Tasmanian Natural History Society (1838 - 1849)

Summary

The Tasmanian Natural History Society was established in 1838 by Sir John Franklin (strongly under the influence of Lady Jane Franklin) in partnership with local Tasmanian scientists who were already part of an informal scientific community built on correspondence both within and outside of Tasmanian. Based in Hobart until 1843, the Society then moved its base of operations to Launceston. In 1841 the Society began publishing the Tasmanian journal of natural science, agriculture, statistics, &c. which became an international success. The Society was active until 1848 when it merged with the Royal Society of Tasmania.

Details

The Tasmanian Natural History Society has a politically charged history, its membership policy was selective (based on scientific achievement) and led to calls of exclusivism that contributed in part to the establishment of a rival scientific association by Sir John Eardley Wilmot in 1843. In turn the Tasmanian Natural History Society countered these claims of exclusivism by arguing membership for other scientific bodies and organisations were too focused on class and social status which undermined the quality of the work of such organisations, their contributions to society, and unfairly excluded skilled working class individuals.

Key figures of the Tasmanian Natural History Society included James Clark Ross, Ronald Campbell Gunn, and Reverend John Lillie. By 1842 the Tasmanian Natural History Society had 72 members over half of whom were corresponding members from outside of Tasmania. The Tasmanian Natural History Society held strict criteria for its members and publications in the Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science, members engaged in numerous areas of science including but not limited to:

• Meteorology;
• Geology;
• Agriculture;
• Irrigation;
• Botany;
• Biology; and
• Anthropology.

The establishment in 1843 of Sir John Eardley Wilmot's Royal Society caused the Tasmanian Natural History Society, with Ronald Campbell Gunn at its head, to relocate to Launceston where it continued to conduct and communicate highly esteemed scientific work.

Despite the change in location tensions between the two societies continued. Some former members of the Tasmanian Natural History Society, such as Reverend John Lillie, joined Wilmot's Royal Society in the hope of refocusing the new society on science outside of horticulture. Other members of the Tasmanian Natural History Society criticised the new Royal Society as being nothing more than a social club.

In 1847 Wilmot was replaced by Sir William Thomas Denison who worked with Joseph Milligan to reform the Royal Society and in 1849 the Tasmanian Natural History Society merged into the Royal Society.

Related entries

Archival resources

Hobart Reading Room

• Notice on meeting to farewell Sir John Franklin, with early history of the Society, 1843, SD_ILS:545773; Hobart Reading Room. Details
• The Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science, Agriculture, Statistics, and c, 1842 - 1848, SD_ILS:538243; Hobart Reading Room. Details

Published resources

Journal Articles

• Hoare, M. E., '"All things are queer and opposite": scientific societies in Tasmania in the 1840s', Isis, 60 (1969), 198-209. Details
• Piesse, E. L., 'The Foundation and Early Work of the Society with Some Account of Other Institutions of Early Hobart', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1913 (1913), 117-166. http://eprints.utas.edu.au/16587/1/1913-Piesse_The_foundation_of_the_society.pdf. Details

Newspaper Articles

• 'To the Editory of the True Colonist', The True Colonist Van Diemen's Land Political Dispatch, and Agricultural and Commercial (1837), 7. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article203146662. Details
• 'To the Editor of the Colonial Times', Colonial Times (1837), 6. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8650354. Details
• 'Advertising', Colonial Times (1838), 8. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8748820. Details
• The Tasmanian (1838), 4. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article232803001. Details
• 'The Tasmanian Society. - The Horticultural and Botanical Society of Van Diemen's Land', Launceston Examiner (1843), 4. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36234998. Details

Theses

• Hoare, Michael E., 'Science and Scientific Associations in Eastern Australia, 1820-1870', PhD thesis, Australian National University, 1974, 315, xxxii pp, https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/10863. Details

See also

• Fitzpatrick, Kathleen, 'Franklin, Sir John (1786-1847), rear admiral, Arctic explorer and lieutenant-governor' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 1: 1788 - 1850 A-H, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp. 412-415. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010380b.htm. Details
• Lambert, Andrew, Franklin: tragic hero of polar navigation (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), 428 pp. Details
• MacLeod, Roy, 'Organizing Science Under the Southern Cross' in The Commonwealth of Science: ANZAAS and the Scientific Enterprise in Australasia, 1888-1988, Roy MacLeod, ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 19-39. Details
• Pybus, Cassandra, A very secret trade: the dark story of gentlemen collectors in Tasmania (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2024), 318 pp. https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Cassandra-Pybus-Very-Secret-Trade-9781761066344. Pages 155, 158, 172, 182. Details
• Woodward, Frances J., 'Franklin, Lady Jane (1791-1875), protagonist, governor's lady and patron of science' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 1: 1788 - 1850 A-H, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp. 411-412. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/franklin-lady-jane-2065. Details