Bothwell, Tasmania is a small town with a population at the 2016 census of 485. Situated in central Tasmania on the River Clyde in a broad valley, it is notable for hunting and being a lake district. It is part of the municipality of Central Highlands Council and will celebrate the bicentenary of its founding in 2022. Nearby locations include Hollow Tree, Hamilton, Ouse and Kempton.
The citation for Bothwell in the Australian Register of The National Estate describes Bothwell as:"... an agricultural settlement on the Clyde River, set in a modified landscape, surrounded by low naturally vegetated hills. Consistently it is a loose grid plan settlement with large lot sizes. Civic details include avenue plantings and Queens Square. Dense pine plantings occur en route to the showground. Important homesteads occur on the west side of the river. It has two village centres, with fine churches and cemeteries grouped about Queen's Square. The general character of the town is one of looseness, internal open spaces being important, with consistent architecture generally in good condition. The settlement is important for its formal layout which is emphasised by continuing civic consciousness in building and landscape."
History
Bothwell traces its formal founding to 1822, when several families of Scottish origin settled in the area that was to become the town. It was named after Bothwell in Lanarkshire, Scotland.
It was laid out in 1824 by surveyor Thomas Scott, with a more detailed plan designed in 1837 allocating space for a market place, school, police, magistrate and parsonage. The town extended as far east as the blocks on the east side of Kent Street and north to Alexander Street. A further plan was drawn up in 1900, the town had by then extended further east to William Street and north to Elizabeth Street and the market place now named as Queen's Square. The school was granted a larger site in this plan, between Mary and Michael Streets, where it is located currently.
The heritage registered hotel at the corner of William and Patrick Streets, currently called The Castle Hotel, dates from 1829 and is the second oldest continuously licensed hotel in Tasmania.
St Luke's Presbyterian, now Uniting, Church opened in 1831. It faces east and is prominently located on Market Place adjacent to Queen's Square, at the end of Alexander Street. It was used by both Anglicans and Presbyterians until the Anglican church, St Michael and All Angels, opened in 1889.
Bothwell Post Office opened on 1 June 1832.
At the first census of population in Tasmania, taken on the 1st of January 1842, Bothwell had a population of 947, comprising 672 males and 274 females. In 1870, Bothwell had a population of 1300, in 1881 it was 1049 and in 1891 it was 1482.
For some years after 1848, Bothwell was the place of exile of the Irish nationalist leaders John Mitchel and John Martin; their lodging Mitchel's Cottage still stands on the Nant property.
Bothwell was also the site of a radio telescope, built in the 1960s, in nearby Dennistoun, by one of the pioneers of radio astronomy, Grote Reber.
Golf
The first game of golf in Tasmania, and among the earliest games of golf in Australia, was played in Bothwell. The course at the Ratho property was until recently thought to be the oldest golf course in Australia, which was thought to have been built in the mid-1850s. Jane Williams, daughter of Ratho's first owner Alexander Reid, wrote in 1890 that golf was first played in the area sometime before 1860: "...it (golf) was introduced over 30 years ago by Mr. William Wood, brother of Mr. Dennistoun Wood, of Dennistoun, and that it flourished as long as the Scottish element prevailed in the Bothwell district, when through death and other changes golf ceased to be practised in Bothwell."
Alexander Arthur Reid of Ratho, grandson of the above-mentioned Alexander Reid, wrote in 1930 that his father, Alexander Reid Jr., penned a letter written in the early 1860s stating that he was starting a golf club in Bothwell with 15 or 16 members. Arthur Alexander Reid also mentioned that he remembered the "queer-shaped old clubs."
The newly opened links at Ratho were reported in The Tasmanian Mail in August 1911: "Mr and Mrs. Reid gave a golf afternoon on the newly laid-out Ratho links, at Bothwell, on Saturday, when a handicap mixed foursomes for trophies given by the host and hostess was played... The new course is a really excellent one, the turf being naturally suitable for golf, and the grass greens are all wonderfully good. Every hole has its difficulties, and the spoiling nature of the course adds to its attractiveness. The length of the course (9 holes) is 2,551 yards.