Calendar May to August
14 September Kirstie Ross
Tasmania’s Mystery Train Hikes of 1932 and the Commercialisation of Bushwalking
12 October ELDERSHAW MEMORIAL LECTURE
Anna Clark The History of Fishing in Tasmania
9 November Graeme Broxam
John Scott, Sealer of Bass Strait and His ‘Forgotten’ Aboriginal Descendants
14 December Dianne Snowden
Royal Hobart Show Bicentenary
Eldershaw Lecture 2021
The Eldershaw Lecture for 2021 will be held at 8 p.m. on Tuesday 12 October at Legacy House. This year’s lecturer is Associate Professor Anna Clark, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at University of Technology, Sydney. Her books include the award-winning History Wars (2003) (written with Stuart Macintyre), History’s Children: History Wars in the Classroom (2008) and, a keen fisher, The Catch: The Story of Fishing in Australia (2017).
Excursion to Buckland and Orford - 9-10 October 2021
An excursion to Buckland and Orford to look at probation station sites and other features of historic interest (such as colonial houses, features on the old ‘convict road’) is being held on Saturday-Sunday 9-10 October. Limit 25 people, THRA members only. Suitable only for people able to walk several kilometres over sometimes uneven ground.
Dennis and Jenny Breen have kindly offered to provide accommodation, as has Malcolm Ward, and otherwise people can book their own.
Details of activities and cost will be provided later. From previous excursions, the cost should be about $70 a head to cover bus and lunches.
Please contact Alison Alexander if you are interested, at alison.alexander@utas.edu.au
New THRA Website
As many of you probably know by now, the promised new simplified THRA website is live. You can see it at https://thra.org.au/ and we would like to know what you think via the contact email on the website.
New Members
Kathy Brown, Mt Stuart
Christine Burgess, Arundel QLD
Tracey Hurd, West Moonah
David Phillipson, Kensington, VIC
Jeff Schneider, New Town TAS
Peter Rowe, Kaoota
Jan Tierney, South Hobart
Invitation to Conversation between Henry Reynolds and Robert Cox
All THRA members are invited to the following: Thursday 14 October at 10am. A Seniors’ Week free public event in the Theatre of the Old Commerce Building, UTAS campus, off French Street, Sandy Bay. Henry Reynolds and Robert Cox will discuss “The Importance of Black Tom Birch in Colonial Tasmania”.
Invitation to Robert Cox's Book Launch - 28 October
On Thursday 28 October at 5.30pm at Salamanca Book Shop, Salamanca Square. Professor Henry Reynolds will launch Robert Cox’s new book Broken Spear: The Untold Story of Black Tom Birch, the Man Who Incited Australia’s Bloodiest War (Wakefield Press). Because of Covid-19 restrictions, please book online at www.hobartbookshop.com.au. Booking fee of $5 includes a glass of wine. Any surplus will be donated to charity.
Do You Know about Lidar and the List?
Recently THRA Committee member Malcolm Ward alerted the committee to the usefulness of two tools called LIDAR ( Laser Imaging Detection And Ranging) and the LIST (Land Information System Tasmania). As we think members will find these tools useful, a summary of Malcolm’s email is included below.
For those not familiar, LIDAR is a way to measure topography using laser light pulses. A smartphone uses LIDAR to measure the contours of your face for facial recognition (which is why holding a photo of yourself up won’t unlock your phone!).
Aerial LIDAR surveys can very accurately map the ground topography and has a great advantage that it ‘looks though’ anything ‘soft’, such as vegetation and soil. Therefore it will map to high resolution (if the survey is done to high resolution) stone buildings, or their footings, looking through vegetation and soil. It has found whole new Mayan cities under the central American jungles and likewise all over the world.
Tasmania now had LIDAR coverage of the entire state, with much of it at high-ish resolution, enough to see colonial-era building ruins or footings. Modern buildings, made of a mix of hard stone and soft wood etc materials, produce mixed results in imagery.
The Tasmanian Government The LIST website is where it presents a myriad of data sets for use – aerial photos, heritage register sites, geology, aboriginal heritage type boundaries, TASMAP.
The List: https://www.thelist.tas.gov.au/app/content/home
‘Properties and titles’ is where you’ll find all the old deeds etc. You need to establish an account.
For maps, click on LISTmap – brings up a map of Tas.
For further advice on using The LIST see contact details on the above website.