Collinsvale
Collinsvale
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Collinsvale

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Collinsvale

Collinsvale is a rural / residential locality in the local government areas (LGA) of Glenorchy (75%) and Derwent Valley (25%) in the south-east of Tasmania. The locality is about 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) west of the town of Glenorchy. The 2016 census recorded a population of 630 for the state suburb of Collinsvale.

Collinsvale has been known to snow.

Collinsvale was gazetted as a locality in 1961. The area was originally known as Sorell Creek, and was inhabited mostly by British settlers in the mid-nineteenth century.

In 1870, the arrival of the first immigrant ships to Hobart saw a large influx of German and Danish migrants who settled in the area, attracted by the cheap land and an abundance of clean water.

The settlement was proclaimed a town in 1881, and was named Bismarck after Otto von Bismarck, the then-Chancellor of Germany. "The name Bismarck had been given to the place out of compliment to the German settlers."

The Lutheran Church was very slow to establish in Tasmania. Due to the lack of a stabilising Lutheran presence, some of the Germans in Bismarck ended up joining the American fundamentalists, the Seventh Day Adventists, who arrived in the region in 1889. A Lutheran church was finally opened in Hobart on 11 August 1871 and remains active today but none was ever built in Bismarck. This led to a fracturing of the community and a loss of its German identity.

At the start of the First World War, Bismarck was renamed Collinsvale after a jingoistic letter-writing campaign. (David Collins had been the Tasmanian colony's first governor.)

This name change had been opposed by "a number of Bismarck residents...[who] presented a lengthy petition setting forth reasons against the proposed name change." Opposing a previous petition that had instigated the called for the change, "Councillor G H Voss said [his] deputation, which comprised himself, Misters Alfred Totenhöfer, H J Smith, Levi Newman, Walter Neilsen, W Brockman, Fred Gall, and F and H Fehlberg was composed entirely of residents in the postal area of Bismarck... The petition he had to present contained 120 names of settlers residing in the postal area... The petition opposed the proposal to alter the name on personal grounds, and the petitioners were practically all of Tasmanian birth, including descendants of the Danish and German settlers who had really founded the settlement... On general grounds it was urged that the change of name would create bad feeling amongst settlers who had hitherto dwelt in amity together... Mr Voss said that the produce of Bismarck would compare with any in the State and their [agricultural] shows had won a good reputation.

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