Bothwell, Tasmania is a small town with a population at the 2021 census of 499. Situated in central

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

on the

River Clyde The River Clyde (, ) is a river that flows into the Firth of Clyde, in the west of Scotland. It is the eighth-longest river in the United Kingdom, and the second longest in Scotland after the River Tay. It runs through the city of Glasgow. Th ...

in a broad valley, it is notable for

hunting Hunting is the Human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products (fur/hide (sk ...

and being a lake district. It is part of the municipality of

Central Highlands Council Central Highlands Council is a local government body in Tasmania, encompassing the Central Highlands region of the state. Central Highlands is classified as a rural local government area and has a population of 2,144, the two largest towns a ...

and celebrated the bicentenary of its founding in 2022. Nearby locations include

Hollow Tree A tree hollow or tree hole is a semi-enclosed cavity which has naturally formed in the trunk or branch of a tree. They are found mainly in old trees, whether living or not. Hollows form in many species of trees. They are a prominent feature of n ...

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

Ouse Ouse ( ) may refer to: Places Rivers in England * River Ouse, Yorkshire * River Ouse, Sussex * River Great Ouse, Northamptonshire and East Anglia ** River Little Ouse, a tributary of the River Great Ouse Other places * Ouse, Tasmania, a town ...

and Kempton. The citation for Bothwell in the Australian Register of The National Estate describes Bothwell as:

"... an agricultural settlement on the Clyde River, set in a modified landscape, surrounded by low naturally vegetated hills. Consistently it is a loose grid plan settlement with large lot sizes. Civic details include avenue plantings and Queens Square. Dense pine plantings occur en route to the showground. Important homesteads occur on the west side of the river. It has two village centres, with fine churches and cemeteries grouped about Queen's Square. The general character of the town is one of looseness, internal open spaces being important, with consistent architecture generally in good condition. The settlement is important for its formal layout which is emphasised by continuing civic consciousness in building and landscape."

History

For many thousands of years before European colonisation, the Bothwell area was the home of the Mairremmener people, who migrated seasonally between the mountains and the coast. Led by Tongerlongerter, they fiercely resisted the occupation of their territory, as part of what is known as the

Black War The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians in Tasmania from the mid-1820s to 1832 that precipitated the near-extermination of the indigenous population. The conflict was fought largely as ...

. Bothwell traces its formal founding to 1822, when several families of Scottish origin settled in the area that was to become the town. It was named after

Bothwell Bothwell () is a Protected area, conservation village in the South Lanarkshire council area of Scotland and part of the Greater Glasgow area. It lies on the north bank of the River Clyde, adjacent to Uddingston and Hamilton, Scotland, Hamilton, ...

Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark (; ), is a Counties of Scotland, historic county, Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area and registration county in the Central Lowlands and Southern Uplands of Scotland. The county is no l ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. It was laid out in 1824 by surveyor Thomas Scott, with a more detailed plan designed in 1837 allocating space for a market place, school, police, magistrate and parsonage. The town extended as far east as the blocks on the east side of Kent Street and north to Alexander Street. A further plan was drawn up in 1900, the town had by then extended further east to William Street and north to Elizabeth Street and the market place now named as Queen's Square. The school was granted a larger site in this plan, between Mary and Michael Streets, where it is located currently. The heritage registered hotel at the corner of William and Patrick Streets, currently called The Castle Hotel, dates from 1829 and is the second oldest continuously licensed hotel in Tasmania. St Luke's Presbyterian, now Uniting, Church opened in 1831. It faces east and is prominently located on Market Place adjacent to Queen's Square, at the end of Alexander Street. It was used by both Anglicans and Presbyterians until the Anglican church, St Michael and All Angels, opened in 1889. Bothwell Post Office opened on 1 June 1832. At the first census of population in Tasmania, taken on 1 January 1842, Bothwell had a population of 947, comprising 672 males and 274 females. In 1870, Bothwell had a population of 1300, in 1881 it was 1049 and in 1891 it was 1482. For some years after 1848, Bothwell was the place of

exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

of the

Irish nationalist Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cult ...

leaders

John Mitchel John Mitchel (; 3 November 1815 – 20 March 1875) was an Irish nationalism, Irish nationalist writer and journalist chiefly renowned for his indictment of British policy in Ireland during the years of the Great Famine (Ireland), Great Famin ...

and John Martin; their lodging ''Mitchel's Cottage'' still stands on the Nant property. Bothwell was also the site of a

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the r ...

, built in the 1960s, in nearby Dennistoun, by one of the pioneers of radio astronomy,

Grote Reber Grote Reber (December 22, 1911 – December 20, 2002) was an American pioneer of radio astronomy, which combined his interests in amateur radio and amateur astronomy. He was instrumental in investigating and extending Karl Jansky's pioneering wo ...

Golf

The first game of golf in Tasmania, and among the earliest games of

golf in Australia Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit a ball into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

, was played in Bothwell. The Ratho Farm Golf Links was, until recently, believed to be the oldest

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a teeing ground, tee box, a #Fairway and rough, fairway, the #Fairway and rough, rough and other hazard (golf), hazards, and ...

in Australia, and was thought to have been built in the mid-1850s. Jane Williams, daughter of Ratho's first owner Alexander Reid, wrote in 1890 that golf was first played in the area sometime before 1860:

"...it (golf) was introduced over 30 years ago by Mr. William Wood, brother of Mr. Dennistoun Wood, of Dennistoun, and that it flourished as long as the Scottish element prevailed in the Bothwell district, when through death and other changes golf ceased to be practised in Bothwell."

Alexander Arthur Reid of Ratho, grandson of the above-mentioned Alexander Reid, wrote in 1930 that his father, Alexander Reid Jr., penned a letter written in the early 1860s stating that he was starting a golf club in Bothwell with 15 or 16 members. Arthur Alexander Reid also mentioned that he remembered the "queer-shaped old clubs." The newly opened links at Ratho were reported in The Tasmanian Mail in August 1911:

"Mr and Mrs. Reid gave a golf afternoon on the newly laid-out Ratho links, at Bothwell, on Saturday, when a handicap mixed foursomes for trophies given by the host and hostess was played... The new course is a really excellent one, the turf being naturally suitable for golf, and the grass greens are all wonderfully good. Every hole has its difficulties, and the spoiling nature of the course adds to its attractiveness. The length of the course (9 holes) is 2,551 yards.

Golf in Australia Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit a ball into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

started at Grose Farm in Sydney, with the first reliably documented match played in 1839 by A.B. Spark. Bothwell is home to the Australian Golf Museum, housed in the sandstone former school house.

Bothwell Literary Society

Australia's first country-town literary society was established in Bothwell in 1834 as a debating society by the Scottish born minister Rev. James Garrett. The society built a meeting place in 1837, the same year that

Sir John Franklin Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and thro ...

became its patron. In this building the society established one of Australia's earliest public libraries.

wrote about the library in 1852, stating that:

"Bothwell has a very tolerable public library, such library as no village of similar population in Ireland had."

The library's last major acquisition was in 1892, when the MLC for Derwent, Walter Gellibrand, donated 81 books. In 2017, the

Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery The Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery (QVMAG) is a museum located in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. It is the largest museum in Australia not located in a capital city. History The foundation stone for the original building to house the ...

in Launceston acquired the full collection of the library.

Architecture

Bothwell features several distinctive styles of architecture, including Georgian, Queen Anne Revival and

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

. It has many buildings listed on the Tasmanian Heritage Register, Register of the National Estate and the National Trust, from stone cottages to churches.

Wentworth House

One of the larger houses is the two storey Georgian Wentworth House, located on Wentworth Street on the west side of the Clyde River. Construction, at a cost of £560 was started in 1830 by convict builders, for Captain, later Major,

D'Arcy Wentworth D'Arcy Wentworth (14 February 1762 – 7 July 1827) was an Irish-Australian surgeon and the first paying passenger to arrive in the new colony of New South Wales. He served under the first seven governors of the Colony, and from 1810 to 1821 ...

, brother of explorer

William Wentworth William Charles Wentworth (August 179020 March 1872) was an Australian statesman, pastoralist, explorer, newspaper editor, lawyer, politician and author, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in colonial New South Wales. He ...

, and one of Bothwell's early police magistrates. The house was originally called Inverhall and was single storey. The house was further added to by Major Charles Schaw, an assistant police magistrate in Bothwell, at a cost of £4000. The citation in the Australian Register of the National Estate describes Wentworth as:

"A very unusual two storey Georgian house... Main north facade has off-centre portico with grouped casement windows flanked by pilasters to one side and a single window at level two to the other side. The east facade is possibly the most attractive, with three pairs of French doors with bracketed cornice and heavy 3 dormer window (with pilasters) above the eaves line. Central Decorative chimney. Fine garden and setting.

St Luke's

St Luke's is the second oldest Presbyterian church in Australia, the oldest being the Ebenezer Church in the Hawkesbury region of New South Wales, which is also the oldest extant church building in Australia. It is a sandstone Georgian style chapel, constructed between 1828–31 and designed by John Lee Archer. It has a square, Norman style tower with a castellated parapet, lancet windows and a Gothic doorway which was restored by the National Trust in 1968. Of particular interest are the carvings above the main doorway:

"
Daniel Herbert Daniel Herbert (born 6 February 1974) is an Australian rugby union administrator and former player who was appointed as the chair of Rugby Australia in November 2023. As a player, he played as a centre and won 67 caps for the Australia national ...
, the genius convict stonemason-sculptor who carved the images on the sides of the bridge at Ross, is credited with creating these strange images which may depict a Celtic pagan god and goddess. Herbert was known for his droll sense of humour. If they are pagan it is amusing to note that Governor Arthur upon inspecting the church ordered the architect, John Lee Archer, to change the rounded windows because they were 'unchristian'."

Nant Mill

The Nant property was established by Edward Nicholas of Nant,

Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( ; ) is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the South East Wales, south east of Wales. It borders Powys to the north; the English counties of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the north and east; the Severn Estuary to the s ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

, in 1821. The Nicholas family were among the earliest European settlers in Bothwell. The buildings on the property comprise a homestead, outbuildings, cottage and mill. The heritage registered watermill was built in 1857 and is powered by the waters of the Clyde River. It is a two-storey sandstone Georgian style building. There was an earlier mill on the property built in 1825, the only remnant of which is a brick barn adjacent to the 1857 building. In 2007 a significant restoration and conversion to a whiskey distillery were undertaken by noted Tasmanian architectural firm Circa Morris-Nunn.

Notable residents

In alphabetical order by surname. * Douglas Cashion Tasmanian politician and minister. * John Frost chartist and convict, lived in Bothwell when he was assigned to W. Chester * Keith Sydney Isles academic economist and vice chancellor of the

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College (University of Tasmania), Christ College, one of the unive ...

, born in Bothwell * Maria Lord wealthy entrepreneur and convict, ran a shop in Bothwell and died in the town in 1859 * John Martin Irish nationalist leader and convict, lived in Bothwell with John Mitchell *

Irish nationalist leader and convict, lived in Bothwell with John Martin *

Harold Sprent Nicholas Early life Harold Sprent Nicholas (1877–1953) was an Australian judge, journalist and politician. He was born in Hobart, Tasmania in 1877 to William and Alice (née Sprent) Nicholas, daughter of James Sprent. Harold spent his childhood in Bo ...

judge in the New South Wales Supreme Court, spent his childhood in Bothwell at his family property, ''Nant'' * Sir Robert Officer politician and medical officer, lived in Bothwell *

Charles Myles Officer Charles Myles Officer (14 July 1827 – 1 February 1904) was an Australian grazier and politician, member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly. Officer, born at New Norfolk, Tasmania, was the third son of Sir Robert Officer. In 1848 he went t ...

grazier and politician, lived in Bothwell *

radio astronomer, lived in Bothwell and constructed a radio telescope on the Dennistoun farm *

Charles Rowcroft Charles Rowcroft (1798, London – 1856), pastoralist and novelist, the son of Thomas Edward Rowcroft, a British consul in Peru. Rowcroft was educated at Eton, after which he went to Hobart Town, Australia, in 1821 and took up a grant of 2,000 ...

novelist, one of the earliest settlers in Bothwell * D'Arcy Wentworth Jr. soldier and politician, police magistrate of Bothwell * William Weston 3rd

Premier of Tasmania The premier of Tasmania is the head of the Government of Tasmania, executive government in the Australian state of Tasmania. By convention, the leader of the party or political grouping which has majority support in the Tasmanian House of Assem ...

, lived in Bothwell for a time after his marriage to Ann Elphinstone, daughter of Captain William Clark of Bothwell * John Dennistoun Wood Australian politician born at Dennistoun farm in Bothwell