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Tasmania

New Norfolk



This is a provisional page, here as a starting point for this family community.

We welcome more details, photographs, history, or even a complete re-write.

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New Norfolk, Tasmania, Australia
Text and photographs by Damian Bester

Population: 5,300

Few places in Australia have a history to match the old town of New Norfolk. The first settlers in the district arrived soon after Europeans colonised Tasmania in 1803, but the town itself was not established until the first evacuees arrived from the abandoned Norfolk Island.
But even when the Norfolk Islanders stepped off the Lady Nelson in November 1807, there was no Melbourne (settled 1835), Adelaide (1836), Brisbane (1825) or Perth (1829).



In its picturesque valley setting, the town of New Norfolk is famous as one of Australia's most scenic towns - as well as one of its oldest and most historic.

The district was originally referred to as The Hills, but the settlers from Norfolk Island quickly adopted the name 'New' Norfolk, and resisted later efforts by Governor Lachlan Macquarie to impose the name Elizabeth Town in honour of his wife.
Settlers lived on government rations until 1812 and the town's early growth was far from rapid. Visitors often remarked that the town had only a hotel and a church, both of which now rank among New Norfolk's list of Australia's 'first' or 'oldest' things. One of the Norfolk Island evacuees was Betty King and her headstone in a local churchyard records that she was the first white woman to set foot in Australia. The convict Denis McCarty became the district's first police constable in 1808 and in 1818 he was contracted to build the first arterial road in the colony, between Hobart and New Norfolk.

Despite rival claimants to the title, the Bush Inn Hotel (1825) is acknowledged as the oldest continually-licensed hotel in Australia.
Reverend Bobby Knopwood stood down from the Hobart chaplaincy in 1823 and retired to New Norfolk, where an Anglican church was being built. St Matthew's Church, while significantly altered over the years, remains as Tasmania's oldest church. Nearby, St Paul's Uniting Church (1835) is the oldest former Methodist church still in use in Australia.

The town had its own Government House and there were attempts to make New Norfolk the colonial capital until the idea was finally vetoed in 1826.

The New Norfolk Municipal Chambers is the seat of local government for the Derwent Valley Municipality, which includes a number of smaller towns and villages in addition to the main civic centre.

A convict hospital was established in 1827 and the barrack square now known as 'Willow Court' was completed in 1831.
It became part of the Royal Derwent Hospital which, at the time of its closure in 2001, was Australia's oldest mental hospital still on its original site.
Governor Sir John Franklin laid a foundation stone at New Norfolk in 1840 on the intended site of Tasmania's first university. The stone did not last a day, as it was quickly dug up and hauled into the river by those who disagreed with the plan.

Hops were established at New Norfolk in 1846 and grew to become one of the Derwent Valley's most important industries. The New Norfolk district is dotted with a number of timber oast houses, or hop-drying kilns, such as this one on the right.
Smallholdings throughout the district have since given way to a centralised industry at Bushy Park which continues to supply the majority of hops needed to flavour and preserve the nation's beer supply.

The district became a rural municipality in 1863 and a year later Australia's recreational fishery had its start when the first salmon were successfully reared at the Salmon Ponds.
Telecommunications history was made in 1888 when Australia's first trunk line call was connected from the Hobart GPO to the Bush Inn Hotel.
New Norfolk began to grow at a rapid rate in the 20th century. Rich in soil and timber, the district's agricultural wealth was more easily exploited with the arrival of the railway, river steamers and hydro-electricity.
The Pioneer Woodware Company established a peg-making industry at New Norfolk in 1926, and in 1941 the first roll of Australian-made newsprint was produced at Boyer.
Australian Newsprint Mills led the Derwent Valley into its most prosperous era, almost doubling New Norfolk's size and population. Despite changes in ownership and workforce reductions, Boyer continues to supply the largest share of Australia's newsprint needs and is one of the state's biggest employers. The end of Hydro-Electric Corporation dam construction and the closure of the Royal Derwent Hospital have sorely tested the Derwent Valley in the past decade.
The first years of the 21st century have seen the arrival of mainland investors big and small, a start on the redevelopment of the former hospital site and recognition of the tourism potential of the region.

Web Links
New Norfolk 2008