ISBN: 9781763725942
Blackgum Item Code: NAVP0025
Title: A colonial enterprise the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company 1852 - 1892
Author: Graeme Broxham
Imprint:
RRP: $49.95
More information:
Founded in Hobart Town in 1852, the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company was born in the boom years of the Australian Gold Rush to operate a pair of state-of-art iron screw steamships between Hobart Town and Melbourne. Over the next four decades it expanded its operations to include the New South Wales trade and the prestigious Bass Strait Ferry passenger and mail service. From time to time it also extended its services to Queensland and New Zealand. Despite many problems both technical and by accident, it remained one of Tasmania’s most successful public companies until falling foul of an ambitious mainland rival Huddart, Parker & Co. in the period leading up to the Depression of the early 1890s. By amalgamating with another competitor, the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand in 1891, it ensured that reliable steam shipping services were maintained to Tasmania for decades to come.

A Colonial Enterprise is the first book to be dedicated to the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company, and tells the story of its founding, its many trials and tribulations, the circumstances of its dramatic fall and their consequences. Many Tasmanians today can trace the prosperity of their forebears to its success, and its iconic Henry Hunter-designed office in Hobart’s Sullivans Cove Historic Precinct remains as tangible evidence of its significance.