Media: USB (2 vols, 1068 pages)
Year: (1900) 2023
ISBN: 9781920978464
Publisher: Archive Digital Books Australasia

The Cyclopedias that were published for most states of Australia around the beginning of the 20th Century are a vast resource of historical and biographical information. They cover the people, towns, industries, professional, commercial and social institutions and much more.

The Cyclopedias include thousands of illustrations, the larger number of these being portraits of those whose biographies are included. These are not just the rich and famous, but include a high percentage of the ordinary citizens in each community.

This USB includes facsimile images of the entire two volumes of the original 1900 edition.

VOLUME 1 - Government, Hobart and southern and Western towns

• over 620 pages, 1000 photographs and 800 biographies
• Introduction and historical sketch of Tasmania in 1900
• Former and present governors
• Government, parliament and the legislature
• Government departments
• Hobart, Old Hobart and the Port of Hobart
• Military
• Government Institutions
• Educational
• Ecclesiastical (various denominations)
• Social and sporting Institutions
• Professional, commercial, Industrial, trades
• Old Colonists
• Rural Industries
• Timber Industries
• Mining
• Towns in the South of the Island
• West Coast Towns
• Index to vol 1

VOLUME 2 - Launceston and the Northern towns

• over 420 pages, 750 photographs and 700 biographies
• Launceston
• Towns in the North of the Island
• Miscellaneous Biographies
• Curious Facts of Old Colonial Days
• Aborigines of Tasmania
• Index to vol 2

Greatly enhanced access to Cyclopedia content

As with many other products being published under the Archive Digital Books project access to the vast amount of information is now greatly enhanced The indexing of the original volumes and their general arrangement still give only limited references to the many people, places and subjects that are largely hidden in the extensive text.

NOW that is all changing. The entire text is now easily searched. To illustrate the value of this, the following number of returns were obtained from searching the two volumes.

Sample Search Results
Names (often none or only 1 or 2 in the indexes)
- Gibson - 101
- Meredith - 63
- Williams - 140

Places (usually 1 at the most in the indexes)
- Devonport - 265
- Hagley - 46
- Longford - 321
- London - 500
- Ireland - 113
- Scotland - 160
- Yorkshire - 40

Other (usually only 1 at the most in the indexes)
- butcher - 105
- cricket - 170
- dentist - 16
- hotel - 461
- Presbyterian - 111

The entire text from the two volumes is searchable - names, places and any other words in the text or advertisements

Originally produced by Archive Digital Books Australasia in 2004, this title has now been remastered and re-released, and includes better searching capability. High quality scanned images of the original volumes, with Fastfind search and bookmarking for easy navigation. Pages can be searched, browsed, enlarged and printed out if required.