Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) is the leading institution for Tasmania's natural and cultural heritage, located in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Established in 1846 by the Royal Society of Tasmania, the oldest Royal Society outside England, TMAG combines museum, art gallery, and herbarium functions within a historically significant site in the city centre. The institution now attracts approximately 400,000 visitors annually and serves as the primary custodian of the state's collections, which encompass nearly 800,000 objects spanning fossils to fine art.

The origins of TMAG trace back to 1843, when the Royal Society of Tasmania was founded and Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Eardley-Wilmot began efforts to establish a museum. He initially attempted to set up a museum in the cottage of the Governor's Secretary, now the site of the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens. In 1838, the Mechanics' Institution of Hobart had secured government agreement for a room in the Customs House to serve as a museum, though this building was later requisitioned by the Legislative Council and became Parliament House. The museum was officially noted as an established institution in the 1848 minutes of the Royal Society, and it initially occupied a sub-committee room of Parliament.

In 1852 the museum moved to Harrington Street, paying £60 annual rent. The following year, Governor Henry Young placed before the Legislative Council a proposal for state land to build a permanent museum. In 1854 attendance first exceeded 1,000 visitors in a year. The Lady Franklin Museum, founded in 1842 at Acanthe Park (now Lenah Valley), sold its fittings and collection to the Royal Society in 1855, augmenting TMAG's holdings through a donation driven by Joseph Milligan's large geology collection.

State government funding was secured in 1861 for a permanent building at the corner of Argyle and Macquarie Streets. Henry Hunter won an architectural competition, and Governor Young laid the cornerstone that year. The building was completed in 1862, with an inaugural art exhibition organised by Morton Allport, Henry Hunter, and Captain F. E. Chesney to raise funds for interior fittings, as state funds covered only construction. Alexander Morton, formerly Assistant Curator of the Australian Museum, became curator in 1884.

In 1885 the museum passed from the Royal Society to a board of trustees under state government control, with an annual endowment of £500. Adye Douglas, Premier of Tasmania, became Chair of the Board, and Morton was reappointed curator and secretary at £200 per annum. The institution became known as the Tasmanian Museum and Botanical Gardens, as the Royal Society also transferred the Royal Botanical Gardens to the state. A new wing opened in 1889. In 1890, Betsey Island (later Franklin Island) was granted to the Trustees.

The boards of the Botanical Gardens and the Museum separated in 1952, and an Act of Parliament gave the museum its present name, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. The museum closed for four months of redevelopment works and reopened on 15 March 2013.

TMAG administers Tasmania's state collections, which total nearly 800,000 objects and reflect the values of Tasmanian society across natural history, science, and human culture. The collections are distributed across five Hobart sites: the main museum with administration, collections, and research facilities; the Tasmanian Herbarium at the University of Tasmania; the Markree House Museum and Garden; and the Narryna Heritage Museum.

The First Peoples Art and Culture (FPAC) department holds a worldwide collection of indigenous objects and artworks exceeding 12,000 items. This encompasses materials from many Australian nations as well as the Pacific, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The Pacific collection, the largest component, consists primarily of objects from Melanesia, including Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji, alongside items from New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Niue, and Kiribati.

The Cultural Heritage Team maintains approximately 200,000 objects documenting Tasmania's history, including Antarctic and Southern Ocean material. Holdings include convict and colonial-era artefacts, 19th-century scrimshaw, extensive medical and pharmaceutical collections, and Antarctic cultural material. The photography collection focuses on Tasmanian images and photographers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including the oldest surviving daguerreotype of an Australian street view, Murray Street 1848 by J. W. Newland. Documentary holdings include the convict letter of Mary Walsh and records of police magistrates. The numismatic collection incorporates the 1972 donation from Lord Talbot, recognised as being of international standing.

The Tasmanian Herbarium on the University of Tasmania's Sandy Bay Campus maintains more than 312,000 plant specimens, acknowledged internationally as the most comprehensive collection of Tasmanian flora. Flowering plants constitute the largest group. These specimens provide permanent material evidence of which plants occur in Tasmania, their spatial and temporal distribution, variability, and other data.

The Zoological Department holds at least 300,000 specimens accumulated over more than 150 years of museum acquisitions, housed in a specialised facility at Rosny. These include many items of major scientific and historical significance. The collection is not normally open to the public but may be visited by arrangement, with an increasing proportion digitised for online consultation.

The museum also holds a significant collection of Tasmanian colonial decorative arts from 1803 to 1930, defined stylistically from the foundation of the British colony.

Among TMAG's most historically significant holdings is the skeleton of Truganini (Lalla Rookh), long regarded as the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal person. Her remains were exhumed two years after her burial and displayed at the Tasmanian Museum from 1904 to 1907. Since the 1970s, TMAG has operated a repatriation programme for ancestral remains, secret and sacred materials. In 2021, the museum officially apologised to Tasmanian Aboriginal people for the pain, suffering, and ongoing trauma it had caused.

The museum's documentary collections preserve historically significant material including the convict letter of Mary Walsh and police magistrate records. Its photographic holdings contain the oldest surviving daguerreotype of an Australian street view, Murray Street 1848 by J. W. Newland. The numismatic collection features the internationally significant 1972 donation from Lord Talbot. The 19th-century scrimshaw collection and convict-era artefacts represent particularly rare material from Tasmania's colonial period.