Stanley - Culture and History

As you approach Stanley you see The Nut rising like a strange box above the bay. There is a plaque at the lookout on the southern side of Sawyer Bay. It reads: 'The Nut, discovered by Bass and Flinders in 1798, rises abruptly 143 m from the sea to a flattish top. The geological survey of Tasmania has confirmed that The Nut is the stump of an old volcano. The original core was built of fragments mainly volcanic rock ejected by explosive eruptions. Molten basaltic lava welled up the feeder pipe and in places intruded into these fragmental rocks and formed a lava lake in the crater where it solidified. As it cooled the basalt became weakly magnetised in the direction of the local magnetic field of that time. The direction and dip of this fossil magnetisation is quite different from the present magnetic field and suggests that the volcano was active during some period between 25 and 70 million years ago. Weathering and erosion since has removed all the weak rocks which built the cone so that the hard basalt of the lava pool now stands up as a conspicuous landmark. If you modelled a cone and crater in sand and half filled the crater with molten iron through a pipe from below then jetted the sand away with a hose you would get the picture.'

Stanley is the main fishing port on the north west coast of Tasmania. It was named after Lord Stanley, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies in the 1840s. The first European to see 'The Nut' was Matthew Flinders who in 1798 recorded that he had seen a 'cliffy round lump resembling a Christmas cake'.

The history of Stanley is the history of the Van Diemen's Land company. In 1825 the Van Diemen's Land company formed in England was granted the rights by Royal Charter to a huge tract of unsettled land to raise fine wool sheep on a large scale. Circular Head, commonly known as 'The Nut', was chosen as the centre of operations. Stud livestock, implements, craftsmen and indentured labourers from England along with convicts assigned locally were landed nearby in October 1826. Despite directions to the contrary, the Aboriginal occupants of the area were at times badly treated by company agents resulting in large numbers of murders and their eventual disappearance. Under Edward Curr as chief agent the company explored, surveyed and developed the northwest. It was from Stanley that the foundations of centres such as Burnie (named after a company director) were laid. Distances were so great, and transport so slow, that if Curr wanted to change some standard procedure he was lucky if he got approval in under eight months given that the company was based in London.

The company's development of the town was relatively slow. While the port was opened in 1827, the town wasn't surveyed until the mid-1840s and the first school wasn't opened until 1841. In 1880 the first coach service between Stanley and Burnie was established. It took 6-7 hours to make the journey.

Today Stanley has become a popular tourist destination. It has large numbers of craft shops, tea houses, potteries and galleries - most of which are housed in the numerous local historic houses.