Archives Office of Tasmania

Prior to the establishment of the Archives Office of Tasmania the official records of the Government of Tasmania were maintained by the various government authorities who created them. They were preserved in the main in vaults, store-rooms and attics associated with the premises in which the departments were placed. The largest of these collections were in the Chief Secretary's vault. During his tenure, John Moore-Robinson was responsible for the theft of many records in the Chief Secretary's Department vaults and profiteered on the sale of Tasmanian records. The sale of the records were often through a third party such as Angus & Robertson, Crisp and Crisp legal firm and Hill of Content book shop in Melbourne. These collections were purchased by Edmund la Touche Armstrong, William Dixson and C. M. Lucas. Establishment of the archives In 1943 the Public Records Act was legislated. The Act's aim was to preserve records determined to be State's archives, administer public access, and authorise the destruction of non State archives. Introducing that bill on 30 March 1943, the Chief Secretary dwelt on the importance of the historical aspects of Tasmania and concluded that it was necessary “for the Government to take action to prevent the removal and destruction of historical documents relating to the State’s development”. The Leader of the Opposition Henry Baker opposed the bill. It was amended and passed in April 1943. The Tasmanian Public Records Act 1943 was the second such measure to be enacted in Australia. The 1943 Act was, copied very closely from Part VI of the South Australian Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery and Institutes Act. In 1958 Morris Miller reported that in the early 1950's, the early volumes of the Hobart Town Gazette went missing from the Chief Secretary's vaults in Hobart. In 1959, nineteen documents of Convict Department provenance were recovered from a private museum at Port Arthur. In 1963, the same museum was again displaying similar archives, this resulted in the McGinniss case. == History ==

Establishment of The Archives Office of Tasmania The Archives Act 1965 formalised the Archives Office of Tasmania as an independent entity, however it remained within the then Tasmanian State Library Department.The 1983 Archives Act made the Archives Office an agency in its own right within the hierarchy of the State Library Department. Locations of collections Prior to 1962 the Chief Secretary's vault under the Supreme Court of Tasmania became, by default, a kind of ungazetted State Archives. In 1962 the Library's headquarters moved to newly built premises at 91 Murray Street, to which a further building was added in 1972. There was an Archives level initially used for public access. An expansion of the Archives Office’s repository at Berriedale was completed in 1992. Incorporated in this extension was a film storage area with separate environmental conditions from the main repository space. In 1994 the public access and offices moved to 77 Murray Street but the Archives Office of Tasmania retained its level 7 storage in the Library building. The relocation gave the Office a street front, street level access and considerably enlarged and enhanced areas for both public and staff as well as improved security systems. The offices and reading room at 77 Murray Street closed in 2008 and the collection became publicly known as the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office. == Scope of collection ==

The Archives collection includes material dating from early European settlement to the present day. It is acquired from government agencies, purchase, donations or bequests. Tasmania’s convict records are part of the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register along with the convicts records held by the New South Wales State Archives Collection and State Records Office of Western Australia. The Collection also includes records relating but not limited to: adoptions, fostering and out-of-home care, immigration, births, deaths and marriages, cemetery records, census, musters and electoral rolls, child and youth migrants, church registrations, community welfare organisations, company registration, court records, shipping passenger departures, divorces, inquests, land records, court records, lighthouses, naturalisations, prison records, publicans’ licenses, Royal Derwent Hospital, schools and education, shipping and ships’ crews, records relating to Tasmanian Aboriginal people and the Black War and the Van Diemen's Land Company. == State Archivists ==

The position of State Archivist, is an independent regulator of state and local government recordkeeping, the disposal and retention of State records, which remains the core function of the Archives Office. == Administration ==

Under the leadership of Siobhan Gaskell, Director of the State Library of Tasmania, the Archives Office and Heritage Collections of the State Library merged to form the Tasmanian Archive & Heritage Office (TAHO). This merger was completed in late 2007. Subsequently the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts and the Crowther Collection, previously part of TAHO, are now administered by Libraries Tasmania. Even though administratively the title has been publicly changed, the Archives Office of Tasmania remains as an entity today. The Archives Act 1983 states that:"There shall continue to be an office and repository in Tasmania to be known as the 'Archives Office of Tasmania' in which such State records as are made available to the State Archivist and are considered by him to be worthy of preservation shall be deposited and preserved as State archives". == References ==