The foundation and early work of the society; with some account of earlier institutions and societies in Tasmania

Read on 13th October, 1913, at a Meeting held in celebration of the Seventieth Anniversary of the Society. An account of the works of earlier Institutions and Societies, including the Van Diemen's Land Agricultural Society (1821), and the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1843-8.
The completion of the seventieth year of the Royal Society of Tasmania is a fitting occasion for an account of its foundation and early work. If not the oldest scientific society in Australia, it is at all events the only one whose work and publications have been unbroken for seventy years; and the circumstances of its origin will be of interest to many besides its present members.
Scientific societies and institutions existed in Tasmania many years before the foundation of our Society, Some account of them and of their work, and particularly of those with which the origin of the Society is connected: the Colonial Gardens, the Mechanics' Institution at Hobart, the Tasmanian Society, the Franklin Museum at Ancanthe (Kangaroo Valley), and the Hobart Town Horticultural Society—will be an appropriate introduction to the narrative of the foundation of the Society.