.post-timestamp{display:none;}

Stanley: Tasmania’s Rugged North West Coast

Stanley is located on the rugged North West Coast of Tasmania, 379 km (235 miles) north-west of Hobart. It is a place with an interesting history and natural wonders to explore.


Tommeginne Aboriginal People

Aboriginal people have lived in Tasmania for at least 37,000 years, according to available evidence, such as middens, quarries and artefact scatters.

However, about 12000 years ago, the sea level rose separating Tasmania from the mainland and creating Bass Strait. This separation caused a population collapse amongst Tasmanian Aborigines and brought about what is called, the Tasmanian effect; whereby, Aboriginal Tasmanians lost valuable skills and technologies (2), probably due to the isolation. 

The island of Tasmania was separated into nine separate tribal regions. Though, from what we know, Tasmanian Aboriginal people appeared to generally share practices and beliefs (such as "star gods" and the evil spirit Wrageowrapper.)(1)

The Nut State Reserve at Stanley was called Moo-Nut-Re-Ker by the Aboriginal people who lived around Stanley. Today, there are many significant Aboriginal and historic heritage sites within the Nut Reserve, that have ongoing importance for Aboriginal people.

One enduring part of Tasmanian Aboriginal culture continues today, as women of Aboriginal descent still collect Maireener shells and make them into necklaces and bracelets. Some also make traditional baskets. 

The French explorer Nicholas Baudin, described these baskets in February 1802:
"The baskets that the women use for fishing have some worth, from the great amount of work that must go into them, and so they place considerable value on them and will only exchange them with reluctance."
Tasmanian Aboriginal basketwork is twined in an s-stitch, which opposite in the z-twist.of similar basketwork from Arnhem Land and far north Queensland. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

1798: Bass and Flinders 

Matthew Flinders and George Bass circumnavigated Tasmania in 1798, on the sloop Norfolk. They sighted and named the round lumpy area of land near Stanley, Circular Head, on 5 December of that year; this name is still used to describe the whole area. 

But the round lumpy area of land, which is 152 metres in height, with sheer cliff faces on three sides and surrounded by the sea, described by Matthew Flinders as a "cliffy round lump resembling a Christmas cake", is actually the core of an extinct volcano and is now known as "The Nut", or Munatrik (Aboriginal name).
Replica of the Norfolk with representations of Bass and Flinders at the Bass & Flinders Maritine Museum
After this time, a group of escaped and former convicts lived at Circular Head working and living an isolated life as sealers. 


1820s

Captain Dixon came to Van Diemen's land from Scotland in 1820 on the Skelton and published his observations with information that was useful to emigrants and also suggested the formation of a pastoral company.
Chart of Van Diemen's Land "from the original survey brought by Captain Dixon of the ship Skelton of Whitby 1824". Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office

People Arrive

In 1825, the Van Diemen’s Land Company, established in the previous year by British businessmen, developed plans to provide wool to British factories with merino wool. 

The company, had been granted 250 000 acres of land in Tasmania's far northwest by Lord Bathurst, decided that a good place for a village and company headquarters would be nestled at the foot of The Nut.

Edward Curr was appointed the chief agent of the Van Diemen's Land Company at Circular Head: arriving in Tasmania in May 1826 with the surveyor Henry Hellyer.

The English employees from the company arrived on the Tranmere, with livestock, supplies and equipment in October 1826, and settled in the Stanley area. These were the first Europeans to form a settlement in this isolated and rugged part of northwest Tasmania.

Edward Curr reported that:
"The cottages of the married people are built of turf and shingled; that of the unmarried men is temporarily constructed of some of the deals which came out in the 'Tranmere' and shingled. Five huts have been built of turf and thatched for the prisoners."

Buildings appeared around the corner of today's Church and Pearse Streets, many built from the bluestone shipped from England as ballast. 

Edward Curr left Stephen Adey, superintendent of stock and farms, in charge of the indentured servants and the 35 convicts in 1827 (117 in 1835), at Circular Head. However, news reached Curr of convict "insurrection", which as it turned out was justified by the very poor conditions and lack of food. 

The port at Stanley opened in 1827, although it was little more than a wooden jetty, built by the chief surveyor, Henry Hellyer, who took his own life at Stanley in 1832.

Horrific Violence (1824 and 1831)

A historian of the Van Diemen’s Land Company  (VDC) claims that a group of its employees, taking 11 pairs of oxen from Launceston to Circular Head, were attacked by a “strong party of Natives who were however ‘severely handled’.” 1827, December: Meander River, Ritchie’s Hut ((Lennox 1990)

The master of the Van Diemen’s Land Company sloop, Fanny, Richard Frederick, told Mrs Hare, wife of the captain of the Caroline, that he, and his crew with four shepherds surprised some Aboriginal people at Cape Grim, killing 12. Mrs Hare wrote about this in her dairy, which was published a century later. The manager of the VDC reported that there were no casualties because “the guns mis-fired.” (Lee 1927) 

1828, April 15: Proclamation (After more than a year of open conflict with the Aboriginal people). Van Diemen’s Land was officially divided into the Settled and the Unsettled Districts.

"Wantonly wounded and shot down, they [the Aborigines] retaliated. Fresh wrongs produced their kind: at length, every white man was a guerilla, and every black an assassin. The original temper of both parties was changed. Dread, detestation and treachery embittered every mind: even the humane yielded to the general sentiment."
John West, History of Tasmania, 1852 


1832

Highfield Estate at Circular Head was built between 1832 and 1835, from bricks and local sandstone, for Edward Curr, as headquarters for the Van Diemen's Land Company. The property had barracks for the convicts, barns, stables and a chapel. In 1829 the company began leasing land to tenants.
Stanley- the old Barracks 'Highfield' (ruins), Libraries Tasmania
When James Backhouse, a Quaker, visited the Stanely area in 1832, he interviewed two Aboriginal women about their experiences living with these men and reported on their "'sufferings". 

Backhouse also commented on the dances of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people:

In these dances the aborigines 
represented certain events or the 
manners of different animals; they 
had a horse dance, an emu dance 
a thunder and lightning dance, and 
many others. 

Backhouse cited in Roth 1968


The Colonial Architect of Van Diemen's Land, John Lee Archer, became Police Magistrate of the Circular Head district in 1838 and lived at Stanley for the rest of his life.


1840s


The town was named Stanley after Lord Stanley, a British statesman and British Secretary of State for the Colonies in the 1840s.


Buttermaking Begins

Mr and Mrs Michael Carty and family, from Bally-Dor, Ireland, were employed by the Van Diemen's Land Company as rural workers. They landed at Circular Head on the Thomas Lawrie, on 6 March 1840 and were sent to the company's Hampshire Hills Estate.

The remote Hampshire Hills Estate proved to be unsuitable for agriculture and sheep farming, as the land was heavily timbered and barren in the higher westward ranges. So, as the company's fortunes waned, "Michael Carty and his young family were again transferred to Circular Head, where he was appointed dairyman at the Green Hills, and his expert wife distinguished herself at buttermaking."
Advocate (Burnie, Tas. : 1890 - 1954), Saturday 6 August 1927


The first school opened in 1841. The first Post Office opened on 1 July 1845 and was known as Circular Head until 1882. 


1850s


Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston, Tas. : 1835 - 1880), Saturday 19 April 1856
Scene outside the Commercial Hotel, Stanley, Tasmania, 1858, Archives Office of Tasmania
After the 1840s, convict labour stopped and during the 1850s, the company began to lease out farming operations.

Bushrangers

John Stagg House and Eliza Turner and their children, from Gloucestershire England, migrated to Melbourne in 1841. They sailed to Launceston three years later, and then, moved to the Circular Head district where they established Stag Farm. Mr House was murdered by Bushrangers 14 Sep 1853.

"On the evening of the 14th of September 1853 Henry Bradley and Patrick O'Connor (convict pass-holders, ex Norfolk Island) armed themselves with double-barrelled guns, and first plundered Spink's homestead, and thence proceeded to an adjacent station owned by Mr House. They tied up all the occupants of the place, and thrust them into the bedroom of the young ladies of the house. There they shot Mr House in cold blood, leaving him dying at the feet of the helpless women. They secured what plunder they 'could carry, and made for the coast, shooting a constable on the way. Immediately on the murder being known a large party of inhabitants started of in pursuit and a reward of £100 for their capture was offered."
Punch (Melbourne, Vic. : 1900 - 1918; 1925)

Shipwrecked

Henry Smith was the ship’s master and owner of the Fanny. But on 9 June 1884, Henry and his youngest daughter sailed from Montague river with a cargo of potatoes for Stanley and died at sea when their ship was wrecked in Emu Bay. A search was instigated but only the remains of the vessel were found.

Connected

By 1859 Tasmania was linked to the mainland of Australia by a cable laid across Bass Strait, from Cape Otway to King Island, by land across the island, then to Circular Head.
Launceston Examiner (Tas. : 1842 - 1899), Thursday 15 December 1859

1860s
Stanley 1866 - Circular Head, TAS, (c1890), Tasmanian Archives and State Library (Commons)
Stanley 1866 - Circular Head (c1890), Tasmanian Archives and State Library (Commons)
1880s
In 1880, the first coach service between Stanley and Burnie began operation, a trip of close to seven hours.

1890s
Although the port's location at the foot of The Nut provided some protection, the jetty was continually battered by severe easterly gales. By 1893, another jetty was built further east, which was to become known as "Old Wharf".
Old Wharf - Stanley (c1890)
Old Wharf - Stanley (c1890), Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office
Summer season - Stanley (c1890), TAS, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office
1900s

Tatlow's Coach at Stanley in front of W H Lean and Co, Stanley, tasmania, 01 Jan 1900, Libraries Tasmania
Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 22 August 1903
The Wharves, Stanley, Tasmania, 1906-1930, Spurling, Stephen, III, National Library of Australia
Stanley, Tasmania - 1906. The Stanley Hotel can be seen in the centre of the photo....the building with the two chimneys. 
The weekly newspaper, The Circular Head Chronicle, was established and printed at Stanley from 1906 to 1954, but now its headquarters operates at Smithton.
Old Barracks, Stanley, Tasmania (c1910), Tasmanian Archives and State Library (Commons
The Governor turning the first sod of the Stanley-Balfour Electric Railway, May 4th, 1911. Sears Studio photo, Stanley, Tasmania
Motoring in Stanley, Tasmania, circa 1913

WWI
North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times (Tas. : 1899 - 1919), Monday 19 August 1918
Stanley, Tasmania (1919). Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office
Stanley wharf under construction, 1919. H J King photo

1920s

In 1926, Stanley had bacon, cheese and other factories operating. In the early days, Stanley was also famed for the quality and quantity of the potatoes grown here; timber-getting, fishing, dairy and other agricultural industries were also prospering around Stanley.
Stanley wharf, buildings and the Nut, Spurling photo. (c1920), Tasmanian Archives and State Library (Commons)
Myalla to Stanley, Tasmania, extension opening at Stanley, circa 1922. W Winslade photo
Myalla to Stanley extension opening at Stanley, Tasmania, circa 1922. W Winslade photo
Highfield beach, Stanley, TAS, Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Wednesday 12 July 1922
Circular Head, Stanley, TAS, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 6 November 1926
1930s
The 10th Prime Minister of Australia

Joseph Lyons, the 10th of Australia (1932-1939), was born in Stanley in 1879. He attended the local school at Stanley and later began his teaching career in the town. The wife of Priminster Lyons was also very successful in her own right, as Dame Enid Lyons, was the first woman elected to the federal House of Representatives.
Joseph Lyons (as prime minister) standing in front of his birthplace and childhood home in Stanley, Tasmania, in 1935. National Library of Australia
Advocate (Burnie, Tas. : 1890 - 1954), Monday 2 December 1935
Tatlow's Royal Mail Coach, Stanley to Burnie, TAS. Alf Chester photo (c1930), Tasmanian Archives and State Library (Commons)
With the laying of a submarine cable in 1936, from Apollo Bay to Stanley, the first telephone was connected to Tasmania from mainland Australia.
1940s and WWII
Advocate, (Burnie, Tas. : 1890 - 1954), Friday 15 March 1940

STANLEY GIRLS CLUB.
Tiie Stanley Girls’ Club have made
94 white cotton singlets for the C.W.A.
Cheer Fund for Circular Head soldiers
overseas.
Letters of appreciation have been
received from Privates Hanson, Heathhorn,
Leo Gardiner and Kalick. The
girls also have received letters from
Bill Grubb, Joe McGlone and Jimmy
Grubb for cigarettes received.

Circular Head Chronicle (Stanley, Tas. : 1906 - 1954), Wednesday 11 December 1940
1950s
 STANLEY FISHERMEN PREPARE, TAS, Advocate (Burnie, Tas. : 1890 - 1954), Saturday 5 June 1954
The great mass of the Circular Head Bluff forms a dark contrasting background in well -kept arena and brightly-painted buildings of the S tanley showground, TAS. Circular Head Chronicle (Stanley, Tas. : 1906 - 1954), Wednesday 17 November 1954
Today Stanley is the main fishing port on the north-west coast of Tasmania. The town is also featured in the 2016 film adaptation of M L Stedman’s book, "The Light Between Oceans".

Around Stanley
Highfield Historic Site
Built from 1832 to 1835 for the chief agent of the Van Diemen's Land Company, this historic house, which is a rare example of domestic architecture from the Regency period, has been restored.

Highfield House is a Regency style house decorated French trellis-work veranda supports.The house was designed by John Lee Archer for James Gibson, Stanley, TAS.
Convict barrack ruins, at Highfield House Stanley, Tasmania 
Highfield House Stanley, Tasmania, with The Nut in the background
Stone buildings at high fields, Stanley, Tasmania
Ruins of "Deer Park" gates, Stanley, Tasmania
The Plough Inn was built in 1842 and operated as an inn until 1876
The Plough Inn was built by the Van Diemen's Land Company in the early days of the settlement as accommodation for travellers. The Plough Inn operated as an inn until 1876.
Poet's Cottage, which was built in 1849 by John Lee Archer was intended for one of George IV's illegitimate sons.
Poet's Cottage, Stanley, TAS, which was built in 1849 by John Lee Archer, was intended for one of George IV's illegitimate sons
Touchwood Cottage was built about 1840
Touchwood Cottage was built about 1840 in the Georgian style. Originally the house was part of a farm with ten acres.
Van Diemen's Company Store, in Stanley, TAS, was designed by John Lee Archer in 1843-44. It is constructed of bluestone, Michael Coghlan
View from one of the lookouts at Circular Head "The Nut" towards the nearby beach at Stanley, Tasmania. Nicholas Cull
Old Stanley Burial Ground in Stanley Tasmania, first internment in 1827. denisbin
The old railway station in Stanley, Tasmania, is now a motel. denisbin
Lyons cottage in Stanley, Tasmania, where Australian Prime Minister Lyons was raised, denisbin
Stanley Town Hall, Tasmania, opened in 1911. The architect was Alexander North 
The town of Stanley Tasmania is dominated by the Nut a volcanic basalt plug which rises 143 metres. Take the chair lift to the top and look down on pretty Stanley. Note cemetery on far right almost on beach. denisbin
Colourful and striped shops in Stanley, Tasmania. denisbin
Old Commercial Bank, Stanley, Tasmania, circa 1904
This building is called Captain’s Cottage, Stanley, Tasmania, was built in the early 1830s. Captain Frederick Burgess, bought the cottage in the 1920s
The Ship Inn, Stanley, Tasmania, was first licenced in 1849
Church Street buildings, Stanley, Tasmania, circa 1860
The bluestone Bond Store, Stanley Tasmania, was built as a customs store in 1835, Gary Houston
Shops in Church Street, Stanley, Tasmania, Richard Horvath
Stanley Hotel & Apartments, formerly the Union Hotel, at 19 Church Street, Stanley, Tasmania, This hotel has been continually licensed since 1847 under various names, the Emily, Freemason's, The Union and now the Stanley Hotel
View of the town of Stanley, Tasmania, from The Nut
St. James Presbyterian Church, Stanley, Tasmania opened in 1855
The first Church of England "St Paul" at Stanley, Tasmania, was a stone building built in 1846. This weatherboard church was built in 1887 and is situated in Church Street
"Star of the Sea" Catholic Church in Stanley, Tasmania built 1897-1898
Marine Park, Stanley, Tasmania overlooking Little Wharf
 View of the town of Stanley, tasmania, from the top of The Nut. The Stanley Hotel in red and yellow stands out in the main street. Denisbin


Things To Do and Places To Go

The Stanley Museum


Stanley Visitor Guide and Map


Circular Head Heritage Centre


Books To read


Out of Ireland, by Christopher Koch. The story of Irish "gentleman-convict" Robert Devereux and his transportation to Van Diemen's Land.


The Lost Boys of Mr Dickens, by Steve Harris. How the British Empire turned artful dodgers into child killers.

An Unconventional Wife: The life of Julia Sorell Arnold, Mary Hoban. Julia Sorell a feisty woman from Tasmania, marries Tom Arnold in 1850. Lots of famous names.