Walch's Tasmanian Almanac was produced in Hobart by J. Walch
and Sons from 1863 until 1980. It had a variety of titles in the
time that it was published but was commonly known as Walch's Almanac. Also known as the
"Red Book", it contained
detailed information about Tasmania for the year it was published, with information about
all regions and towns of the state.
This edition of Walch's Almanac contains over 650 topics. It
list thousands of names of people together with their occupation, but more than
that, you will find details on the towns and the services that each had, as well
as the societies and clubs, railways, charities, telegraph and postal services
available. There is registered medical practitioners, dentists and chemists, as
well as those in law departments, coroners and ministers of religion, and
the government and military forces. There are details of obituaries that were
published during the previous year's newspapers ... the list could go on.
The places covered by the 1898 edition of Walch's Tasmanian Almanac are:
Hobart City, Launceston City, Bothwell, Brighton, Campbell Town, Carnarvon,
Clarence, Deloraine, Emu Bay, Evandale, Fingal, Franklin, George Town, Glamorgan
(Swansea), Glenorchy, Hamilton, Hobart (New Town, Queensborough, Glebe Town,
Mount Stuart, Bellerive and Beltana), Kingsborough, Lake District, Longford,
Macquarie, Mersey, New Norfolk, Oatlands, Portland, Richmond, Ringarooma, Ross,
Russell, Selby, Sorell, Spring Bay and Westbury.
Almanacs are a useful resource for being able to 'add flesh to the bones' in
finding out more about your ancestors and the society in which they lived, their
occupation, the town they lived in, the businesses in the district and the cost
of items at that era.
Each volume is an immensely valuable resource of historical
information about Tasmania, which is now readily available on fully-searchable
CD-ROM.
