'We've lost a lot': Marion Sargent on preserving the city's heritage

Ms Sargent is President of the Historical Society but is involved in 8 other organisations that thrum with people who are passionate about Launceston's sports, arts, culture and heritage.

It's something that's not unusual for Launceston, she said and she's aware of a few different people who devote themselves to multiple organisations in the city.

"We keep the city running, I think, keep the city ticking over."

Ms Sargent was born in 1956 on the northwest coast in Wynyard but grew up in Devonport as the second of five children.

After trying out careers as a teacher, a clerk for Telecom and a nanny in England, she eventually found her calling in librarianship.

She moved to Launceston to work at the public library where she became interested in the city's local history.

Many decades later, Ms Sargent now runs the Historical Society which organises regular history talks, and is also involved with the Tasmanian Family History Society, the Launceston History Centre, the Launceston Mechanics Institute, the QVMAG friends, the Friends of the Library, the Tamar Bicycle Users Group and the Book Council of Lutruwita Tasmania.

Some might collapse at the thought of being spread so thin, but Ms Sargent, 67, says it gives her a lot of satisfaction after being retired as a librarian.

The Historical Society mainly sees itself as organising talks but there have been times when they've had to take on some advocacy to preserve the city's heritage.

"We've lost a lot," she said.

"We've lost a lot of buildings that should never have been demolished."

She quotes one of the Historical Society's speakers who said "If history is what happened in the past, heritage is what remains of the past."

Those remains are sometimes endangered and while she's not the type to "go and wave flags", she is interested in making people aware of what is at stake.

"People do have to kick up a bit of a stink otherwise the owners will just say 'Oh well, I own it. I can do whatever I want.'"

She says one of the biggest heritage issues coming up is the future of the F&W Stewart building on Charles Street which has been sitting vacant for a year and was recently listed for sale.

Ms Sargent hopes whoever buys it recognises its history and does the heritage building justice.

In its lifetime, the building has been a butchers shop, a hardware store and in 1904 was revamped to resemble Tiffany's jewellers in New York.

Ms Sargent, who has researched the building's history and its architect, said the ground floor of the building has "absolutely beautiful" glass and paintwork.

And the upstairs is like a "time capsule" of the old fireplaces and desks where the jewellers worked.

All the tools that they used are still there too, she said.

"I mean it's just amazing."

She hopes whoever ends up buying it "doesn't put a skip out the back and chuck everything out, because there's a lot of history there."

More recently the Historical Society uncovered the remains of a 19th century jail under a suburban home in Perth.

There's a lot of potential to find other interesting things like that in Launceston, she said.

"There are so many places around Launceston or everywhere that you think, 'Oh, if only we could do a dig.' And when they do, there's never enough time to really investigate it properly, because you've only got a few days and then it's got to be covered.

And one possible location that the society has its sights on is City Park, once the site of Government House which was built around 1806.

"We'd love to dig up city park [and] find the Government House," she said.

"We know exactly where it is because John Dent (the Society's Archeology Group convenor) has found it."

"There's so much fascinating stuff just under the surface and it'd be just so wonderful if we could discover more things like that."