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6 unusual facts about Van Diemen's Land


Cape Maria van Diemen

The cape was named by Abel Tasman after the wife of his patron, Anthony van Diemen, Governor General of Batavia (now Jakarta) in January 1643, on the same voyage of discovery during which he named Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania).

George Dean

In March 1894, Dean married Sarah Annie Gaynor, known as Mary Seymour, and daughter of Catherine Asbury, known as Caroline Seymour, who has been transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1852 for pickpocketing.

James Agnew

He decided to settle in the west of Port Phillip District (now the Western district of Victoria), but not enjoying the life, went to Melbourne, where he was offered the position of private secretary to John Franklin, then governor of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania).

John F. Boynton

Boynton believed Smith to have become a "fallen prophet" and said to Heber C. Kimball, "if you are such a fool as to go at the call of the fallen prophet, Joseph Smith, I will not help you a dime, and if you are cast on Van Diemen's Land, I will not make an effort to help you."

Tasmania Police

Prior to the formation of a unified police force, Tasmania (then called Van Diemen's Land) was policed from 1803 under the administration of Lieutenant Governor David Collins by a small number of superintendents and overseers, and from 1804 by a civilian body known as the "Night Watch", brought by Collins from Port Phillip Bay.

William Henry Elliott

On 27 June 1838 he was promoted lieutenant-colonel, and he commanded the 51st in Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and at Bangalore, until 1852.


Acheson House

In preparation for this, Acheson House was bought by the city council, but the house came to the attention of the 4th Marquess of Bute, a keen antiquarian who also supported the restoration of Gladstone's Land and houses on Charlotte Square.

Albert Schultz

Schultz directed Soulpepper's productions of Death of a Salesman, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Oh What a Lovely War, The Caretaker, Waiting for Godot, No Man's Land, A Chorus of Disapproval, The Time of Your Life and Angels in America, Parts I and II.

Beit Safafa

The southern part was in the Jordanian-occupied West Bank, while the northern part, originally in no man's land, was transferred to Israel with the signing of 1949 armistice agreement, and was later annexed to Jerusalem by Israel.

Box Hill, Victoria

Box Hill was first settled by the squatter Arundel Wrighte, formerly of Van Diemen's Land, who in 1838 took up a pastoral lease on the land he had previously explored in the Bushy Creek area.

Dead Man's Land

Barry Forshaw listed it in his 'Books of the year 2013: Crime'.

Donald Gunn

He also wrote for the Smithsonian Institution and the Institute of Rupert's Land, and was a member of the Board of Management for Manitoba College (a Presbyterian institution).

Eardley-Wilmot baronets

He was Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1843 to 1846.

Elizabeth Thackery

She lived for a while with James Dodding and subsequently made her way to van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) on the Porpoise.

Frederick Seymour

For the next twenty years, he served in various positions in a series of colonies mired in political and economic difficulties: Van Diemen's Land, Antigua, Nevis, British Honduras, and the Bay Islands.

Gulliver's Land

The park is relatively small and is centred around the Lilliput Land Castle.

Henry Wemyss Feilden

On the same voyage he discovered the Miocene Flora of Grinnell's Land, his collection and observations on which from an important contribution to Heer's "Flora Fossilis Arctica."

Jabez Waterhouse

In 1847, Waterhouse returned to Van Diemen's Land and during the following eight years was appointed to the Hobart, Westbury, Campbell Town and Longford circuits.

Jane Franklin Hall

Although there is no direct link between them, the college is named in honour of Jane, Lady Franklin, wife of the famous but ill-fated Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, who from 1837 to 1843 was the sixth Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land.

Jesse N. Funk

He earned the medal while serving as a stretcher bearer during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, when he and another soldier, Charles D. Barger, entered no man's land despite heavy fire and rescued two wounded officers.

John Batman

In 1821 John (aged 20 years) and brother Henry journeyed to Van Diemen's Land (now known as Tasmania) to settle on land in the north-east near Ben Lomond.

John Eardley-Wimot

Sir John Eardley-Wimot, Bart, succeeded Sir John Franklin as Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1843-1846.

John Peter Pruden

John Peter Pruden, christened on May 31, 1778 at All Saints Parish Church in Edmonton, Middlesex, England, was an early pioneer of Canada which at the time was known as Rupert's Land.

Joseph Gould

Gould was captured and sentenced to be exiled to Van Diemen's Land but his sentence was reduced to 9 months in prison.

Lenaert Jacobszoon

Also on board was 25-year-old Anthony van Diemen who was later to push for the further exploration of the southern land and after whom Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) was named.

Monographia Chalciditum

Part I In this Walker describes "species collected by C. Darwin Esq. These are from Australia :-Hobart's Town, Van Diemen's Land, King George Sound and Sydney, New South Wales; Part II Bahia, Brazil; Part III Chiloe; Part IV Charle's Island, Galapagos; Part V New Zealand; Part VI Jame's Island, Part VII St. Helena, high central land.

North Bentinck Arm

A spot on North Bentinck Arm is historically significant as the location where Hudson's Bay Company explorer Alexander MacKenzie reached the waters of the Pacific Ocean overland from Rupert's Land.

Panoz Auto Development

Panoz began by making their own car, the Esperante GTR-1, and have since acquired other manufacturers, including famous Formula Ford builders Van Diemen and Indy Racing League constructor G-Force Technologies.

Sinclair Pass

He discovered and used the pass in 1841, while leading an expedition of over 100 Red River Colony settlers across Rupert's Land to Fort Vancouver on the north bank of the Columbia River (across from present day Portland, Oregon), in an attempt to hold the Columbia District for Britain.

Snow knife

Among the Esquimaux in and around King William's Land I found snow-knives made of copper stripped from Sir John Franklin's ships, the imprints of the queen's broad arrow still showing on many, the blades double-edged or dagger-shape, and the handles of musk-ox and reindeer horn rudely attached by sinew lashings.

Tasmanian Gothic

Unsettling events such as the story of Alexander Pearce, the wandering cannibal who roamed through Van Diemen's Land in the 1820s, also influenced the bleak and sinister atmosphere that provided an ideal setting for gothic fiction.

The story of Alexander Pearce was made into two feature films: The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce (2008) and Van Diemen's Land (2009).

Territorial evolution of Canada

The central expanse of Canada was originally settled by the Hudson's Bay Company of the Kingdom of England, which had a royal monopoly over trade in the region; Rupert's Land was named after the company's first director, Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

The Very Best of John Michael Montgomery

#"No Man's Land" (John Scott Sherrill, Seskin) - 3:02

This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn

It is the last work in the "Dance sequence" of six novels, preceded by Breaktime, Dance on My Grave, Now I Know, The Toll Bridge, and Postcards from No Man's Land.

Thomas Reibey

Reiby was born in Hadspen, Van Diemen's Land, (now Tasmania) the son of Thomas Haydock Reibey and Richarda Allen, and a grandson of Mary Reibey.

Tongues of Serpents

Dropping by Van Dieman's Land to resupply, the Allegiance discovered William Bligh, late of the HMS Bounty, exiled there after being deposed in a military coup, and have since borne him to Sydney.

Van Diemen

The cars for the L2 class were not Van Diemen built but a West WX10 and later WR1000.

Van Diemen's Land Company

The Van Diemen's Land Company introduced bounties on the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) from as early as 1830 thereby being implicit in their extinction by relentless bounty hunting.

Walter Gellibrand

Gellibrand was born in Derwent Park, Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania), brother of Thomas and William who both became members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly.

William Bompas

William Carpenter Bompas (20 January 1834 – 9 June 1906) was a Church of England clergyman and missionary in northwestern Canada, first Anglican bishop of the Athabasca diocese, then of the Mackenzie River diocese and then of the Selkirk (Yukon) diocese as these dioceses were successively carved out of the original Rupert's Land diocese.


see also

James Backhouse Walker

"The French in Van Diemen's Land" (Hobart, 1889); "The Settlement of Tasmania, comprising Papers read before the Royal Society of Tasmania" (Hobart, 1890); "The Discovery and Occupation of Port Dalrymple" (Hobart, 1890).