Launceston has no history, rather it has histories and every one imagined and every one belonging to someone. James Baldwin said "people are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them." ~ Notes of a Native Son. John Aubrey (1626–1697) said "how these curiosities would be quite forgot, did not such idle fellows as I am put them down!" ~ Lives of Eminent Men, but this is no history, rather it is a muse upon 13 words written 1969 while imagining a place as it was then and before – Launceston.
These 13 words are the first to appear in John Reynolds "Launceston: history of an Australian city" and in a 21st Century context they spark imagining not quite entertained 1969 when Launceston's 'history' was being compiled and imagined.
Then Launceston was a different place, placescaped somewhat differently and a place imagined in the world somewhat differently to most of the ways it is imagined 'now'. Its 'placedness' was quite different then as it has been before then, right now and looking forward.
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Somewhat serendipitously a 1969 copy of John Reynolds’ “Launceston; history of an Australian city” landed again in 2015 to tell us about how “Ponrabbel” was understood in 1969. Just looking at sentence one, paragraph one in Chapter One, entitled as it is, “Ponrabbel”, it shines a light on a set of sensibilities that would be fiercely contested in so many ways in a 21st C context.
Meaning is always invested in the context. So, it needs to be said that John Reynolds was writing from an ‘adult education’ perspective and in chapter one, addressing the Tasmanian Aboriginal issue. Intriguingly, Reynolds was writing as a historian and a Hobartian. He was nonetheless informed from within, writing from within and somehow centered within, ‘Launceston society’. Nevertheless, the Hobart, Launceston rivalry evident at the time, and still there today, draws the critique that Reynolds comes with ‘Hobartian baggage’. It also needs to be said that John Reynolds had a background as a metallurgist and thus mining and industry also.
Meaning is always invested in the context. So, it needs to be said that John Reynolds was writing from an ‘adult education’ perspective and in chapter one, addressing the Tasmanian Aboriginal issue. Intriguingly, Reynolds was writing as a historian and a Hobartian. He was nonetheless informed from within, writing from within and somehow centered within, ‘Launceston society’. Nevertheless, the Hobart, Launceston rivalry evident at the time, and still there today, draws the critique that Reynolds comes with ‘Hobartian baggage’. It also needs to be said that John Reynolds had a background as a metallurgist and thus mining and industry also.
Hobart being Tasmania's capital its the place where decision making goes on. On the other hand Launceston is/was at the State's economic centre, and the place where all the money was/is actually made. Well that's the argument.
Given the sociopolitical cum cultural tensions between Launceston and Hobart it is interesting that with Reynolds’ Hobartian identity he was seemingly taken into the confidence of his Launcestonian sources. Speculatively, this might have been to do with it being imagined that he was unlikely to open doors on unwelcome and uncomfortable narratives – imaginings best left alone.
For a historian’s view of Reynold’s history, Tom Dunning sees Reynolds' book’s significance in what it tells us about the significant men in Launceston’s past. He also sees Reynolds a man of his time and with a viewpoint that is essentially sympathetic towards Aboriginal people.
Tasmanian sensibilities and the cultural perceptions of Reynolds’ time are clearly in evidence throughout his history of Launceston. However, comparing his first chapter with current understandings and cultural discourses it’s possible to see something of a seismic shift in perceptions albeit that postcolonial cultural schisms remain in evidence in many community discourses. If one wasn’t alive at the time, it is easy to forget that Australia’s ‘White Australia Policy’ was still in place in 1969.
However in the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery there is a functioning Guan Di Temple celebrating the Chinese community's contribution to the city of Launceston and Tasmania.
However in the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery there is a functioning Guan Di Temple celebrating the Chinese community's contribution to the city of Launceston and Tasmania.
Against this background there is almost no ambiguity at all in Reynolds’ opening sentence, paragraph one, chapter one. It is, “Launceston’s earliest known inhabitants were the extinct Tasmanian aborigines.” Today such proclamations are seen as coming loaded with Anglocentric settler cum colonial cultural cargo and signposts. Plus, it needs to be said that it might well do so almost anywhere in Australia in the 1960s. .... CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE PAPER
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