Launceston Historical Society | August Talk
August Meeting | With guest speaker Bradley Wood
Henry Rice – From Calcutta Convict to East Coast Explorer
All welcome. Admission is free for LHS members, and $5 for visitors. Afternoon tea will be served.
Talk begins at 2pm at the Meeting Room, Queen Victoria Museum, Inveresk
In December 1820 a small expedition departed from Henry Rice’s farm along the Coal River near present-day Richmond, to explore the East Coast of Van Diemen’s Land for future settlement. Henry Rice led the party as an official explorer for the colonial government. Why did Lieutenant-Governor Sorell appoint ex-convict Rice to this important job? He had been a thief, sailor, prisoner, escapee and servant, and the merchant Roland Loane had once declared that ‘if it cost him one thousand pounds sterling, he would hang Rice.’ In this talk I will separate the real story of Henry Rice from the myth, solve some mysteries about his identity and provide a new perspective on the importance of this expedition.
Bradley Wood is a writer, historical researcher, and partner in an education consultancy business that develops learning materials for libraries, museums, heritage sites and schools around Australia. He has worked on archaeological excavations in Sydney, Tasmania and in Ypres, Belgium. His most recent article was a finalist in the Forty South Van Diemen History Prize 2020/21 and was published in The Van Diemen Anthology 2021, as “The Mysterious Journey of Captain Charles Bayley’s Cane”.2 Invermay Road, Invermay
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