By now many people have SMARTphones and are able to read QRcodes – QUICKresponse Codes – on their phones. This opens up new opportunities to share and store information. As PLACE markers QRcodes are interesting in that:
- IF there is one in a 'place' ... near a monument, significant place, a place with a story ; and
- IF there is information on the internet with a discrete URL liked to the place; and
- IF there is an incentive to provide easy access to that information; then
Post-COVID the understandings of the usefulness of QRcodes has increased to the point where the understandings of places and events can be expanded exponentially.
Below there are some LAUNCESTONexemplars !
WHO WAS JOHN BATMAN ... John Batman is a noteable colonial personality in Van Diemen's Land 's dark histories. His murderous exploits against the palawa/pakana people have earned him an unsavoury legacy and the appropriateness of name being celebrated on monuments and in 'place naming' in the 21st C is being contested.
In Northern Tasmania there is a bridge across the kanamalukaTAMAR estuary and a highway named in his honour. In Launceston's Civic Square there is a marker dedicated to his memory. These 'namings' are now being contested. Despite calls for the bridge to have his name removed the name persists unchanged – and seemingly unchangeable!
History tells us that John Batman (21 January 1801 – 6 May 1839 – was/is known an Australian grazier, entrepreneur and explorer. He is best known for his role in the founding of Melbourne.
Born and raised in the then-British colony of New South Wales, Batman settled in Van Diemen's Land - now lutruwitaTasmania – in the 1820s, where he rose to prominence for hunting bushrangers and leading massacres of Aboriginal people in the Black War.
He later co-founded the Port Phillip Association and led an expedition which explored the Port Phillip area on the Australian mainland with the goal of establishing a new settlement. In 1835, Batman negotiated a treaty with Aboriginal people in Port Phillip by offering them tools, blankets and food in exchange for thousands of hectares of land. However, the treaty was declared void by the government and it has been disputed by Aboriginal descendants. This expedition ultimately resulted in the founding of Melbourne, eventual capital of Victoria and one of Australia's largest and most important cities. Batman moved to the colony with his convict wife, Elizabeth Callaghan, and their seven daughters, settling on what is now known as Batman's Hill. He died of syphilis shortly afterwards at the age of.
Batman's treaty stands as the only attempt by a European to engage Australian Aboriginal people in a treaty or transaction rather than simply claiming land outright. However, Batman's motives and the validity of the treaty remain of great historical interest and debate.
Early life John Batman was born on 21 January 1801 in Parramatta, Colony of New South Wales. His parents, William and Mary Bat(e)man, arrived at Sydney aboard Ganges on 2 June 1797. William was sentenced to fourteen years' transportation the previous year for receiving stolen saltpetre, while his wife paid her fare to accompany him, bringing along their children Maria and Robert..... Read more here ... and click on the headings above to discover more still.
