Select List of Accessions to the Australian Manuscripts Collection, 1985

• ANGLICAN Diocese of Melbourne Social Questions Committee
  • Papers.
  • 90cm.
  • Presented by the Social Questions Committee of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne through Mr. John Ball, Projects Officer.
  • Part restricted.
  • In 1983 the Victorian Government conducted an enquiry into the desirability of allowing poker machines in Victoria. The Social Questions Committee of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne was one of the many bodies actively involved in the enquiry. This material includes submissions made by the churches, both jointly and individually, transcripts of proceedings, submissions from other groups and newspaper cuttings.
• CHILDREN'S Welfare Association of Victoria
  • Records.
  • Presented by the Children's Welfare Association. To the records of its work deposited in the Library in 1977 (noted in the Journal, April 1978), the Children's Welfare Association has added some later material and some important early records, including the Executive Committee's minutes from 1936 to 1979.
• COUNCIL for Aboriginal Rights
  • Records, c.1950–1980s*
  • Restricted.
  • A series of public meetings called in Melbourne in 1951 to protest about the condition of Aborigines in the Northern Territory resulted in the estalishment of the Council for Aboriginal Rights. Its stated aim was “to plan, conduct and organise the widest possible support for a campaign to obtain justice for all Australian Aborigines… .” Although based in Victoria, its concerns and activities have been Australia-wide. These records include correspondence, reports, newsletters and other papers of the C.A.R. and related bodies.
• COUNCIL for Christian Education in Schools
  • Records.
  • 4.64m.
  • Presented by the Council for Christian Education in Schools.
  • In 1920, representatives of several of the major Christian denominations in Melbourne (Church of England, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Churches of Christ and Salvation Army) formed the Joint Council for Religious Education in Day Schools. The Council, which has always worked closely with the Victorian Education Department, is still active and still has essentially the same membership (with the Lutheran Church now having observer status). Its present name dates from 1946. The records include minutes, reports, correspondence, financial records, publications and subject files.
• DEASEY, William Denison
  • Papers.*
  • c 1.2m.
  • Purchase.
  • Part restricted.
  • Denison Deasey (1920–1984) led a full, though personally unfulfilled, life. After attending Geelong Grammar School and serving in the Australian Army, he spent several years after World War II in Europe, where he came in contact with other Australian expatriates as well as literary figures such as Roy Campbell and Richard Aldington. After returning to Australia he wrote, taught and studied and, late in his life, drove taxis. Geoffrey Dutton has described him as “one of the most original and talented people I have ever met”. These papers include diaries, letters, unpublished writings, photographs and other material.
• ERSKINE House, Lorne
  • Records.
  • Presented by Erskine House through its Manager, Mr. Milton Everett.
  • One of the best-known resort guest-houses in Victoria, Erskine House at Lorne had its origins in 1868 when the Mountjoy brothers converted their homestead into a temperance hotel. Having fallen into disrepair, Erskine House was taken over by the Victorian Government in 1973 and is now managed as a conference and training centre. These records include guest ledgers, minute books and accounts, as well as records of
    

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    the Mountjoy Lorne Estate Company and related companies.
• EWING, Samuel Arthur, 1864–1941
  • Papers.
  • 37cm.
  • Presented by Mrs. M. Cutten.
  • A few years before his death, Samuel Ewing, an eminent surgeon and patron of the arts, presented his important collection of pictures to the Melbourne University Union. These papers include correspondence, catalogues and cuttings to do with the collection and the Ewing Gallery: they also include diaries which document his studies and family and business responsibilities (his father, a pharmacist, died during Ewing's adolescence), degrees, diplomas and certificates won from his studies, and family documents and memorabilia.
• FREE Religious Fellowship
  • Papers.
  • 8cm.
  • Presented by Miss Helen Manton.
  • The Reverend Frederick Sinclaire, a minister of the Unitarian Church in Melbourne, established the Free Religious Fellowship in 1912. Its activities extended from the religious to play readings and literary studies. These papers include minutes of the Fellowship's quarterly and annual meetings from 1913 until 1929, photographs of Sinclaire and others, a typewritten playscript (“Overtime”, by “Kurrajong”) and ephemeral material, mainly concerning the anti-conscription movement.
• GOOD ALL, Alexander, 1874-c.1901
  • Diaries, 1895–1897
  • 4.5cm.
  • Presented by Mrs. Joyce Milne.
  • We know little of Alexander Goodall. His family (which he called “the old firm”) lived at Mortlake (“the old dart”), where he joined the Telegraph Office as a messenger at the age of thirteen. By the time he kept these delightful diaries, he was working as a telephone operator in Geelong. As well as recording, briefly, his daily activities, his diaries are lavishly illustrated with sketches of all manner of things, from a firework display for Lord Brassey to “Another Austin Street curiosity: the spinster cat farmer”.
• HOPE family
  • Papers, 1839–1910.
  • 5 reels microfilm.
  • Presented by Mrs. Ellen and Mr. Alistair Hope. George Hope (1814–1884) arrived in Sydney in 1839; there he married Marianne Hassall, the daughter of the Reverend Thomas Hassall and grand-daughter of the Reverend Samuel Marsden. These papers include records of George Hope's property “Darriwill’ at Moorabool, near Geelong, as well as a wealth of letters, dairies and other papers of members of the Hope and Hassall families.
• LAKE Tyers Mission Station
  • Visitors’ book, 1878–1909.
  • 2cm.
  • Presented by Mr. Ian Bulmer.
  • This volume records the names of visitors to the Lake Tyers Mission in East Gippsland, and their impressions of the Station, between late 1878 and mid-1909. The visitors, who often wrote detailed remarks, included public servants, clergymen, holiday-makers and the curious; on 2nd February, 1886 the photographer Nicholas Caire visited, recording his object as “a professional tour in search of the picturesque”.
• LAMBERT, Joyce
  • Papers, 1955–1984.
  • Presented by Mrs. J. Dick.
  • Joyce Lambert, who died in 1984, was a schoolteacher and writer who had a particular interest in ships and the sea. She was married to the writer Eric Lambert (whose papers are held in the Australian Manuscripts Collection) from 1950 to 1957. Joyce Lambert's papers include manuscripts of her work (including her novel Coming, ready or not) and extensive correspondence with the bush poet Tom Terrington and with Eric Lambert's biographer, Zoe O'Leary.
• LIBRARY Week Committee
  • Records, 1958–1976.
  • 76cm.
  • Transferred from the Consultancy and Public Library Services Division of the State Library of Victoria.
  • The Library Week Committee of Victoria was formed in 1948. Its aim was “to promote and publicise libraries and library services”; its functions, though broad, centred on the sponsorship and organisation of an annual Library Week. These records, which are mainly of the period
    

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    1958–1976, document the work of the Victorian Committee and the eventual development in 1967 of the Australian Library Week Committee (now the Australian Library Promotion Council). They include reports, correspondence, publicity material and news cuttings.
• McCRAE family
  • Papers.
  • 3.75m.
  • Presented by Sir Norman and Lady Cowper.
  • The McCrae family — in particular, the diarist Georgiana McCrae (1804–1890), her son George Gordon McCrae (1833–1927) and his son Hugh McCrae (1876–1958) — has a permanent place in the history and literature of Australia. This highly important collection includes sketches, notebooks and portions of the journal of Georgiana; diaries, journals, reminiscences and correspondence of her son; and letters, scrapbooks and sketches of the poet Hugh.
• McEVEY, Alfred James
  • Papers.
  • Presented by Mr. and Mrs. A.R. McEvey.
  • Following his enlistment in the Royal Australian Air Force in April, 1940, Alfred McEvey served with the R.A.A.F. and the R.A.F. in Australia, Africa, India and the Middle East. He rose to the rank of Flying Officer. These papers include letters written to his family, and diaries kept, while on active service; scrapbooks; pay books; and flying logs.
• MOULDEN, R.E.
  • Diary and sketch-book, 1914–1916.
  • 2.5cm.
  • Presented by Lt. Col. M.P.J. O'Brien on behalf of the Fort Queenscliff Museum.
  • Following his enlistment on 17 August, 1914 (less than a week after enlistment began in the 1st A.I.F.) R.E. Moulden sailed for the Middle East with the 1st Australian Light Horse Field Ambulance. His diary records his experiences until he filled this volume (with the promise of beginning another) on 7 October, 1916. The accompanying sketch-book, which is dated 1918, contains pencil sketches of military scenes, cartoons and caricatures of public figures.
• NATIONAL Book Council
  • Records, 1974–1983.
  • 4.6m.
  • Presented by the National Book Council.
  • In 1973 several organisations and individuals who had an interest in, and concern for, books came together to form the National Book Council. The Council has established and promoted Australian Book Week and its annual literary awards, revived (in 1978) the Australian Book Review, and generally worked to promote the book. Its records include correspondence, subject files, financial and membership records and publications; and files containing biographical information, photographs, manuscripts and published works of 76 Australian poets, compiled in 1978 for a travelling exhibition.
• NURSING in Australia
  • Tape-recorded interviews.
  • 18 cassette tapes.
  • Presented by Margaret Robertson, Lois Parkhurst and Joanne Wilson.
  • Restricted.
  • “Discovery: perceptions of nursing in Australia — an oral history research project”was undertaken by the three donors as part of their third-year sociology course at Monash University in 1984. These tape-recorded reminiscences of the retired nurses they interviewed are an important contribution to the history of nursing in Australia.
• PEARCE, Harry Hastings
  • Autobiography.
    

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  • 1 reel microfilm.
  • Copied by courtesy of Mrs. Margaret Howell and the National Library of Australia.
  • Entitled “The Story of the Pearce and Williams families ‘on’ Creswick (and Before) from 1853 up to the Present, (whenever that may be.) Collected and written up by Harry Hastings Pearce, Son of Herbert Hastings Pearce and Harriet Ann Williams, Commenced on my birthday (69) 27th August, 1966”, this volume (the original of which is in the National Library of Australia) presents a vast array of family history, reminiscence and literary and political history. The last entry in the book was written on 1 June, 1984, only a few months before Harry Pearce's death.
• PRINCESS Theatre, Melbourne
  • Letter-book, 1904.
  • 4cm.
  • Purchase.
  • This letter-book, for the period 13 January-9 December, 1904, gives an excellent picture of the minutiae of a theatre manager's work — negotations with taxation, health and building authorities, the soothing of temperamental performers and disappointed aspirants; dealings with other managers in Australia and overseas; and regular reports to his London agents.
• ROYAL Australasian Ornithologists’ Union
  • Records and Papers.
  • 1.9m.
  • On permanent loan from the Royal Australasian Ornithologists’ Union.
  • The R.A.O.U. had added both to its own “official” archives and to its archival collection in 1985. The former additions include correspondence files, memberhsip records and 23 pictorial items (which were formerly on loan to the Museum of Victoria); the latter include slides and index cards (A.J. Campbell Collection), correspondence with W.B. Alexander (Dr. D.L. Serventy Collection) and files documenting Dr. H.N.B. Wettenhall's work with the Union.
• SOLDIERS’ Advice Bureau
  • Records, 1915–1917.
  • 4cm.
  • Presented by Mr. Howard M. Brown.
  • In July, 1915 the Melbourne Division of the Voluntary Workers’ Organisation (an affiliate of the Red Cross) established two Soldiers’ Advice Bureaux in Melbourne to assist soldiers in settling their affairs before going to the front. These records, which are of the Town Hall Bureau, include a daily log of its work (largely the preparation of wills) from its inception until it closed in August, 1917 together with related correspondence and cuttings. In its two years the Bureau handled over 1900 cases.
• VICTORIAN Amateur Swimming Association
  • Records.*
  • Presented by the Victorian Amateur Swimming Association through Mr. Peter Foard.
  • The Victorian Amateur Swimming Association was formed in 1893. The records so far received (to which additions are being made) mainly comprise records of competitions and competitors at club, state and national levels from the 1940s until the early 1980s. They also include some correspondence and annual reports.
• VICTORIAN Association of Youth Clubs
  • Records, c.1956–1983.
  • Presented by the Victorian Association of Youth Clubs.
  • The Victorian Association of Youth Clubs was formally established in 1952, though its origins were in the Boys’ Club Movement which began in Victoria in 1938. These records, which are mainly from the 1960s and 1970s, include files on individual clubs (both defunct and still active), minutes, correspondence, financial records, subject files, records of the Association's training centre at Kinglake, and records of other bodies such as the Youth Workers’ Association and the Youth Council of Victoria.
• VICTORIAN Speed Boat Club
  • Minute book, 1948–1951.
  • 1.5cm.
  • On loan from the Victorian Speed Boat Club (Inc.)
  • On 8 September, 1948, eighteen men met at the Memorial Hall in Sandringham “to discuss the possibilities of forming a ‘Speed Boat Club’ to conduct race meetings on Port Phillip Bay:. This first minute book records the establishment of the Club and its progress until January, 1951.