Mount Barrow

Undated postcard of Mount Barrow (Tasmaniana Library, SLT)

Mount Barrow (1413 m) lies to the east of Launceston in northern Tasmania. It was most probably named by Paterson after Sir John Barrow, Secretary to the Admiralty in 1804–06 and 1807–45, and, like Paterson, a keen amateur botanist. The name Mount Barrow does not appear on any extant map dated prior to 1859. However, George Hobler notes in his diary that Robert Pringle Stewart had a farm called Barrowdale in the Patersonia district at the mountain's foot in the early 1830s.

The Mount Barrow State Reserve (459 hectares) was proclaimed in 1940. The same year a road to the summit was opened, organised by the Launceston Fifty Thousand League. The mountain's first television tower was erected in 1961–62. The reserve is used for bushwalking, rock climbing and hang gliding.

Thomas Gunn