History

The biography of the Reverend George Eastman — a Church of England clergyman who served for 26 years in parishes across Van Diemen's Land during the final decades of the transportation era, and whose final posting was to Port Arthur. Eastman took an unfashionable view for his time: that convicts could be reformed, and that religious instruction, education and practical training were the means to achieve it.

The Cyclopedias published for most Australian states around the turn of the 20th century are major resources for historical and biographical research — and this is the original Tasmanian volume. Together, the two volumes contain over 1,500 biographies and more than 1,700 portrait photographs, covering not only the prominent citizens of the day but a large proportion of ordinary Tasmanians in every community — tradespeople, farmers, shopkeepers and professionals alongside politicians and businessmen.

The complete diary of the Reverend Robert Knopwood — the first chaplain of Van Diemen's Land, who arrived with the founding party of European settlers in 1803 and remained in the colony until his death in 1838. Knopwood kept a diary continuously from the moment of his arrival until near the end of his life — 35 years of daily observation.