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Is Betsey Island part of the South Arm Peninsula? For the Moomairremener people there was no question. Betsey Island was a veritable larder of mutton-birds, penguin and penguin egg and only a relatively short paddle away in their bark canoes. Shell and stone artifacts found on the island record the importance of this local food source.
In fact the Moomairremener were the first to give the island a name; Lore.by.larner.
During the D'Entrecasteaux expedition of the 1792 Betsey was renamed Isle de Williamez only to be changed again to Betsey's Island by the English explorer John Hayes in 1793.
If Betsey could talk, she would have tales to tell... Expeditioner Matthew Flinders landed on her shores and climbed to her crest while charting the coast of Van Diemen's Land with George Bass in 1798... Unmanageable convicts were often deposited there in order to man the signal fires advising the arrival of ships entering the harbour... and in 1814 a party of aboriginals were taken on a day trip from Betsey to Hobart where they were suitably attired, met the governor and then returned, presumably in their town finery, to the island again.
Mr King bought the island in 1820, built a small stone house and released "silver-haired rabbits, pheasants, and peacocks, imported from England...". Soon the island was over-run and King sold the rabbit meat in Hobart where it was seen as a delicacy and sent the valuable silver skins to China. A later report says that interestingly enough the island's rabbits were now black; this may have caused King to place the island on the market in 1832.
Lady Jane Franklin bought the island in 1840 and it briefly became known as Lady Franklin (or just Franklin) Island. She tried, unsuccessfully, to farm there and then in 1868 gave it to the people of Tasmania. The shape of the island altered somewhat in 1876 as a result of a landslip that the island's resident "Old Alick" reported felt the same as "a ship being launched" and left "a great gulf".
Since then the island has remained largely deserted and its only use is now as a ship's graveyard for "nail sick" or worn out boats ranging from tugs and barges to sections of the old Hobart pontoon bridge.
And back to the original question... is Betsey Island part of the South Arm Peninsula? Well officially it would seem so as adjustments made in 2013 to the South Arm school catchment area saw a decrease in the mainland area compensated by the inclusion of Betsey Island's 176 ha. Perhaps an indication of the thriving metropolis that Betsey Island may one day become.
Image courtesy of James Stone