Bothwell: A brief History

by local historian, Mary Ramsay

Bothwell is a small farming village on the Clyde River in central Tasmania. It calls itself the gateway to the highlands. It is the last commercial stop before the hunting and fishing central plateau area. Major farms surround it. The area was settled in the 1820s. Many major buildings were constructed using local sandstone and hand made bricks.

It is therefore one of Australia’s earliest historic towns but its fame does not rest on this alone. Bothwell has been home to far more people of fame and ability than is usual for such a small place.

The aboriginal people who lived in this area were called the Mumirimina people [Note 1]. They have not been thoroughly studied and there is still debate on the numbers and formation of the group which was known as the Big River tribe. The Mumirimina who were nomadic, occupied the central highlands. Members traded with neighbouring groups such as with the Oyster Bay tribe [Note 2] and there were defined pathways through the Bothwell district. There was a pathway up from the Jordan River at Miles Opening near Woodspring on the Limekilns Road. It was often where these pathways crossed newly settled farms that clashes occurred between the Mumirimina and settlers. It is known that the local indigenous tribe kept the plains around Bothwell fired so that it was open country. The ancestors of the Mumirimina inhabited Tasmania for 35,000 years. The last members of the band were found by George Augustus Robinson near Lake Fergus at the end of 1831. The band included members of the Oyster Bay group as well. It numbered 26 people. They walked down into Bothwell with about 100 hunting dogs and camped outside the Castle Hotel in January 1832. Here they danced their last corroboree in their native land before walking down to Hobart. They were then shipped across to the islands in the Furneaux Group. Evidence of their occupation is seen in the caves around Bothwell and the flints and other tools that turn up in the river valley. A recently published book by Graeme Calder¹ gives a more detailed account of the Mumirimina.

After the British settlement at Risdon Cove was established in 1803 cattle found their way up the rivers to this area, as did the hunters who were sent out to find food when the settlement was starving. After them came the stock-keepers with their herds who grazed under government licence on the open plains. They lived in crude huts such as the one at Hunterston where the bushranger Michael Howe was captured in 1818.

After almost 20 years of settlement it was realized that the colony of Van Diemen’s Land was a suitable place for the rearing of sheep for wool. This would bring in some welcome income to the colony. Governor Sorell toured the area and instructed that the land be surveyed and made available for settlement. Then the boats started arriving with men of means, their servants and farm implements.

The Grace was first ship to bring people who settled in this area. These were the Nicholas family who came to Nant and later to Meadsfield, and the Rowcroft brothers who were granted Norwood and Grassy Hut. The Nicholas family brought millstones with them and were able to value add on to their farm income by grinding other farmers’ wheat. They built a mill on the banks of the Clyde part of which stands to this day [Note 3]. The settlers who arrived by the Castle Forbes in 1822 were mainly Scots and many were from Fife. The group had been organised by Captain Patrick Wood, a retired East Indian Army man who came out accompanied by a farm overseer, housekeeper, stonemasons, farm hands and other people useful in establishing a settlement.

Andrew Bell, a Scottish stonemason who came out with Captain Wood built some of the most architecturally significant houses in Tasmania. In 1824 Captain William Clark came out with his family and settled at Cluny. By this time a town had been laid out by the surveyor James Scott and substantial houses were being built on adjacent farms and along the Clyde River and its tributaries. A second water-mill was built on the Clyde at Thorpe by Thomas Axford in 1823. This still stands and is currently being restored. Later just as the rules about granting land were being altered the McRae family followed out their Scottish kin the McRas [Note: not a typo] who were living at Abyssinia. The McRaes found land at Selma and Hartfield to the west of Bothwell near where the Ouse and Shannon Rivers meet. The town acquired low taverns like the Plough & Harrow as well as respectable inns, a barracks, shops, and a blacksmiths.

St Lukes church was opened in 1830. Before this Archibald McDowall had been appointed the Commissariat Clerk and catechist for the district. The church was unusual in that it was built for the use of Protestant congregations and for sixty years both Anglicans and Presbyterians held services there. Archibald McDowall had come out on the Portland with his family in 1824. The McDowalls were from Ayrshire in western Scotland. Archibald was a great supporter of hard working convicts and helped many of the married men to bring out their families, men like Edward Bowden (or Bunnet) and Joseph Thorogood.

The Methodists built a sandstone church in Dennistoun Road which flourished while George Ife was a shop-keeper in the town and Robert Blake provided financial support. After Ife moved to Hobart it declined and eventually when it was obvious that the railway line would never be built to Bothwell the church was sold and demolished and the materials used in other buildings such as can be seen in High St where The Keep and Barwick Cottage both include Methodist church sandstone.

Bibliograpy

1. Calder, Graeme. (2010). Levee, line and martial law : a history of the dispossession of the Mairremmener people of Van Diemens Land 1803-1832. Launceston, TAS. Fullers Bookshop