The museum was officially created in 1848, though the collections it housed were much created earlier. It merged a number of disparate collections, including that of the Royal Society of Tasmania. The Mechanics' Institution of Hobart, Van Diemen's Land Agricultural Society and Van Diemen's Land Scientific Society had each attempted to found a museum earlier than this date, the most successful of these being the Mechanics' Institution, but little record remains of what happened to these efforts.
Sir John Eardley-Wilmot, 1st Baronet, during his period was Lt. Governor of Tasmania, did much of the work that led to the modern museum. The museum was noted as first being an established institution in the 1848 minutes of the Royal Society of Tasmania, though Wilmot had done most of the work in 1843 and had attempted to set up a museum in the cottage of the Secretary of the Governor, in what is now the
Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens. In 1838 the Mechanics' Institution received an agreement from the government for a room to be constructed in the Customs House for use as a museum. Customs House was later requisitioned by the Legislative Council of Tasmania and became
Parliament House, Hobart. The Royal Society of Tasmania later founded TMAG in the sub-committee room of the Parliament, possibly the same room. In 1885 the museum was passed from the Royal Society of Tasmania to the a board of trustees under the state government, with a yearly endowment of £500. Until this point it was officially named The Royal Society's Museum. The Royal Society granted the Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart to the state government at the same time, and they became known as the Tasmanian Museum and Botanical Gardens in that year. Since then the Museum has expanded to occupy all the buildings in the block, including the 1810 Commissariat Store, and the 1902 Customs House facing Davey Street. In 1952 the boards of the Botanical Gardens and the Museum were split and the museum assumed its modern name. An act of Parliament was passed to make this so. ==Governance==