Nelson
The division of Nelson takes its name from the 340-metre high backdrop to the Hobart suburbs of Sandy Bay, Taroona and Kingston. Mount Nelson is a popular lookout, with sweeping panoramic views of the Derwent estuary, Storm Bay, the city and suburbs and out across the hills of the Eastern Shore.
It has long been recognised as a vantage point and in the early years of settlement was the site for a signal station, which told the people of Hobart that ships were entering the Derwent. The pole from which the signal flags were flown still exists. Mount Nelson—reached by a somewhat tortuous road, noted for its seven bends—is now largely suburban.
Mount Nelson was not, as might be expected, named after the British admiral of Trafalgar fame, Lord Horatio Nelson. It was named by Governor Macquarie in 1811 for the ship Lady Nelson because of the prominent role it had played in early Australian exploration and settlement. The ship, in turn, was named after Lady Fanny Nelson, wife of Horatio. Fanny (Mrs Nisbet) was a widow, whom Nelson met on the island of Nevis, in St Kitts–Nevis in the West Indies, while staying with her uncle, the President of the Council of Nevis. Of Nelson's marriage partner, a fellow officer observed: "Captain Nelson has married a complexion combined with a remarkable absence of intellectual endowment".
The Lady Nelson sailed from England to the colony of New South Wales in 1800 and for the next three years explored the Australian coast. In 1803, after a false start, she brought the first group of settlers to Van Diemen's Land, as Tasmania was then known. The group arrived at Risdon Cove on September 7. The following year the Lady Nelson was used to survey Port Dalrymple (the lower reaches of the Tamar River), where a settlement was established at York Town (now marked only by a monument at West Arm), subsequently relocated upriver to Launceston. A further task was to relocate the Risdon Cove settlement to Sullivans Cove, close to the centre of present-day Hobart.
The Lady Nelson lives on in the form of a full-scale replica, built as Tasmania's sail training ship.
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