Read the July 2025 Launceston Historical Society Newsletter here: 199 July 2025

Find out what’s happening:

• Summaries of the last three lectures by Stefan Petrow, Lou Rae and Marion Sargent
• Sunday 20 July, Alison Alexander speaking on ‘A low state of public morals in Launceston’: Van Diemen’s Land in 1820 from the Bigge Report
• Sunday 17 August, Richard Mack, James Austin: of Beehives and Ferries
• Sunday 21 September, Steve Radford, Reginald Munro: Aviator Extraordinaire
• Other LHS meetings for 2025
• Spring Excursion to Hobart for members only
• Primary History Prize information
• Other events of interest

Everyone is welcome to attend our monthly meetings to hear the speakers tell us more about our history. Admission is free for LHS members and $5 for visitors.

Articles contributed by the Launceston Historical Society to The Examiner’s quarterly magazines ‘In the City’ and ‘Northern Exposure’ from 2017 to 2022. These can be read on the LHS Facebook page.

In the City and Northern Exposure articles

‘Our History’ articles were contributed by Launceston Historical Society members and published in The Sunday Examiner newspaper print and online editions for seven years from 3 December 2017 until 28 December 2024.

Most of these are available on the Launceston Historical Society Facebook page, although many of the earlier ones only have a link to The Examiner website.

OUR HISTORY STORIES

Commander Stephen Cornish RAN (15 December 1953 – 25 April 2025) presented an address on “A journey into family military history or how I became an historian by accident” to the Launceston Historical Society meeting on 16 April 2023.

The full address is posted here with illustrations:

Address to Launceston Historical Society by Stephen Cornish

The 2025 John West Memorial Lecture was delivered by Professor Hamish Maxwell-Stewart on the topic “Networks of resistance: Mapping a convict road gang in northern Van Diemen’s Land 1829-1839” on Sunday, 16 March at 2 pm at the Meeting Room, Queen Victoria Museum, Inveresk. 

Listen to the lecture and look at the slides here: Previous John West Memorial Lectures

More information can be found here: 2025 John West Memorial Lecture

The Launceston Primary School History Prize for 2025 is open now and closes on 17 October.

Be in the running to win book vouchers from Petrarch’s Bookshop by becoming a history detective. Your mission is to choose a Tasmanian mystery from the past, gather clues, and uncover the story behind it.

Open to all students from the Launceston area in grades 3 – 6.

More information for 2025 is available here: https://launcestonhistory.org.au/activities/history-prize/

ALSO

The Marita Bardenhagen Memorial Award for Local History is a biennial prize acknowledging outstanding original research in the field of local history with significant Tasmanian content.

The 2023 Award is closed.

Application forms are available from Dr Dianne Snowden AM at dsnowden@tassie.net.au.

The 2021 winner was Jill Cassidy for her book Deviot Talks. She was awarded $1,500.