This model of Hobart's Old Government House is of great importance. It is the only visual record of the entire complex of buildings that once stood approximately where Franklin Square and Town Hall stand today, and from where the colony was administered in its early years. Construction of Old Government House started in 1807; for the next 50 years, it was added to and repaired. It was demolished in 1858, when the Governor relocated to the new Government House on the Domain.
This model was built by a young Scotsman, Francis Low, who arrived in Van Diemen's Land from Sydney in the mid-1830s. In 1837, Low was commissioned by Lady Jane Franklin to construct the accurate model (the scale Low worked to was 10 feet to 1 inch).
It is thought that, when the Franklins returned to England in 1843, they took the model with them. It was handed on to descendants of the Franklins and returned briefly to Tasmania in 1953, where it was displayed at the State Library. TMAG purchased the model in England in 1989.
And what became of Francis Low? Low's wife, Ann, died aged 34 in the Hospital for the Insane at New Norfolk. Low, left with a young family to care for, decided that there was nothing left for him in Van Diemen's Land but poverty and unhappiness, so he returned to New South Wales in July 1840 – for what he hoped would be a brighter future.