The Royal Society of Tasmania’s Art, Objets d’Art and Collectibles Auction
Sunday 5 November, 5pm – 7pm, 96 King Street, Sandy Bay.
The Royal Society of Tasmania warmly invites you and your friends to attend a social event and silent auction featuring an attractive selection of art, objets d’art and collectables. Vice-President Julie Rimes is very kindly hosting this event at her lovely home built in 1905 by noted Tasmanian architect Orlando Baker.
While enjoying the various rooms you will have the opportunity to place bids on auction items, with something to suit every budget. These would make wonderful additions to your own collection or appealing gifts for friends and family. All auction items have been donated by generous members of the RST. The auction catalogue can be viewed using this link.
The ticket price of $25 per person includes wine and canapés. There will be lucky door prizes too. All funds raised will be used for the conservation and restoration of The Royal Society of Tasmania Art Collection.
Please feel free to invite your friends and interested people to join you at this event. Numbers are limited, so early booking is advised.
Book your tickets using this link. We hope to see you there!
If you are unable to attend but wish to bid on an item, absentee bids can be emailed to admin@rst.org.au by 11 a.m. on Thursday 2 November,
or you may call or text 0419 594 206 after 4.30pm on 5 November to place your bid. Early bids are welcome.
The Royal Society of Tasmania 2023 Christmas Dinner and Lecture
Thursday 7 December, 5.30 pm for 6 pm, Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, Marieville Esplanade, Sandy Bay.
Members and guests are invited to join us for the annual Christmas Dinner ($70 per person) and Lecture. Please fill in and return the acceptance form to admin@rst.org.au before 15 November. Download the acceptance form using this link.
The lecture to be given by Dr Annaliese Jacobs-Claydon is entitled:
“Shearwater Stories: Histories of Tasmania and the Arctic, c.1800-1860”
Sometime between 1850 and 1860, a Chukchi umialik (a whaling captain), drew a map of the Bering Strait on sealskin. The map was a rich depiction of an animate and changing world, and it included several whaling ships gathered to hunt Aġviq, the bowhead whale. Like the short-tailed shearwater, one of them might have made the long journey from Tasmania.
We are used to thinking of Hobart as an Antarctic gateway, but this talk will turn things around, and examine some of Tasmania’s Arctic histories. How did islanders impact the Arctic regions, and how have this island’s histories have been shaped by Arctic environments, animals, and people?
Following the tracks of migrating animals and the people who pursued them in (roughly) the first half of the nineteenth century, we will look at how Tasmanians were entangled in the shifting politics of dynamic Arctic worlds, and how those threads were woven in turn into the fabric of Tasmanian history. We will also stop with Tasmanians in the places they called home and look at how they used Arctic stories to make sense of their pasts and imagine their futures. Indigenous people and Indigenous networks of trade and information are central to these stories, connecting the Bering and Bass Straits in surprising and important ways. These polar perspectives might help us reckon with the living legacies of Tasmania’s colonial history, a history that includes the changing polar regions that many will never see.
Annaliese Jacobs-Claydon was born and brought up on Dena’ina land in Southcentral Alaska. She began her career as a historian and archaeologist with the U.S. National Park Service in two Indigenous-owned Affiliated Areas, the Iñupiat Heritage Center (Utqiagvik) and the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area (Unalaska/Dutch Harbor). She earned her PhD in British and Imperial History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2015, after which she worked for the State Library and Archives Service at Libraries Tasmania as an Archivist until 2022.
She is now an Adjunct Researcher in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Tasmania. Her first book, Arctic Circles and Imperial Knowledge: The Franklin Family, Indigenous Intermediaries, and the Politics of Truth will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in early 2024.
Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the RST Library Collection
Wednesday 1 November, 10 – 11am
Level 5, Morris Miller Library, UTAS
Visit the home of our RST Library Collection and hear about what makes it important and how it is used by researchers, students, and the broader community. Historical Collections Coordinator, Katrina Ross, will delve into the collections and share the stories of the popular, the old, and the quirky items that make this collection nationally significant.
Places are strictly limited to 15 participants.
To register, send an email to office@rst.org.au to reach our office assistant before 27 October 2023. Details of the event will be in the email of confirmation.
Call for Nominations for the RST Doctoral (PhD) Awards 2023
Nominations for the annual RST Doctoral Awards open on 1 October 2023. Two awards are offered for recent PhD graduates who have made significant advances in the course of their doctoral research.
One Doctoral Award is reserved for nominations from disciplines other than STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). The other Award is open.
The value of each award is $1,000 (AUD). Awardees may be invited to present a lecture to the Society.
Conditions of the Doctoral Awards
The awards shall be made to nominees who are no more than three years, or three years equivalent-full-time, after their PhD graduation.
The awards are intended to recognise significant advances based on the PhD research, as shown by published or in press peer-reviewed papers in national/international journals or equivalent outputs in fields where publications are not the norm.
The research should have been largely carried out in Tasmania or under the aegis of an organization based in Tasmania.
Nominations may be made by anyone although no self-nominations will be accepted.
Nominations must be received before COB, 15 November 2023. Nomination guidelines are given at https://rst.org.au/guidelines-for-annual-doctoral-awards/.
A flyer for the 2023 Doctoral awards is available via this link.
Richard Coleman, on behalf of the RST Honours and Awards Committee.
‘An Evening with Louisa’ – Fundraising Reception at Government House
Bookings are now closed.
Royal Society of Tasmania members and supporters are invited to attend ‘An Evening with Louisa’, a fundraising reception for The Royal Society of Tasmania Art Collection at Government House, Hobart on Thursday 28 September 2023 commencing at 6:00 pm.
Louisa Anne Meredith was one of Australia’s leading 19th century artists and a highly respected member of the Royal Society of Tasmania. The RST Art Collection (940 artworks) contains the largest and most significant group of works by Louisa: 252 works. All proceeds from the evening will go to the conservation and exhibition of artworks in the RST Collection.
The evening will include entertainment, refreshments, and the auction of an original framed watercolour painting of Tasmanian waratah donated by noted botanical artist and RST member Lynne Uptin OAM. Hospitality is provided courtesy of the Office of the Governor.
Tickets are $85 per person, and the ticket price is a direct contribution to the Royal Society of Tasmania Art Fund.
Please RSVP by 5.00 pm on 14 September 2023 by filling out the form included in the invitation and emailing or posting it to the Royal Society of Tasmania.
Your Government House TryBooking entry ticket will then be emailed/posted to you. Please present the TryBooking ticket at the door to gain entry on the night.
Numbers are limited, and an early RSVP is recommended.
Secondary and senior secondary Tasmanian students invited to apply for RST bursaries
The Royal Society of Tasmania invites secondary school students to apply for bursaries
- Open to Tasmanian secondary and senior secondary students who have been selected through a competitive process to represent Australia at an international event, including those held in Australia.
- Bursaries may also be awarded for national events held interstate.
- Offered in the fields of science, mathematics, engineering, as well as the arts, humanities and social sciences.
- No closing date for applications.
- Students selected for Youth ANZAAS are eligible to apply.
Events attended by previous recipients include:
- Science Summer Experience in London.
- Physics Challenge in Beijing.
- Science Challenge at NASA, Cape Kennedy USA.
- RoboCup International Competition in Sydney.
To apply, students should send a written application, including:
- Name and contact details of the applicant, the name of the school attended by the applicant, and the name of the event.
- A brief description of the summer school or event they have been selected to attend, including location, dates and costs.
- A copy of the recommendation from the Australian selectors for the event or activity they were chosen to attend.
- A concise statement (<200 words), written by the student, about their goals and aspirations, and a short CV (maximum 2 pages).
- A signed statement endorsing the application by a senior staff member of their school, including their contact details (email and phone).
Send applications to: Professor Jocelyn McPhie, Acting Chair, RST Bursaries Committee, j.mcphie@utas.edu.au
Expressions of Interest: Excursion to the Tasman Monument
This year is the hundredth anniversary of the erection of a monument on Forestier Peninsula in 1923 by the RST. The monument commemorates the landing of the Abel Tasman Expedition in Tasmania on 3 December 1642.
The Tasmanian Historical Research Association (THRA) is organizing an excursion to the monument and has offered 15 places to RST members.
Date: Sunday 3 December 2023.
Itinerary: Participants make their way to “Bangor” independently. The excursion will start at the Bangor Shed, just south of Dunalley, at 10am. After morning tea and a brief introduction, we will take a bus through “Bangor” to the start of the track, arriving there at 11.30am. A hilly walk of around 15-20 minutes will take us to Tasman Bay and the Tasman Monument where participants can have lunch (BYO). For the more energetic, there will be an option for a 45-60 minute return walk to North Bay where Tasman and later Marion du Fresne (in 1772) anchored their vessels. Participants will return to the bus by 2pm and then to their cars at the Bangor Shed at around 3pm. The Shed offers wine-tastings for those who would like to indulge! THRA member Tom Dunbabin farmed “Bangor” for many years and will provide commentary during the tour.
Cost: $30 per person, includes morning tea and bus transport between the Bangor Shed and the start of the walk to the monument.
To secure a place on this excursion, please send a short message before 30 September to admin@rst.org.au with the subject line “Tasman Monument excursion”. Payment will be due 1 November 2023.
Below is a photo of the plaque on Tasman Monument at Bangor. Click on the image for an enlarged view.
“At this spot the Expedition under Abel Jansz Tasman being the first white people to set foot on Tasmanian soil planted the Dutch flag on December 3rd 1642 as a memorial to posterity and to the inhabitants of the country. This stone was erected by the Royal Society of Tasmania 1923.”
Transcription from plaque.
Announcing the release of the Royal Society of Tasmania’s 2024 calendar
Rodney Gibbins named Tasmanian Aborigine of the Year
At the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre’s flag-raising event on Monday 3 July, the first day of NAIDOC Week 2023, Rodney Gibbins was named Tasmanian Aborigine of the Year. This award is intended to recognise Aboriginal individuals who make outstanding contributions to improving the lives of members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community.
Rodney Gibbins was recognised for his selfless and unwavering dedication to advance the negotiations for Treaty by means of an Aboriginal-led process. At the same time, Rodney has been advocating for Truth Telling as the essential context for achieving Aboriginal rights and recognition.
Rodney has generously given his time and experience to support these causes, both within and outside the Aboriginal community. He is also committed to developing the understanding of younger members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community so they can reach their full potential and gain confidence in their own abilities and skills.
Rodney’s connection with the RST began in February 2021 when, together with Michael Mansell, he spoke on behalf of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community at the paired RST-TMAG Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
The text of Rodney’s speech was published in the Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmanian December 2022 issue (Volume 156).
Rodney delivered an RST lecture in December 2022 entitled “Truth-telling and treaty as it relates to Tasmania now” (click here to view).
Congratulations Rodney!