Tasmanian Postal History

Tasmania is an island in the south seas, in fact, it is one of the southern most islands in the World north of Antarctica.

Tasmania is a State of the Commonwealth of Australia, although it has never yet had more than half a million inhabitants.

It was settled by British soldiers and convicts in 1803.  At the time, the British Government had a problem on their hands, due to the United States of America declaring its independence from Britain in 1776.      Until that time, the American colonies of Britain had taken thousands of convicts sent there by enforced immigration.  Britain needed to find another "dumping ground" for its convicts.   Often these people were not hardened crimminals, but simply poor people who stole to feed themselves.   The British "lower classes" of the era had very little chance of worthwhile employment, and lived in very crowded cities and towns where there lot in life was rather squalid.

Britain decided to send convicts to "the great south land" of Australia.  It had been mapped and investigated by various explorers including Matthew Flinders, James Cook,  William Bligh and by French explorers as well as the Dutch.  The First Fleet of settlers and convicts arrived in 1788 and landed in Sydney Cove.   Tasmania took its first  batch of convicts in 1803, in a small party which settled on the Derwent River in southern Tasmania.  

It was not long before the settlement was moved to the other side of the river, to firmer ground.    The first settlement at Risdon Cove, (where the land was very wet and low lying) only lasted less than a year.    The move resulted in the formation of Hobart Town (named after Lord Robert Hobart, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies at the time.) 

In 1804 Hobart Town was also the most southern port for the huge whaling fleet which had chased the swarms of whales in the southern oceans off New Zealand and Antarctica for some time before Hobart was founded.  Hobart grew rapidly with many free settlers coming from England to join in the formation of the new way of life in a "antipodies" as it was called.   The climate of Tasmania resembles that of England, except that the Winters are not so severe.      Tasmania has many different types of topography, including forests, open plains, highland areas, huge beaches, off shore islands, and differing climate zones.  Although only about 240 miles long and 150 miles wide, Tasmania produces a vast array of foodstuffs, including large quantities of sea foods.

In the next 53 years Tasmania was home to thousands of convicts from Britain.   Many of them were skilled artisans, and contributed lovely buildings and bridges, roads and churches to the landscape.

During the past 200 years the postal services in Tasmania have produced a wealth of postal history items which are highly prized and collected by stamp collectors and postal historians world-wide.

In 1910 Tasmania had 530 operating post offices.  Every little town and hamlet had its post office, most of which were also telegraph offices.  Today Tasmania has less than 200 post offices operating.

Mining has played a huge part in the developement of Tasmania and lead, tin, gold, silver, zinc, iron ore, and many different kinds of quartz are still found.   Each mining settlement had a post office.  They often operated for a very short time, and then a new one would open for a new mining town.    It is said that when Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania in 1642 his compass was pulled many degrees off centre when he sailed near the West Coast of the island.    In fact a mountain there is called Mt. Magnet because his second-in-command commented that "there was a lot of minerals in the mountains" and that was what was upsetting his compass.    He named the mountain for its magnetic effect.

In the 1830's the Government of Tasmania was worried about the presence of the French and the Russian war ships in Tasmanian waters, and built batteries of guns in several locations to ward off invasion.     This never happened.   

The original inhabitants of Tasmania (the Tasmanian Aboriginal people) were integrated into the Tasmanian community.   They were a nomadic people, living off the land, catching animals and fish for food.   There history is also woven into the tales of their ancestors which have been preserved.   

Tasmania is well known for its Thylacine - the Tasmanian Tiger - thought to be extinct, and for its Tasmanian Devil (now on the endangered list due to poisoning in the forests).

All their stories are preserved in the Tasmanian postal history.   Covers, postmarks, postcards, stamps, all are collected avidly by an ever-growing band of dedicated philatelists.   Tasmania has a wonderful heritage of lovely old sandstone buildings, and Port Arthur is known all over the world for its preservation of the convict settlement and the buildings there.   Hobart has many old sandstone buildings, and Government House, Hobart is the second oldest in Australia.   Hobart also has the oldest Theatre in Australia,  the Theatre Royal.     Salamanca Market in Hobart is held every Saturday of the year on the docks of the waterfront, near a beautiful row of old sandstone wharehouses, called Salamanca Place.

The postmarks of Tasmania fall into two categories,  those issued in the "numeral" period between 1803 and 1890, and the "circular date stamp" period  1900-2005.    There were a total of 390 different numeral postmarks issued, some of which are extremely rare.   The circular datestamps have seen many changes of style and type, and they run into thousands of different ones.

Adhesive postage stamps were issue for Tasmania in 1853.  Before that time, letters had postmarks on them, and a number written in either red or black ink.   The red ink meant that the receiver had to pay the postage when he received the letter, the black number meant that the sender had paid the postage.  Many of the crown seals which were used to seal the mail, were also used as postmarkers.  The early adhesive stamps showed the head of Queen Victoria, the British monarch.   Australian postage stamps then showed the head of the British monarch of the time up until the present.   Our present Queen Elizabeth II is sometimes shown on our stamps, but many stamps now have other themes and illustrations.

In 1901 all the six States of the Commonwealth of Australia formed a national government with its national parliament in Melbourne.    Then in 1927 a new Australian Commonwealth Parliament House was built in Canberra which is now the National Capital.

Up until 1913 each State issued its own stamps.  In 1898 Tasmania issued a special set of Pictorial stamps, the very first pictorial stamps showing scenes of the country, from any country in the world.  The photographs for this set were all by a famous Tasmanian photographer James Watt Beattie.  The designs were :  Hobart and the Harbour (from a painting by Haughton Forrest), Mt. Wellington, Lake Marion, Russell Falls, Tasman's Arch, Spring River Port Davey, and Dilston Falls.  This set was so popular (and still is today) that the Tasmanian government abolished the use of numeral postarkers and brought in circular date stamps with town names on them.      Town name datestamps had been in use for many years at the major cities and towns, but now they were issued to all post offices.   This was because the numeral postmarkers obliterated the design of the pictorial stamps.

You will find many Tasmanian postal history items on Ebay under the "Stamps" heading.  Collectors from many countries are now interested in the fascinating story of the developement of  this little island off the southern coast of Australia.    In fact,  it has become the "sea change" many people from the Australian mainland are seeking.

I am a sixth generation Tasmanian.   My great-great-great grandfather settled in the North East of the State, near Derby, in 1820. He was a 19 year old tin-miner from Cornwall, England.   I have collected the postal history items of Tasmania for over 45 years.