Charles Bateson reconstructs the voyages of the ships transporting convicts to Australia and also the administrative system under which the ships were selected, manned, provisioned and despatched with their miserable human freight to face a 13,000 mile voyage over tempestuous and largely uncharted seas.
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 1931 Tasmanian Cyclopedia — an historical, industrial and commercial review of Tasmania at that date, including hundreds of biographical entries on the people of Tasmania and thousands of illustrations. Cyclopedias of this kind were produced for most Australian states in the early 20th century and are among the most useful primary sources for Tasmanian family and local history research — documenting not just prominent figures but ordinary citizens, businesses, towns and industries at a specific moment in time.
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.

