Tasmanian Parliamentary Papers 1856 - 1901

The Tasmanian Family History Society partnered the Tasmanian Parliamentary Library in digitising the Tasmanian Parliamentary Papers for the years 1856 to 1901.The Parliamentary Papers are mainly reports to parliament by various government agencies and should not be confused with Hansard which records the proceedings of the parliament. Examples of such papers are the ‘Charitable Grants Department Report for 1900’ or ‘Main Line Railway: petition from Bothwell as to route (1873).’

During 2019 a member of the Tasmanian Parliamentary Library staff suggested that the valuable paper copies of Tasmanian colonial-era (1856-1901) Parliamentary Papers be digitised in order to better preserve them and, at the same time, to allow the Tasmanian Parliament to make the digitised copies available to the wider community for research purposes. Subsequently a project steering committee was formed, which included Robert Tanner (then Vice-president, TFHS Inc.).

The Tasmanian Family History Society Inc. (TFHS Inc.) became a major partner in this project, being aware that it would provide a very valuable resource for family historians, as well as other historians and other interested researchers.

That project is now complete and the digital papers are now available via the Parliament of Tasmania website (under Library & Resources). The papers may be read and searched here.

TFHS Inc. and the Tasmanian Parliamentary Library acknowledge the generosity of the Tasmanian Community Fund who made it possible to employ the services of Acrodata to undertake the task of digitisation. More details of the project can be found here.

The papers are readily searched using the search function included with the papers. Individual papers may be downloaded in PDF format. The web site is very user friendly and well worth exploring.