Two Landmark Meetings

30 September 1851

Van Diemen’s Land citizens lodged with the Sheriff’s Office a ‘Petition for a Public Meeting of the Native-Born’, in which they declared themselves to be ‘the undersigned Natives of Tasmania’.

The flyer for this meeting proclaimed that they sought to rally ‘against the CONTINUANCE of transportation’. The Sheriff agreed that the meeting could be held in the Royal Victoria Theatre and addressed his letter of agreement to ‘Richard Dry, and other Gentlemen, natives of Tasmania who signed the requisition’.

17 November 1852

Notwithstanding an attempted coup by pro-transportationists, the anti-transportationists eventually passed a long set of resolutions critical of government policy. One of the Resolutions linked the issues of transportation with use of the island’s preferred name in an important way.

"No 3. That the discontinuance of transportation is the most desirable, and all traces of its existence should be as far as possible, be abolished, that to this end all deserving settlers and persons suffering disabilities consequent on continuance should receive free pardons, and that the name of this Colony should be changed to ‘Tasmania’".

This statement is a pivotal event in the island’s renaming. Obtaining universal pardons was unlikely, however.