Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery has its origins in the Mechanics Institute, later the Launceston Library, which was established 177 years ago. The very first edition of The Examiner, on March 12, 1842, carried a report on the well-attended public meeting that led to the institute’s creation. The Reverend John West, who would become the newspaper’s renowned editorial writer, explained it goals as “the promotion of science and the arts, combined with the diff