 Flag adopted by the Anti-Transportation League | |
Region served | South Eastern Australia and New Zealand |
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The Australasian Anti-Transportation League was a body established to oppose penal transportation to Australia. [1] Beginning in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in the late 1840s, it had branches in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Canterbury (New Zealand). The Colonial Office abandoned transportation to eastern Australia in 1852. [2]
Transportation to New South Wales (then, the colony covering the eastern Australian mainland, modern New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland) had ceased in 1840 and the number transported to Van Diemen's Land increased sharply. A two-year suspension of the transportation of male convicts to Van Diemen's Land was implemented in May 1846. It was the intention to resume transportation under new arrangements but that decision was conveyed to the local colonial administrator, William Denison in the following terms: "it is not the intention that transportation should be resumed at the expiration of the two years"; the words "under the present system" were omitted. The dispatch, taken to mean what it said on its face, was made public before the imperial authorities corrected their error. [1]
By 1851, it had developed into the Australasian League for the Abolition of Transportation with branches on the mainland. In Tasmania's first partially elective Legislative Council, its supporters won all 16 seats up for election. [3] The Legislative Council subsequently voted 16 to 4 to request Queen Victoria to revoke the Order in Council, permitting transportation to Tasmania and Norfolk Island in spite of the strong opposition of Lieutenant Governor William Denison. The Victorian gold rush, commencing in the same year, led the British Government to discontinue transportation, because it was seen as an incentive for criminals to be transported to eastern Australia, and the last convict ship to be sent from England, the St Vincent , arrived in Tasmania in 1853.
The League had its own flag, the Union Jack with the Southern Cross which was created before 1851 by John West, [4] a Launceston congregational minister, author and newspaper editor. [5]
The Australian Research Council has funded a research project, Liberty, Anti-transportation and the Empire of Morality by Professor Hilary Carey, The University of Newcastle with Professor David Roberts, The University of New England. [6] Outputs include Carey's Empire of Hell, published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. [7]
Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is located 240 kilometres (150 miles) to the south of the Australian mainland, separated from it by the Bass Strait, with the archipelago containing the southernmost point of the country. The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 1000 islands. It is Australia's least populous state, with 569,825 residents as of December 2021. The state capital and largest city is Hobart, with around 40 percent of the population living in the Greater Hobart area. This makes it Australia's most decentralised state.
Launceston or is a city in the north of Tasmania, Australia, at the confluence of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River (kanamaluka). As of 2021, the Launceston urban area has a population of 90,953. Launceston is the second most populous city in Tasmania after the state capital, Hobart. As of 2020, Launceston is the 18th largest city in Australia. Launceston is the fifth-largest inland city and the ninth-largest non-capital city in Australia. Launceston is regarded as the most livable regional city, and was one of the most popular regional cities to move to in Australia from 2020 to 2021. Launceston was named Australian Town of the Year in 2022.
The history of Tasmania begins at the end of the Last Glacial Period when it is believed that the island was joined to the Australian mainland. Little is known of the human history of the island until the British colonisation of Tasmania in the 19th century.
The Tasmanian Legislative Council is the upper house of the Parliament of Tasmania in Australia. It is one of the two chambers of the Parliament, the other being the House of Assembly. Both houses sit in Parliament House in the state capital, Hobart. Members of the Legislative Council are often referred to as MLCs.
The Parliament of Tasmania is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of Tasmania. It follows a Westminster-derived parliamentary system and consists of the governor of Tasmania, the Tasmanian House of Assembly, and Tasmanian Legislative Council. Since 1841, both Houses have met in Parliament House, Hobart. The Parliament of Tasmania first met in 1856.
The Macquarie Harbour Penal Station, a former British colonial penal settlement, established on Sarah Island, Macquarie Harbour, in the former colony of Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, operated between 1822 and 1833. The settlement housed male convicts, with a small number of women housed on a nearby island. During its 11 years of operation, the penal colony achieved a reputation as one of the harshest penal settlements in the Australian colonies. The formal penal station is located on the eight-hectare (twenty-acre) Sarah Island that now operates as an historic site under the direction of the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service.
Sir William Thomas Denison was Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1847 to 1855, Governor of New South Wales from 1855 to 1861, and Governor of Madras from 1861 to 1866.
Sir Richard Dry, KCMG was an Australian politician, the son of United Irish convict, who was Premier of Tasmania from 24 November 1866 until 1 August 1869 when he died in office. Dry was the first Tasmanian-born premier, and the first Tasmanian to be knighted.
The Australian Anti-Transportation League Flag is a flag used historically by members of the Australasian Anti-Transportation League who opposed penal transportation to the British colonies that are now a part of Australia. It is particularly significant as it is the oldest known flag to feature a representation of the Southern Cross with the stars arranged as they are seen in the sky.
Between 1788 and 1868, about 162,000 convicts were transported from Great Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia.
Ronald Campbell Gunn, FRS, was a South African-born Australian botanist and politician.
William Thomas Napier Champ was a soldier and politician who served as the first Premier of Tasmania from 1856 to 1857. He was born in the United Kingdom.
1851 in Australia was a watershed year. It saw the start of the Australian gold rushes with significant gold discoveries in both New South Wales in February and Victoria in July. As a result of the Gold Rushes, the European population of Victoria increased from 97,489 in 1851 to 538,628 in 1861 and the population of NSW increased from 197,265 in 1851 to 350,860 in 1861. Victoria became a self-governing colony. Sentiment in the eastern Australian colonies moved decisively against penal transportation leading to the end of transportation to Tasmania in 1853. Melbourne's major suburb/satellite city in the Dandenong Ranges, Belgrave was first settled, making it the oldest town in the Dandenong Ranges.
The Rev. John West emigrated from England to Van Diemen's Land in 1838 as a Colonial missionary, and became pastor of an Independent (Congregational) Chapel in Launceston's St. John's Square. He also co-founded The Examiner newspaper in 1842 and was later editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.
Lady Denison was launched in 1847 at Port Arthur, Tasmania. She went missing in 1850 while sailing between Port Adelaide and Hobart, Tasmania. At the time there were strong allegations that convicts being carried on board murdered the other passengers and crew and headed for San Francisco, but all contemporary evidence supports the assertion that she sank off the far north-western tip of Tasmania.
The Colony of Tasmania was a British colony that existed on the island of Tasmania from 1856 until 1901, when it federated together with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The possibility of the colony was established when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Australian Constitutions Act in 1850, granting the right of legislative power to each of the six Australian colonies. The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land drafted a new constitution which they passed in 1854, and it was given royal assent by Queen Victoria in 1855. Later in that year the Privy Council approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856, the newly elected bicameral parliament of Tasmania sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a self-governing colony of the British Empire. Tasmania was often referred to as one of the "most British" colonies of the Empire.
William Buelow Gould was an English and Van Diemonian (Tasmanian) painter. He was transported to Australia as a convict in 1827, after which he would become one of the most important early artists in the colony, despite never really separating himself from his life of crime.
John Donnellan Balfe was an Australian politician, member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly.
William Henry Burgess was an Australian politician and businessman. Burgess was born in Hobart and was educated at the High School, Hobart, and at Horton College, Ross.
Henry Dowling was a newspaper editor and politician in colonial Tasmania. He was the older brother of artist Robert Hawker Dowling.