Lady Jane’s ill-fated crusade to banish snakes from Tasmania

Just as St Patrick is said to have banished snakes from Ireland, Lady Jane Franklin — the governor’s wife — made an audacious bid to do the same for Tasmania.

Lady Jane Franklin, explorer and wife of Sir John Franklin.

As the wife of British explorer and Tasmanian lieutenant governor John Franklin, Jane Franklin made a name for herself as an indefatigable traveller, reformer and pioneer.

But Lady Jane’s bold crusade to eradicate snakes from Tasmania with a one-shilling bounty was a spectacular failure that sparked chaos in the young colony.

The story is told in the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters, with Jim Haynes, from his new book, Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia:

In her seven years in Van Diemen’s Land as it was known, Lady Jane was dubbed “a man in petticoats” after reinventing the traditionally passive role of governor’s wife.

She founded a museum, a botanical garden and a farming settlement, established a system of primary schools, and was the first woman to travel overland from Port Phillip to Sydney.

Tasmanian governor John Franklin and his wife Lady Jane Franklin.

But Haynes says Lady Jane’s phobia of snakes led her to embark on an obsessive crusade against the reptiles.

“She thought that she would be a little bit like St Patrick and she could rid the island of snakes,” Haynes says.

“So she offered a shilling for every snake that was killed and brought in and she talked a bloke who was the harbourmaster into administering this scheme.

“Now the only problem with this was that every assigned convict on the island of Van Diemen’s Land immediately stopped work and went snake hunting.”

Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia by Jim Haynes.

Author and entertainer Jim Haynes.

An independently wealthy woman, Lady Jane paid for the snake bounties and many of her other endeavours out of her own pocket.

“The newspapers accused the Franklins of wasting public money, but more often than not it was her private fortune that was funding these things,” Haynes says.

While the crusade wiped out some 12,000 snakes, it did little to endear Lady Jane to the press or the public.

“The man who was in charge of it sort of said, ‘Look, I’m sorry, Lady Jane, but nobody’s doing their assigned work anymore and I’ve got all these dead snakes,’” Haynes says.

“She was very understanding and she said, ‘Look, if you think that I should leave the reptiles alone, then maybe that’s what we should do.’

“So the snake hunting stopped, and her bank balance went down £600. That’s an awful lot of money back in those days.

“Anyway, I’m sure the snakes just made up for it by breeding a little faster, and there are still plenty of them in Tasmania today.”

To find out more, listen to the interview in the free In Black and White podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper every Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.