'Our First Baptism of Fire': Northern Tasmanians in the 12th Battalion at Gallipoli, April 1915. A talk by Stefan Petrow on 13 April 2025

This lecture is given by Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, a professor of heritage and digital humanities at the University of New England and also an associate member of staff at Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania.

In the early 1830s there were a series of strikes, go slows, mass escapes and attacks on overseers in Notman’s gang tasked with completing a road just south of Launceston. Collectively these form the largest protest by convicts in Australia since the Castle Hill Rebellion of 1804.

It puts the turmoil within Notman’s gang into the wider context of convict transportation to Van Diemen’s Land in the early 1830s, especially between the closure of Macquarie Harbour and the opening of the Port Arthur penal colony.

Using digitisation to cross reference a mass of convict and court records, Professor Maxwell-Stewart identifies the ring leaders at the heart of this mass collective protest as well as the magistrates and other officials charged with bringing the gang to heel.

Content for this talk comes from a larger body of work co-authored with Monika Schwarz (Monash) and Michael Quinlan (UNSW).

Launceston Court Record - A talk by Jai Paterson and John Dent. 16 February 2025

Perth Gaol Archaeological Dig. A talk by Darren Watton and John Dent on 17 November 2024.

Children at Work - Orphan School Apprentices. A talk by Lucy Frost on 20 October 2024

Maria Campbell. A talk by Louise Zarmati on 15 September 2024

Henry Rice, East Coast Explorer. A talk by Bradley Wood. 18 August 2024

Boot up for a byte of history/ A talk by Wendy Roberts and Catherine Pearce. 21 July 2024

The Convict Memorial. A Talk by Hamish Maxwell-Stewart on 16 June 2024

Joseph Reginald Forward and the making of the Launceston Public Library, 1906 - 1948. A talk by Stefan Petrow