Introducing Jane

Jane was a knowledgeable and enthusiastic patron of the arts and education.Her husband was the famous but ill-fated arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, who from 1837 to 1843 was the sixth Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania).

Jane Franklin Hall is a residential college of the University of Tasmania. It was founded by the Tasmanian Council of Churches in 1950 as a non-denominational Christian college in which residents of all faiths and beliefs could feel welcome. College aims are spelt out on the crest: the pursuit of truth and the freedom that follows from it. As we trust that all residents will strive for excellence in everything they do, so we hope that each will live by the most basic rule of human conduct: be kind and open-hearted towards your neighbour whoever he or she might be.

The college is located halfway between the University and the city centre - about fifteen minutes' walk from each. Our free bus service shuttles regularly between the University's campuses, and public buses run past the college to town.

The Governor's Lady

A recollection

"But it is with Lady Franklin's inner life that you desire to be acquainted. What was a reunion, or an 'at home', in Lady Franklin's time?

"It was an intellectual treat. No burlesque of a queen's drawing room. Nothing beyond the usual forms and conventionalities of genteel life. It partook more of a conversazione, Lady Franklin, after taking the initiative, taking care that the subject introduced was not beyond the capacity of the company. Her study was to make every person at home and happy, and admirably did she succeed, for an evening at Government House was considered the most enjoyable of all parties. ...

"To look at her in a drawing room, no one would suppose she could undergo any physical exertion: but see her under the clear heavens, ascending the slopes of Mount Wellington, and brushing the dew away through dense forests of underwood, in deep and gloomy recesses, in search of natural productions and to view from the abyss the sublime and beautiful basaltic peaks and rugged rocks and waterfalls, which are only to be seen in all their grandeur from depths below! Who could believe it was the same delicate, fragile lady who was overcome by the fatigues of a ball. But Lady Franklin was a great traveller, and had been 'tried and tutored in the world'."

James Calder, Hobart Mercury 3 Oct. 1872; reprinted in Recollections of Sir John & Lady Franklin in Tasmania (Adelaide: Sullivan's Cove Press 1984) 8-9.