Account of work done at the Government Farm situated in Farm Bay, commencing 22 of March 1804

B 665

fonds

1804

1102876

Microfilm : CY 3696

0.01 metres of textual material

David Collins (1756-1810), founder of Hobart, was well equipped as a colonial administrator when he arrived in the Derwent in February 1804, having spent almost nine years in New South Wales as judge-advocate and secretary to the colony.

Late in 1802, as a result of his persistent lobbying of Lord Hobart and Sir Joseph Banks, Collins was appointed lieutenant-governor of a new British penal colony to be established in Bass Strait. After an unsuccessful attempt to settle at Port Phillip, Victoria, with 300 convicts, he began moving his party to the Derwent, intending to join John Bowen’s camp at Risdon Cove.

So soon as the Lieut.-Governor had got his house built he turned his attention to agriculture. A gang of some thirty men was sent to prepare ground for wheat for the use of the settlement. The place chosen was near the locations where the settlers had been set down a month before, on the shore of a bay named Farm Bay. This appears to have been at Cornelian Bay, at what was long known as the Government Farm, but is now occupied by the Cornelian Bay Cemetery. The farm was placed under the charge of Mr. Thomas Clark, who had been brought out from England as Agricultural Superintendent.

The intervening scrub made it difficult to reach the farm by land and Henry Hacking, the Governor's coxswain, with his boat's crew, frequently pulled His Honor to Cornelian Bay to inspect the work of Superintendent Clark and his thirty men, who had now some 19 acres in crop, and to pay a visit to the settlers' locations a short distance beyond at Stainforth's Cove.

Source: The Founding of Hobart Town by Lieut. Governor Collins by James Backhouse Walker 1889 page 233

Bound in original binding the volume records the daily activity of the first Government Farm in Hobart from 22nd March 1804 to 29th November 1806.

Inserted into the front binding is the list of 'Names of free people at the farm', being 4 men, 4 women and 2 children. Followed by 'Names of the Prisoners at the farm'. 30 men for the gang, 2 overseers, 3 servants, 1 tool keeper, 3 horse keepers. Followed by 'Employed at Newtown, 10th August 1806', includes 35 names, being men, women and children.

The manuscript commences:
"The people were sent up to open ground for Government Farm, in a bay which I have named Farm Bay on Thursday the 22nd March 1804 under Mr. Thomas Clark, Superintendent with two overseers, William Parish (a freeman) and William Pope (a prisoner). The gang consisted of 25 men. From Thursday to Monday they were employed erecting a hut".

Each page is headed 'Return of work done at Government Farm' and includes the weeks activity listed under each day. It is then followed by 'Remarks'.

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Information transferred from Manuscripts Index Catalogue as part of the eRecords Project, 2013-2014