Tasmania Branch: Second Winter Lecture — Using Convict Records to Explore Garden History

Using Convict Records to Explore Garden History

Presented by Professor Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Law and Education, University of New England.

Over 600 convict gardeners were transported to Tasmania. Thanks to the painstaking digitisation of the UNESCO Memory of the World registered convict archive it is possible to piece together the lives of many of these green fingered thieves. This includes their history of punishment and employment, enabling researchers to track gardeners, florists and nurserymen identifying the properties where they were set to work. The talk will also explore the ways in which this data can be made available to a wider public through the development of a digital convict memorial, a projected developed in conjunction with the National Trust Tasmania.

Hamish Maxwell-Stewart is a professor of Heritage and Digital Humanities at the University of New England. He has authored several books including Closing Hell’s Gates (Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2007) and (with Michael Quinlan) Unfree Workers: Insubordination and Resistance in Australia (Palgrave Studies in Economic History, 2022). He has also co-designed several heritage site interpretations, including a digital convict memorial for the Penitentiary Chapel Hobart—a National Trust Tasmania Property. He lives in Hobart, Tasmania.

Our Second Winter Lecture will be given in the charming stone hall in Richmond.

Further details to come.