledge of them, enabling us to fix more accurately than has hitherto been possible, their place in the scale of humanity

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