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The British arrive in Tasmania

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Painting of tall ship in Risdon Cove
The British arrive in Tasmania

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  3–4, 5–6, 9–10


An expedition left the colony of New South Wales in 1803 with the order to establish a new settlement.

Led by Lieutenant John Bowen, the expedition carried 49 people on board, including soldiers, free settlers and convicts.

The two ships in this expedition, called the Lady Nelson and the Albion, sailed into Risdon Cove (piyura kitina) in September 1803 to establish the colony of Van Diemen's Land.


Things to think about

  1. 1.What do you know about the colonial period in your town? Who were the first Europeans to arrive there? What was the impact of their arrival on the local Aboriginal people?
  2. 2.What were some of the early achievements of the European settlement?


Acknowledgements

Made in partnership with TMAG.



Production Date: 2018

View the full Colonisation of Hobart collection

Explore what life was like in Tasmania (lutruwita) for the local palawa people before Europeans arrived, the European settlement of the colony and what life for convicts was like in the early colony.

Painting of Aboriginals standing beside water at Risdon Cove


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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