TASMANIA, FLAG OF

Australian flag consisting of a dark blue field (background) with the Union Jack in the canton and, at the fly end, a red lion on a white disk. Like many other Australian flags, the Tasmanian flag can be described as a defaced Blue Ensign. The first official local flags of Tasmania, ordered by Governor Frederick Aloysius Weld, were published in the colony's gazette on November 9, 1875. The usual British Blue Ensign and Red Ensign (for use respectively by government vessels and by those privately owned) were to have a white cross added. At the fly end of each flag a Southern Cross was to be formed of white stars added above and below the horizontal arm of the cross. Two weeks later, on November 23, those flags were officially abandoned because the Secretary of State for Colonies in London made it clear that only a single badge could be placed at the fly end of the ensign. A year later the Tasmanian government decided, with the British Admiralty's approval, that the badge for the colony would be a red lion on a white disk. That design was apparently based on the special gubernatorial flag created in November 1875, which showed a similar lion on the Union Jack. The original lion was gold and appeared on a gold torse, which the new flag omitted. The red colour of the new lion probably referred to England, whose traditional shield has always been red with three gold lions. A British Blue Ensign with the badge served Tasmanian government vessels; privately owned vessels flew an undefaced British Red Ensign. After Tasmania became a state on January 1, 1901, the Tasmanian Blue Ensign was little seen, although it remained official. On December 3, 1975, a government proclamation established it as the proper Tasmanian flag for use on land as well as at sea. Whitney Smith History Prehistory and European exploration Humans probably entered Tasmania between 25,000 and 40,000 years ago. They almost certainly belonged to the stock then peopling the Australian landmass. About 20,000 years ago Tasmanian Aborigines lived farther southward than any other people. Stencil images of an outstretched hand, from about 14,000 years ago, appear in caves in the southwestern part of the island. The flooding of Bass Strait some 11,000 to 12,000 years ago resulted in isolation that prompted genetic particularity: Tasmanians often had a more coppery skin tone than Australians, and most had coiled hair. Their tools and life patterns were remarkably simple. When the Europeans arrived, there probably existed more than 100 bands, averaging some 50 people each, scattered islandwide except in the western mountains. The first European to discover the island was Abel Tasman, the greatest of the Dutch navigator-explorers. He landed in southeastern Tasmania in early December 1642. He named the island Anthony Van Diemensland, after the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies; this was later Anglicized to Van Diemen's Land. Frenchmen under Marion du Fresne came in 1772, and Tobias Furneaux led the first British exploration in 1773. Notable French exploration continued with Bruni d'Entrecasteaux in 179293 and Nicholas Baudin in 1802. In 1798 Matthew Flinders and George Bass circumnavigated the island. Britain's colonization of Tasmania was a ploy to ensure its continued dominance in international sea power. Both the government in London and its representative in New South Wales, Governor Philip Gidley King, wanted to secure southward bases. Accordingly, John Bowen established a camp at Risdon Cove on the Derwent River in September 1803. After the arrival in February 1804 of Lieutenant Governor David Collins (180410), following the failure of his colonization venture at Port Phillip, the settlement was relocated to Hobart. In November 1804 William Paterson founded a settlement in northern Tasmania, which from 1806 or 1807 had Launceston as its hub. This subcolony was independent of Hobart until 1812, a harbinger of the intense regional feeling (sometimes becoming acrid jealousy) that has characterized the Tasmanian experience. The tiny settlements had but precarious survival. Transported convicts always made up much of the European population; runaway convicts, or bushrangers, challenged formal authority. Scarcity of supplies prompted the hunting of kangaroos, which worsened relations with the Aborigines. Collins was passive as lieutenant governor, and his successor, Thomas Davey (181217), was certainly no more effective. Thereafter rudiments of order emerged, first under Lieutenant Governor William Sorell (181724) and then under George Arthur (182436). Van Diemen's Land gained virtual independence from New South Wales in 1825, allowing fuller scope for Arthur's profound efficiency and determination. Subsequent lieutenant governors were the Arctic explorer-hero John Franklin (183743), Sir John Eardley Eardley-Wilmot (184346), and Sir William Thomas Denison (184754). All found their task difficult. Tasmania enjoyed much economic prosperity between 1820 and 1840. During this period the European population increased from about 4,350 to more than 57,000. The colony's penal function brought in large sums from the British treasury. Free immigrants and some ex-convicts developed commerce and various resources. Wool growing advanced quickly from the mid-1820s, suitable land in the island's eastern half soon being occupied. Tasmanian entrepreneurs and pastoralists played a dominant role in opening Port Phillip from the mid-1830s. Locals also exploited adjacent seal and whale fisheries, encouraging the growth of shipbuilding and other service industries. International whalers made use of Hobart's superb harbour; it became a major port for whaling ships. Convict labour assisted in all this and in constructing public works and handsome buildings, both urban and rural. Aboriginal Tasmanians bore the cost of this economic surge. Physical conflict between the Aborigines and Europeans became intense, especially during the 1820s, as pastoralists extended their dominion. In Bass Strait sealeries, Aboriginal womenoften quasi-slavesprovided domestic and sexual services for the Europeans. Disease ravaged Aborigines everywhere. Some consciences stirred, and Arthur appointed one George Augustus Robinson to conciliate the surviving Aborigines. Consequently, from 1831 virtually all the Aborigines (about 140) were gathered at Flinders Island in Bass Strait. Deaths continued, however, and in 1847 the survivors moved back to Tasmania. Truganini, a woman who died in 1876, was probably the last full-blooded member of her race. If rarely so terrible as that of the Aborigines, the convicts' experience could be grim enough. Altogether some 55,000 males and 13,000 females came directly from Britain. Most served their time in public or private employment, with occasional punishment for misdemeanours. About 10 percent offended more seriously and suffered execution or servitude in the jail stations at Macquarie Harbour, Maria Island, and Port Arthur. After they had gained their freedom, many convicts led altogether sterile lives, yet some achieved material success and others everyday decency. Relocation to mainland Australia became common in the 1840s. Blood flowed and misery abounded in Van Diemen's Land, but aspiration and learning also were not wanting. The Society of Friends established its bastion in Hobart in the early 1830s, and it has exercised influence ever since. The Royal Society of Tasmania made continual efforts to promote science from 1843. Liberals and moral reformers led a movement against convict transportation reminiscent of the crusade in the Northern Hemisphere against slavery and helped persuade the British government to end the policy in 185253. Self-government and Federation Once the importation and exploitation of convicts had ended, the way opened for the grant of colonial self-government in 185556. Tasmania became the colony's official name, a portent of a happier age. Yet penalism had given the island an economic undergirding and historical import that have never been matched. Post-1860 Tasmania continued to be shadowed by its Vandiemonian past. Emigration across Bass Strait beckoned many in every generation. Those who remained held on to their rights and property, often with bitter tenacity. The 1860s and early 1870s were especially depressed. The population numbered about 90,000 in 1861 and 115,000 in 1881. But by 1911 it exceeded 190,000, reflecting a generation of growth. Metals were decisive in this growth: it began with discoveries of tin (Mount Bischoff, 1871; Mount Heemskirk, 1879), but the most important development was copper mining at Mount Lyell, starting with the 1890s. Queenstown, Zeehan, and other mining towns gave western Tasmania all the drama of a minerals boom. Meanwhile, small-scale farming progressed, especially along the northwest coast, which had the island's best soilonce the fiendish clearing was done. Orchardists produced the apples that were long Tasmania's symbol. Roads and railways were developed despite topography and cost. Most Tasmanians supported federation of the Australian colonies, hoping that it would further boost the island's economy. Premiers William Robert Giblin (187984) and Philip Oakley Fysh (188792) introduced administrative, social, and political reforms. An outstanding jurist, Andrew Inglis Clark, led a cadre of youngish men inspired by the day's positive liberalism. Their influence helped establish the University of Tasmania (188990) and otherwise enriched cultural affairs. Manhood suffrage even for the lower-house Legislative Assembly did not come until 190001, but by then there already functioned in urban electorates a form of proportional representation devised by Clark; this system was in use throughout Tasmania from 1909. Conservative and traditional interests retained much strength. Pastoralist families lived on estates granted in convict days. The upper-house Legislative Council was elected on a narrow franchise and had much power to obstruct legislation. The social pyramid was steep. One effect of this was that the Labor Party achieved power in Tasmania more slowly than elsewhere in Australia. Under John Earle (191416) the government pursued characteristic Labor policies of positive government for the social good. Characteristically, it secured public control over hydroelectric development. Discussion of hydroelectricity had been proceeding for some years; Tasmania's topography promised to make this natural resource one that would compensate for the island's poverty in most other resources. At the end of World War I these hopes flourished, as hydroelectricity sustained a massive zinc refinery built near Hobart. The years immediately following saw establishment of a big confectionery plant near Hobart and several textile mills, notably in Launceston. Yet the dream of a manufacturing elysium was delusive: population rose only from 213,000 in 1921 to 227,000 in 1933, and the government often faced bankruptcy. The tiny University of Tasmania gained some renown for its department of economics in the 1920s. Tasmanian writers and journalists of this period included Robert Atkinson, who influenced the musician Percy Grainger; Clive Turnbull, pioneer historian of European aggression against the Aborigines; the novelist Noel Norman, insistent that true Australianism lay in the continent's physical centre; and Alan John Villiers, author of seafaring sagas. John Henry Butters and Herbert William Gepp, geniuses of hydroelectricity and zinc, respectively, became key national figures. Tasmania's dominant politician of the 1920s, Joseph Aloysius Lyons, served as federal prime minister in the next decade, the sole Tasmanian to hold that office; his wife Enid, more able and fluent, became one of the first women to become a member of the federal parliament (1943) and the first woman in the federal Cabinet (194951). The Great Depression had its impact on Tasmania, but the Labor premier (193439) Albert George Ogilvie outshone other Australian politicians in responding to the economic problems. One of his skills was obtaining federal grants to diminish Tasmania's comparative poverty. Informed, wholehearted, and realistic in criticizing the Axis powers, Ogilvie might have challenged Lyons for national leadership had both not died in mid-1939.