Select List of Accessions to the Australian Manuscripts Collection, 1984

• APPLEBY, Albion Richard.
  • Diaries, 1930–1983.
  • 35cm.
  • Presented by Mr. A.R. Appleby through Mr. Trevor Forbes.
  • Restricted.
  • The keeper of this remarkable series of diaries, which span the period January, 1930-August, 1983, was an accountant who for many years was the Company Secretary of the Mid-Murray Dairy Co. Ltd, and its predecessors. The diaries record in great detail his daily work as well as his domestic and social life in Pyramid Hill, in North-Central Victoria.
• CASSADY, Elizabeth and Fredrick Miller.
  • Diaries, 1892–1911 and 1920–1940.
  • 30cm.
  • Loaned for copying by Mr. and Mrs. W. Cassady. Boughton farm, near Warrnambool, has been in the Cassady family's hands since 1846. All of the diaries kept by Elizabeth Cassady from 1892 until her death in 1911 have been copied, as have selected volumes of those kept by her son-in-law, Frederick Miller, who farmed Boughton after her. Extracts from Elizabeth Cassady's diaries appear in C.E. Sayers’ history of Warrnambool Shire, Of many things.
• CLARK, Marjorie,
  • Manuscripts.
  • 35cm.
  • Donated by Mrs. B. Pearl.
  • Marjorie Clark published two books for children under her own name, but was well known in the 1920s and 1930s for the novels she published using the pseudonym “Georgia Rivers”. These papers include the manuscripts of several unpublished works, including verse, a play and some juvenilia as well as copies of publications containing her verse and short stories.
• DUMSDAY, Harold.
  • Diaries, 1910–1941.
  • 34cm.
  • Presented and loaned for copying by Mr. A. Stargatt. Harold Dumsday was an architect, who lived in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Iris. Although his diaries say little about his professional work, they include a mass of detail about his domestic and social life and about his household's daily expenses.
• GIBBS, Norman Arthur,
  • Papers, 1948–1983.
  • 1.02m.
  • Presented by Mr. Norman Gibbs.
  • Norman Arthur Gibbs (1905–1985) was active for all of his working life in the trade union movement, working particularly in the field of occupational health and safety. His papers are chiefly to do with this subject; they include correspondence, cuttings and reports as well as minutes of the many bodies on which he served.
• KIRTLEY, John T.
  • Papers. 1947–1951.
  • 2cm.
  • Purchase.
  • These papers are mainly to do with J.T. Kirtley's printing and publishing, at his Mountainside Press, of R.D. Fitzgerald's poem “Heemskerck Shoals”(described by Geoffrey Farmer as “probably the most impressive book ever printed in Australia”). They include thirteen letters from the collector Harry Chaplin as well as letters from Fitzgerald, J.K. Moir, Geoffrey Ingleton, Max Dunn and others; some proof sheets; and photographs of Kirtley at his press.
• LAIDLAW, Victor Rupert.
  • Diaries, 1914–1916
  • 7cm.
  • Donated by Mrs. E. Barker and Mrs. D. Vardy. Private V.R. Laidlaw served in the 2nd Field Ambulance from 19 September, 1914 until he was invalided out in 1917. He died in 1983, at the age of ninety. His diary is particularly detailed for much of the year 1915, and includes an account of the landing at Gallipoli.
• LITTLE, William.
  • Scrapbooks and verse.
  • 13cm.
  • Purchase.
  • William Little was mayor of Ballarat in 1889–90 and a prominent business-man and public citizen: he also wrote and published verses and hymns under the pseudonym “Lamda”. Members of his family were active in Ballarat's cultural life. This collection includes copies of works by “Lamda”; press-cuttings; programmes; and photographs.
• MCDONALD, D.W.
  • Journals and accounts, 1861–1915.
  • 46.5cm.
  • Presented by Mrs. Dorothy Lang.
  • These records of a farmer from near Horsham include an almost unbroken sequence of farm diaries from 1882 to 1915, accounts of stock bought and sold and miscellaneous accounts and memoranda.
• MATHERS, Peter.
  • Manuscripts.
  • 34cm.
  • Purchase.
  • This material includes draft manuscripts, typescripts and galley proofs of Mathers’ two published novels, Trap (1966), which won the Miles Franklin award, and The Wort papers (1972).
• PALMER, Yvonne.
  • Papers.
  • Presented by Mrs. Y. Palmer.
  • This collection of papers, assembled by Mrs. Yvonne Palmer during work on her Track of the years; the story of St. Arnaud, is the subject of Tom Griffiths’ article “Making tracks: local history in the 1950s” in the October, 1984 La Trobe Library journal.
• POPE, Richard.
  • Diaries, 1855–1896.
  • 17cm.
  • Presented by Messrs. James Whitehead, J.R. May and J.F.H. Westley.
  • Richard Pope (1834) was a native of Cornwall. His diary begins in May, 1855, just prior to his departure for America. He returned to England in 1857 and in 1866 came with his family to Australia, where he worked
    

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    as a miner at Bendigo, Ballarat and Broken Hill. The diaries conclude with an account of a nostalgic trip to Cornwall in 1895, his temporary return to Australia and ultimate settlement in South Africa.
• PURCELL, Thomas.
  • Diaries, 1881–1903 and 1915–1920.
  • 8cm.
  • Donated by Mr. J.P. Purcell and loaned for copying by Mrs. M. Potter.
  • In August, 1882 Thomas Purcell left his family's farm at Heathcote and moved to Melbourne, where he settled at Footscray and began work with the Victorian Railways. His original diaries for periods between 1881 and 1903, together with a photocopy of his diary for 1915–20, include notes about his life and work, his involvement with his local church and local and general news.
• RALEIGH family.
  • Papers.
  • 20cm.
  • On loan from the estate of the late Richard Raleigh Webster, through Miss D. Raleigh.
  • Members of the Raleigh family came to Australia in the early 1840s. These papers are largely letters to and from family members and others from the 1820s until the 1950s; many of the earlier letters provide graphic accounts, sometimes illustrated, of life in Victoria and especially in the Mount Macedon area. Diaries, press cuttings and family records are also included.
• REED, John and Sunday.
  • Papers.
  • 3.5m.
  • Purchase.
  • Restricted.
  • In his Rebels and precursers, Richard Haese, writing of the art world of the 1940s, says of John Reed that he had “an involvement so central that it is difficult to say quite what course much of our art history might have taken without that presence”. John and Sunday Reed's home “Heide”, at Bulleen, was both an intellectual and a physical base for many artists. Their papers include correspondence to and from Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester, John Perceval, Arthur Boyd, Max Harris, Judith Wright, Barrett Reid and many others. They also include files relating to the publishing house of Reed and Harris, the Contemporary Art Society of Australia and the Museum of Modern Art of Australia; diaries, note-books and photographs; and John Reed's unpublished autobiography.
• RIGBY, E.J.
  • Diary, 4 April-15 June, 1917.
  • 2cm.
  • Purchase.
  • E.J. Rigby, a mining engineer from Melbourne, was in Russia in 1917 to advise on the development of mining and related industries. His “Diary”, in the form of typed copies of letters written to his wife, gives a vivid picture of life in Russia during the Revolution.
• ROYAL Australasian Ornithologists’ Union.
  • Papers.
  • On permanent loan from the Royal Australasian Ornithologists’ Union.
  • Several additions have been made to the R.A.O.U. Archive, including correspondence of D.L. Serventy: papers of Angus H. Robinson; lantern slides prepared by R.E. Trebilcock; papers of S.J.J.F. Davies; and correspondence of Stephen Marchant concerning the Emu and R.A.O.U. affairs in general.
• ROYAL Society of Victoria.
  • Records, 1854–1982.
  • 6.2m.
  • On long-term loan from the Royal Society of Victoria. In 1860 the Philosophical Institute of Victoria, which was established in 1854, changed its name to the Royal Society of Victoria. Its original objects included the promotion of science, literature and the arts; for many years now, however, its concerns have been predominantly scientific. The records of the Royal Society include minutes, correspondence, financial and membership records, scientific papers, library records and material to do with the publication of the Society's Proceedings. Also included are records of the Microscopical Society of Victoria, which amalgamated with the Royal Society in 1887.
• ST. PATRICK'S Roman Catholic Church, Kilmore.
  • Records, 1849–1965.
  • 44cm.
  • On long-term loan from St. Patrick's Church, Kilmore.
  • Restricted.
  • The Catholic parish of Kilmore is one of the oldest in the State, having been established before the separation of Victoria from New South Wales, though the Church of St. Patrick was not completed until 1872. The records on loan to the Library include marriage, baptism, confirmation and burial registers for broken periods from 1849 to 1959.
• SERLE, Alan Geoffrey.
  • Papers.
  • 12cm.
  • Presented by Dr. A.G. Serle.
  • These papers comprise typescript drafts (later greatly condensed for publication) of Geoffrey Serle's The golden age and The rush to be rich; and papers relating to the Australian Arts Inquiry, c. 1959–1961.
• SERLE, Percival.
  • Papers.
  • 17cm.
  • Presented by Dr. A.G. Serle and Mr. R.P. Serle.
  • These papers comprise correspondence relating to Percival Serle's Dictionary of Australian biography; general and personal correspondence with, among others, Jean Campbell, Clem Christesen, R.D. Fitzgerald, Hugh McCrae, Walter Murdoch and H.M. Green; an unpublished autobiography; and a collection of diaries and account books. They are a valuable complement to the large collection of Percival Serle's papers and his Dictionary of Australian biography files which are already held in the Library.
• SMELLIE, Ellis Henry.
  • Autobiographical tape-recordings.
  • 31 cassettes plus transcripts.
  • Presented by Mr. E. H. Smellie.
  • Ellis Henry Smellie spent his boyhood at Mallacoota and Bridgewater before beginning, in the Victorian Railways, his career as a radio operator. He later served
    

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    on Thursday Island and at many stations around Australia. Now in his nineties and blind, he has taperecorded his reminiscences and had a transcript of them prepared.
• STEWART, Elaine.
  • Diaries, 1949–1951, and correspondence, 1947–1972
  • 12.4cm
  • Presented by Mrs. E. Stewart.
  • Restricted.
  • These papers comprise three small diaries kept by the writer while she was a school-girl in Melbourne's outer suburbs and a collection of letters received from overseas pen-friends between the late 1940s and the early 1970s.
• VICTORIAN Medical Women's Society.
  • Records 1912–1980.
  • 70cm.
  • Presented by the Society through Dr. Elizabeth Turner. Established in 1895 at the University of Melbourne, the Victorian Medical Women's Society aimed to forge a closer relationship between medical women graduates and undergraduates and to promote the interests of medical women. Its records include correspondence, minutes, membership lists, subject files and miscellaneous items.
• VICTORIAN Rifle Association.
  • Records, 1873–1938.
  • 52cm.
  • Presented by the Victorian Rifle Association.
  • The Victorian Rifle Association was formed in 1860 “to give permanence to Volunteer Corps and to encourage rifle shooting in Victoria”. The records presented by the Association include three volumes of minutes, for the periods 1873–89 and 1935–55, and six press-cutting books for broken periods between 1876 and 1938.
• WALKER Press.
  • Records, 1972–1983.
  • 2.38m.
  • Presented by Mr. Jack Gilding.
  • From 1973 to 1983, much of the printing of handbills, leafets and other material for community and political groups in Melbourne was done at the Walker Press, which aimed to provide cheap, high-quality printing while encouraging people to learn about printing processes. These records, which include office files and financial material, are complemented by a complete collection of the Press's output in the Library's Riley Collection.
• WHITTLE, Robert.
  • Reminiscences.
  • 3cm.
  • Purchase.
  • These reminscences describe the life of an English-born American who, in his early twenties, came to Australia in 1857. Having worked as a store-keeper on various Victorian goldfields, he left for Ceylon, returning to Melbourne in 1865. In 1866 Whittle settled in New Zealand, but ultimately returned to the U.S.A. An extract from these reminiscences appeared in the La Trobe Library journal, no. 34