Charles Whitham was an Australian writer. He wrote the oft-reprinted ''Western Tasmania: A land of Riches and Beauty'', which was a comprehensive study of the geographical features of

West Coast, Tasmania The West Coast of Tasmania is one of the regions of Tasmania in Australia. It is mainly isolated rough country and is associated with wilderness, mining and tourism. It served as the location of an early convict settlement in the early history ...

and the conditions of the region in the 1920s.

Early life

Charles Whitham was born in India in 1873. He and his parents travelled to Tasmania in 1886. His first book was published in 1917.

''Western Tasmania''

The book was originally published in 1924 and reprinted in 1949 and in 1984. Extracts from the book were reproduced in '' The Mercury'' in the 1930s. The book is a mix of geographical and historical information about the west coast, and includes sections on

Macquarie Harbour Macquarie Harbour is a shallow fjord in the West Coast region of Tasmania, Australia. It is approximately , and has an average depth of , with deeper places up to . It is navigable by shallow-draft vessels. The main channel is kept clear by th ...

and the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company. Whitham had personally travelled to many of the locations and features that he described as well as to most of the peaks of the

West Coast Range The West Coast Range is a mountain range located in the West Coast, Tasmania, West Coast region of Tasmania, Australia. The range lies to the west and north of the main parts of the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. The range has h ...

. His photographs in the

State Library of Tasmania The State Library of Tasmania is the reference, special collections, research and public lending library in the Tasmanian capital of Hobart, Australia. It is part of Libraries Tasmania. Libraries Tasmania includes a state-wide network of librar ...

attest to some of the places that he had visited. It was not until the writing of

Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey, (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. Blainey is noted for his authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including ''The Tyranny of ...

's ''

The Peaks of Lyell ''The Peaks of Lyell'' is a book by Geoffrey Blainey, based on his University of Melbourne MA thesis that was originally published in 1954. It contains the history of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company, and through association, Queens ...

'' in the 1950s that the history and geography of the west coast of Tasmania was thoroughly reviewed and showed the important contribution of Whitham's earlier work. A collection of articles by Whitham was collected by Kleinig in the 2000s.

Later life and death

Whitham moved to Sydney in the 1920s, and died there in December 1940.

Notes

External links

Charles Whitham photographs - online at State Library of Tasmania
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitham, Charles History of Tasmania Western Tasmania