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The presence of the past: the uses of history in Tasmanian travel writing

How does a new society learn to think of itself as old? The question has particular resonance for Tasmania, which was arguably the first of the Australian colonies to register that it had a historic past but one that respectable opinion sought to live down. Yet history insistently lingered on as vulgar sensation-seeking tourists raked over the convict past. In Tasmania tourism helped forge a new historical consciousness. This essay sketches some of the mechanisms by which Tasmanians came to appreciate their history. The challenge was to convert this lowbrow interest in a disreputable past into a middlebrow tourism industry. “Travel writing”, broadly defined, contributed to the process by emphasising Tasmania's Englishness, developing an aesthetic appreciation of its historical fabric and, through state legitimation, demonstrating the civic virtue inherent in history tourism.