( 
)Tasmania ! The name is probably not as familiar to people in the Northern Hemisphere as it is "down south".
A State of Australia, Tasmania is an island set in the Southern Ocean, and just south of the 40th degree of Latitude. Two areas of Tasmania are crossed by the 40th parallel, (the "Roaring Forties") and they are its off shore islands in Bass Strait, King Island the the Furneaux Group of which Flinders Island is the largest.
Population of Tasmania is 480,000. Many of its inhabitants were born there, and some have ancestry going back to the first European settlement in 1803. Others have even older links, being of Tasmanian aboriginal descent. The native Tasmanian aboriginals were a very old race and lived on the island for thousands of years before white settlement.
Tasmania features on many of the stamps of Australia, and it once had its own postage stamps. Before the six States of Australia became one country in 1901, each State issued its own stamps.
Tasmania issued a particularly beautiful set of eight stamps featuring scenes and views of the island, in 1899. These seven stamps are known as the Tasmanian "pictorial" set.
The designs were (from left on the top row) Lake Marion, Mount Wellington, Hobart, Tasmans Arch, (second row) Spring River, Russell Falls, Lake St. Clair, and Dilston Falls.
This set of Pictorial stamps is now world famous and is probably the most recognisable set of stamps from any Australian State. The other Australian colonies concentrated mainly on portraying the head of Queen Victoria or their State Emblems on their stamps. This set is said to be the very first set of pictorial stamps from any country. The photographs were taken by J.W. Beattie who was a prolific photographer in several countries. The 2d violet Hobart stamp is Beattie's photograph of an original oil painting by Haughton Forrest of "Convict Ships in Hobart Harbour" painted in the mid-1830s.
Tasmania has continued to prove its great worth as a source of very interesting historical postal documents and collectibles. Its postmarks are collected by enthusiastic philatelists all over the World. In this small State there were more than 600 different post offices, some open only for a short period, and the vast output of postal documents is a show-case for the history, geography, lifestyle and industry of the Tasmanian population.
Settled by Europeans in 1803, Tasmania was the second State in Australia to be settled, just 15 years after the First Fleet of ships arrived in Sydney Harbour in 1788. Tasmania took many convicts from Britain, and its settlements at Port Arthur and Macquarie Harbour, as well as on Norfolk Island, are depicted in its postal history. Postcards play a huge part in the portrayal of the convict settlements.
This postcard shows the Penitentary (main prison) at Port Arthur.
In 1953 Tasmania celebrated its Sesquicentary (150 years of European settlement) with a set of three stamps. Two were the lower values each of threepence halfpenny value, and were issued in se-tenet format (joined together). The higher value was a two shilling stamp in green, showing the site of the first settlement on the Derwent River, at Risdon Cove.
The cover shown below is the first day of issue cover with the full set of the three stamps and the signature of the Premier of Tasmania in 1953, Sir Robert Cosgrove.CMG.
In 2003 the Government of Tasmania decided not to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the settlement of Tasmania, claiming that the settlement happened in 1804 when the first settlement at Risdon Cove was abandoned for a settlement on the western side of the River Derwent where Hobart (the capital) now stands. Therefore the real bicentenary date which was Sept. 12th 2003 was NOT celebrated officially by the post office. Subsequently Australia Post at Rosny Park Post Office agreed to mark the anniversary with a special commemorative postmarker dated September 12th 2003.
This is a picture of a cover which was postmarked RISDON VALE (the closest Post Office to Risdon Cove) on 12th September 2003.
Between 1830-1900 vast changes in postal transmission and services saw the older ship letter envelopes replaced with more modern postmarks and transit marks on covers. Postcards were sent by their thousands through the mail system. The stamps of Tasmania in this period depicted the head of the British monarch Queen Victoria. Post offices were all issued with a number which was stamped on the adhesive stamps and on the covers, postcards and mail advices. These numbers were all unique and it was possible to determine the origin of the letter from the number on the postmark.
The last picture in the series above shows the 2d Hobart pictorial with a numeral canceller. The Pictorial stamps were introduced in 1899 and quickly found favour with the public. It was this fact that encouraged the Post Office to withdraw the numeral cancellers in favour of postmarks each with the Town Name on them, because the numeral postmarks obliterated the design on the Pictorial stamps.
Thank you for voting. If your vote meets our 
