118 FOUNDATION AND EARLY WORK 



R.S. TA3. 



The completion of the sev2ntieth year of tha Royal 

 Society of Tasmania is a fitting occasion for an account 

 of its foundation and early work. If not the oldest scien- 

 tific society in Australia, it is at all events the only one 

 whose work and publications have been unbroken for 

 seventy years (1); and the circumstances of its origin will 

 be of interest to many besides iis present members. 



Scientific societies and institutions existed in Tasmania 

 many years before the foundation of our Society, Some 

 account of them and of their work, and particularly of 

 those with which the origin of the Society is connected — 

 the Colonial Gardens^ the Mechanics' Institution at Hobai*t, 

 the Tasmanian Society, the Franklin Museum at Ancanthe 

 (Kangaroo Valley), and the Hobart Town Horticultural 

 Society — will be an appropriate introduction to the narra- 

 tive of the foundation of the Society. 



I.— EAELIER SOCIETIES AND INSTITUTIONS. 



The Van Dieme?is Land Agricultural Society (1821). 



The earliest Society having objects akin to those for 

 which our Society was established was the Van Diemen's 

 Land Agricultural Society, founded at Hobart in 1821 (2). 

 The principal object of tfiis Society was to put down sheep- 

 stealing, but it was ai?o concerned with the improrvement 

 of the husbandry of the colony. Governor S'orell was the 

 President, and after him Governor A;:i;hur. It is mention- 

 ed in the almanacs from 1824 to 1829, in which year the 

 next Society to be mentioned, the Van Diemen's Land 

 Scientific Society, was formed. 



(1) The only scientific society in Australia which claims an 

 earlier origin than our Society is the Royal Society of New South 

 Wales. It is commonly said that the latter Society originated in 

 1821 as the "Philosophical Society of Australasia." Tliis Pliilosophical 

 Society has not been traced after 1825. It is considered to have 

 been revived in 1850 under the name "Australian Philosophical 

 "Society.'^ This also fell into decay, hv.t vi^as revived in 1856. under 

 the influence of Sir William Denison (see note 57), as the " Philoso- 

 "phical Society of Newr South Wales," which in 1866 became the 

 present Royal Society of New South Wales. The earlier societies 

 had no publications of their own ; the Tra.nsactions of the Philosoohical 

 Society of New South Wales date from 1862. (See Rev. W. B. Clarke, 

 Inaugural Address, Trans. J:.S., y.S.W., i. (1867), p. 1; Professor John 

 Smitii, Anniversary Address, Jour)inl nnd Proceedings U.S., N.S.W., xv. 

 (1881), p. 1; J. H. Maiden, Presidential Address, ib., xlvi. (1912), p. 1.) 



(2) Curr. An Account of the Colony of Van Diemen's Land (London, 

 1824), p 89. Ilohart Town '-Jazefte and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser, 

 6th January, 1822 W. C. Wentworth. A Statistical Accoirnt of the British 

 Srttl'ments in ^?^^•fm^n.s•m' (London, 1824), ii. p. .'iS. At po. 106-112 of the last 

 work is an extract from a ))resi(lential address to the Society, in which a compari- 

 son is made of the relative advantages for immigrants and the stock-industry of 

 New South Wales and Van Diemen's Jiand— between which settlements there was 

 at the time great jealousy and rivalry. 



