1831 Dower / Teesdale Map of Tasmania

This is a brilliantly colored 1831 Henry Teesdale / John Dower map of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) published in their A New General Atlas of the World. It depicts the territory at a time when it primarily served as a British penal colony, gaining it a notorious reputation as an inhospitable and undesirable place.

A Closer Look

This map was made as British colonial presence on Tasmania and surrounding islands was increasing. Beginning from a small military outpost, established in 1803 to prevent the French claims, the island's population grew quickly, including free settlers and thousands of convicts bound for labor in the households of free settlers and in factories, penal stations, and prisons. Some of these prisons were especially desolate and brutal places, where violence was commonplace. If and when they were released, former convicts generally left the island as soon as possible, with most resettling in Victoria. In the meantime, the indigenous population of Tasmania had been drastically reduced by disease and warfare, from several thousand to around 300 by the time this map was published.

As is evident here, knowledge of the interior, especially the western half, was limited. Many areas are described simply, such as 'emu plain,' ' peak like a volcano,' 'sandy,' and 'forest.' Two settlements of considerable size developed at Hobart Town (now Hobart) and Launceston, and penal labor was employed to build up public works, such as roads, government buildings, and prisons. In 1853, penal transportation to the island ceased, and soon afterward it adopted a constitution and changed its name to Tasmania.

Publication History and Census

This map was engraved by John Dower for the 1831 edition of A New General Atlas of the World, published by Henry Teesdale. This appears to be an especially rare presentation of this map, as most examples do not show such vivid and full color, only hand-colored outlines of territories (the example held by the National Library of Australia is an exception). The 1831 edition of this map is only independently cataloged in the holdings of six institutions, while the entire atlas is held by roughly a dozen institutions, though as stated above the present map is likely distinct from those examples in coloration.