Henry Hellyer - Work in Tasmania

Work in Tasmania

Henry Hellyer explored most of North Western Tasmania for his employer, the Van Diemen's Land Company (VDL Co), and wrote extensive journals and reports which are held in various archives. His best known journey was in 1827, when with Richard Frederick and Isaac Cutts, he travelled from Circular Head to St Valentines Peak and back, in February 1827.

Overall, it seems clear that Henry Hellyer accepted the VDL Co view that their Royal Charter from King George IV made the Aboriginal people of North West Tasmania trespassers on Company land. In August 1830, while building a footbridge over the River Wey, his camp at Weybridge was visited by George Augustus Robinson and the "friendly mission" whose intent was to investigate claims of killings, including the Cape Grim massacre by VDL Co employees, and to remove all Aboriginal people from their land and relocate them to an offshore island. The party that visited Hellyer's camp included Truganini and her husband Woorady. Hellyer told Robinson of a stock-keeper who claimed to have killed 19 Aboriginal people with a swivel-gun and later wrote to his sister-in-law about Robinson's visit, saying: ""I hope he will do some good, for at present a man's life is not safe if he stirs out without arms, but I have hitherto been lucky enough to escape." This probably refers to an incident on 25 January 1829 which he described in a report as "... a narrow escape, the natives having set fire to a thicket which we were struggling to get through. We rushed through the flames … We saw the natives with fire and tried to shoot them, but although not ten yards off they all escaped ...".

In 1831 he became the first European to reach the summit of Cradle Mountain. In the same year, he began the design of the residence, Highfield House, for the Chief Agent of the VDL Co, but he did not live to see it built. He committed suicide on the night of 1/2 September 1832, leaving a note which is held in the Tasmanian Archives.