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INTRODUCTION
On January 15, 1933, Harold Latham of Auckland Road,
Greenmeadows , New Zealand, wrote to his cous in, Leventhorpe Hall, in
Tasmania:
On 25th August, 1933, you will celebrate the hundredth
anniversary of your family landing in Hobart . I read
in the last Mail you sent those extracts from old letters
which gave such a clear picture of conditions as they
were in those days and in which you must all have shared
for years ; all the hardships of pioneer days made worse
by the brutal convict system which your grand old fighting
father did so much to lessen, even against official
authority. I hope a fitting commemoration will be made
on the above date of the part the Hall family took in the
making of Tasmania as she is today . 1
Some years later, on a more formal note, W.E.L.H. Crowther in
an Archib ald Watson Memorial Lecture said:
The work of Dr E.S. Hall, M.R.C.S.J L.S.A. , during many years
of practice in Van Diemen 's Land and as the pi6neer
epidemiologist of the Australian Colonies (Cumpston 1923)
is yet to be fully recognised. A member of the Old Re ligion
and an utterly loyal son of his Church , he became the best
known Catholic layman in our Is land. Simple and humane
he worked primarily for the good of the orphans , the poor
and the outcast and exemp lified the conception of a christian
gentleman . His published work is of great scientific interest
and value and, an ardent bib liophile, he pub lished in his
latter years a book entitled "Who Translated the Bib le" in
support of the· -early teaching of his Church . 2
An attempt has been made now with this study of Hall 's life to fill a
long standin gap in Tasmania's history . The task was very rewarding ;
not just an academic exercise, but a duty owed to Hall's memory and to
Tasmania's heritage .
introduct ion .
to explain.
As the story speaks for itself, it needs little
However , there are some features of the work which I .. ·ould like
1
2
Hall Papers , NS 308/4/20/3 .
W.E.L.H. Crowther, "A Background to Medical Practice and th e Tra ining
of Surgical Apprentices and Pupils in Van Diemen ' s Land" ,
The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery, Vol . XXI , 1951-2,
p 198.