Dreaming of Hobart: Happy Birthday Darwin
Make Treasury Buildings a tribute to the star who loved us, writes Sheila Allison
TODAY is an important day in Hobart, one worth celebrating. Many Hobartians, however, are not aware of it. Today is Charles Darwin’s birthday. “Young Charley”, as his father called him, arrived on HMS Beagle in February 1836 and celebrated his 27th birthday in Hobart Town.
There’s good reason to celebrate his arrival, just as there is to develop a place where we and visitors can pay more attention to the unique history of Tasmania as well as contribute to its future. The opportunity presents itself in the bricks and mortar of the Treasury Buildings.
Since the Tasmanian Government floated the prospect of selling them, Talking Points and letters in the Mercury have advocated preservation of the buildings and offering suggestions for their use.
Their historical value was well described by Henry Reynolds (Talking Point, December 8), including the fact they were the site of the complicated administration of the convict system and important work by Andrew Inglis Clark in the writing of the Australian Constitution.
Being a colonial port city automatically gave Hobart and its surrounds a role in history, but remaining a small city also gives us unusual access to this past.
Standing on the forecourt of the Treasury Buildings is like standing on a compass of our history. You can point in almost any direction and tell a story about what happened there, and many of those places would be within sight or walking distance.
The one event that covers every direction is the visit of young Charley. In the 12 days he was here he walked everywhere – he called them “pleasant little excursions” – making notes, collecting rocks, fossil shells, flatworms and 133 different kinds of insects.
His activities are well enough documented that it is easy to walk in his footsteps, whether on the Eastern Shore (he took a ferry to Bellerive) or Sandy Bay or Knocklofty or up the mountain. When he couldn’t walk, he rode – to Lenah Valley and Ralphs Bay – and then took a coach to New Norfolk. Despite all the exotic ports of call he made on the Beagle, Hobart Town made an unusual impression on young Charley. On Darwin’s bicentenary in 2009, the Royal Society of Tasmania held a symposium, Charles Darwin in Hobart Town, the proceedings of which state that in 1854, Darwin’s friend, botanist Joseph Hooker, wrote to him with the news that the Tasmanian Government had contributed 350 pounds towards the cost of publishing Hooker’s Flora Tasmaniae. Darwin replied: “What capital news from Tasmania: it really is very remarkable & creditable fact to the Colony: I am always building veritable castles in the air about emigrating, and Tasmania has been my headquarters of late so that I feel very proud of my adopted country: it really is a very singular & delightful fact, contrasted with the slight appreciation of science in the Old Country.”
Perhaps it is time to give the dreamer’s “castles in the air” some substance.
Several cities celebrate a Darwin Day. It seems more than fitting we should too. It would also be fitting if our Darwin Day were unique, a celebration of the “young Charley” and offering a chance for young researchers and students to gather and tell us about their work.
The Treasury Buildings, part of which Charley would have known, would make a fine headquarters for him and our Darwin Day, and a further endorsement of science from his “adopted country” of Tasmania.
It needn’t be only science. The Treasury Buildings could include art and artefacts, music, a library, an Andrew Inglis Clark room for debate and presenting of papers.
As the older Charles said: A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.