Category: Collection Spotlight
Collection Spotlight for September: election ephemera
The Fryer Library's collections of Queensland political organisations and student activists groups are supported by a growing collection of 'ephemera', which is library-speak for written or printed material that is usually created for a short-term purpose.
Political ephemera collected by Fryer ranges from how to vote cards, posters, buttons, bumper stickers, and t-shirts, to a newly acquired Kevin Rudd tote bag. These collections are still referred to as the 'Fryer Vertical Files' (FVFs), a reference to the filing cabinets they were once stored in.
FVFs cover all levels of politics, including federal, state, local, student as well as referenda, and also represent a wide range of organisations across the political spectrum. A selection of early ephemera has been digitised and is available to view on UQ eSpace.
In particular, Fryer's tradition of collecting material from student politics and campus groups provides unique insights into the fundamental - sometimes controversial - political issues of each generation. Many files capture the reaction of young people and students to the Vietnam War, women's rights, the Springbok tour during apartheid, Aboriginal land rights, and Queensland political figures, such as Joh Bjelke Petersen.
This year, we are continuing the tradition by collecting ephemera from the recent student and federal elections. Who knows what future researchers will make of this material?
-- Amanda Winters & Elizabeth Alvey.
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Collection Spotlight for August: 150th anniversary of the arrival of South Sea Islander labourers to Queensland
Fryer Library's collections provide many opportunities to examine the Queensland sugar industry's labour issues and to catch an arresting glimpse into the lives of South Sea Islanders at home and in Australia. 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of the first arrival of South Sea Islanders in Queensland to provide low paid, indentured labour for the new state's fledgling primary industries, notably sugar and cotton. Between 1863 and 1904, some of the 62 000 men, women and children brought to Queensland from over eighty islands were persuaded, through various degrees of coercion, into undertaking the journey. A number were kidnapped ('blackbirded') by unscrupulous traders.
From its early days to the present, many aspects of the trade in South Sea Islander labour have been subject to debate. Controversy surrounded the proportion of Islanders to be legally recruited or physically forced to leave their homes to travel to Queensland. The humanitarian concerns of anti-slavery supporters were balanced against the desire of some crop growers to reap the benefits of a labour force whose wages were much cheaper than those of white labourers and who could be forced to return to their homes at the end of their contracts (up to three years). Opposing arguments published in Australia and abroad make sometimes uncomfortable reading, but reflect commonly held opinions of the day.
L-R: 'Native canoe, Kandavu, Fiji' (1) ; 'Fijian chief (Rewa) (2)' ; 'Hoeing weeds
in young cane' (3)
Background: Excerpt from 'Thynne, AJ 1901, 'Alien immigration'
Fryer Library holds the only catalogued printed copy in pamphlet form of Alien Immigration - the Truth about Queensland and coloured races - Sugar Growing in the Tropics written by Hon Andrew J Thynne, solicitor, member of the Queensland Legislative Council, and later University of Queensland Chancellor. Thynne strenuously opposed Edmund Barton's proposal to curtail the Pacific Islander labour trade (the 'Maitland manifesto') in the same article of the same name, published over February 1 and 2, 1901 in the Brisbane Courier. His defence of Queensland's position towards South Sea Islanders included the views:
- that 'Queensland has certainly done her best to guard the rights of the simple child of nature who comes to her shores' through its 'stringent and strictly enforced' state laws,
- that the Pacific Islander presented a 'less obnoxious' alternative to British-Indian 'coolies' ('Which of these two classes of coloured labour do the people of Australia, and especially of Queensland, dislike most?'),
- that 'Queensland has for many years given the closest attention to the question of preserving "Australia for the white man".'
L-R: 'Tongan girls' (4); 'Samoan
princess' (5) ; 'Kanaka women working in sugar cane'
(6)
Background: Excerpt from Molesworth, BH 1917, 'The history of kanaka labour in
Queensland'.
Some writers of the period professed an intention to present a balanced view of the labour question, including University of Queensland student Bevil Hugh Molesworth, who later achieved success as an educationalist and radio broadcaster. In his 1917 MA (Honours) thesis, 'The History of Kanaka Labour in Queensland', held in Fryer Library's collection, Molesworth lamented:
A subject, torn as this has been by opposing parties in two hemispheres, inevitably suffers the misrepresentation of its every feature, each party naturally exaggerating those facts which tend to support its own ideas and suppressing the others.
The Pacific Island Labourers Act was passed by the first elected Commonwealth Government in December 1901 as part of the White Australia Policy. It allowed for the mass deportation of most South Sea Islander labourers from Queensland and northern New South Wales after 1906 and the restriction of entry to Pacific Islanders after 1904. The only exemptions allowed were for Pacific Islanders brought to Queensland before 1 September 1879, ships crews, or those granted Certificates of Exemption under the Immigration Restriction Act. Of the relatively few Pacific Islander labourers allowed to remain, many endured continuing prejudice and ill-treatment.
In 1994 the Commonwealth Government formally recognised Australian South Sea Islanders as a distinct cultural group, followed by the Queensland Government in 2000.
Fryer Library acknowledges the great contribution of South Sea Islanders to Queensland over 150 years.
-- Robyn Clare
Images sources
1.Henry King, 'Native canoe, Kandavu, Fiji'
(Photograph) Item 998, Album H6,
Hayes Collection, UQFL2, Fryer Library University of Queensland
Library.
2. 'Fijian chief', (Photograph) 1880s, Item 168,
Album H5, Hayes
collection, UQFL2, Fryer Library, University of Queensland Library .
3. 'Hoeing weeds in young cane', (Photograph)
Views of Cairns-Herberton Railways Queensland (189-)?, F3462, Fryer Library, University
of Queensland Library.
4. 'Tongan girls' (Photograph) Item 186, Album
H5, Hayes collection,
UQFL2, Fryer Library, University of Queensland Library.
5. Henry King, 'Samoan princess' (Photograph) Item
984, Album H6, Hayes
collection, UQFL2, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.
6.'Kanaka women working in sugar cane',
(Photograph), Views of Cairns-Herberton Railways Queensland (189-)?, F3462, Fryer Library, University
of Queensland Library.
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Collection Spotlight for July: Six Alice things before breakfast
In which the Fryer library unearths five versions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and transcribes a holograph of a note about a piano.
This weekend Oxford will transform into Wonderland, to commemorate the afternoon of July 4 in 1862, when Charles Lutwidge Dodgson first told a story of Alice's adventures under ground to the three Liddell sisters.
In 1865, it was published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, with illustrations by John Tenniel. Countless versions have followed: from facsimiles of the Underground manuscript (now available online from the British Library) to film adaptations and iPad editions.
So this July, we enter the rabbit warren of Fryer collections to discover some of Alice's Adventures in the antipathies, err, the antipodes…
1. Alice in the Hayes Collection
I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please Ma'am is this New Zealand? Or Australia?1
There are at least two copies of Alice that arrived at Fryer from the Hayes collection. Both copies date from the 1890s and attest to the universal popularity of the title during this period. The first, simply entitled Alice in Wonderland is a mass produced edition by The Children's Press (London) with contemporary, comical illustrations by New Zealander Harry Rountree. It is charmingly inscribed with the owner's name and her town, 'Oakey'.
It is easy to mistake the
text of the second example as Looking-glass language, but it is in fact a
textbook copy of Alice, complete with Tenniel illustrations, in intermediate
shorthand. (For a similar example, see the SS&H copy of Alicia in terra
mirabili).
2. In The George Sampson Collection (UQFL50, box 1, items 6a and 6b)
Before George Sampson, fellow of the Royal College of Organists, immigrated to Brisbane to become the organist and choirmaster of St John's Cathedral Brisbane, he offered to assist a certain CL Dodgson purchase a piano: Mr Dodgson specifies 'a really good "cottage" Broadwood' for his cousin Mrs Hitchcock.
A holograph of the letter from Dodgson (and of a letter authenticating the original letter) remains in Fryer's collection of Sampson's correspondence.
'I'VE been to a day-school, too,' said Alice; 'you needn't be so proud as all that.'
'With extras?' asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.
'Yes,' said Alice, 'we learned French and music.'
'And washing?' said the Mock Turtle.
'Certainly not!' said Alice indignantly2.
3. In one dear land
The artist and historian George Collingridge is believed to be one of the first Australian artists to adapt Alice.
Alice in one dear land follows Alice through the rabbit hole to Alice Springs, where she meets Australian counterparts to Wonderland characters, such as native bear, bower bird, lyre bird, and emu. Similarly, the text attempts to echo the nonsense and word play of the original; albeit with a distinctly Australian flavour (Alice will eat anything the native bear will choose, the native bear chews gum leaves). However, the most successful element is Collingridge's distinctive woodcuts as illustrations, which portray Alice in bush landscapes.
Fryer's edition is a handmade book with tipped in plates (including colour illustrations) believed to have been privately published in 1922.
4. Alitji in Dreamland
It is calculated that the Pitjantjatjara language version Alitjinya Ngura Tjukurmankuntjala is the forty-fourth translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In Alitji in Dreamland the story unfolds in parallel text, English and Pitjantjatjara. A tired Alitji, sitting in the creek bed playing a story telling game with her sister, suddenly sees a white kangaroo…
Fryer holds two editions of this text: the first edition produced by the University of Adelaide (1975) and a second edition with colour illustrations by Donna Leslie (1992).
5. In a Wonderland, created by Charles Blackman
"The white rabbit came into the kitchen and helped me cook the dinners"
-Charles Blackman3
Another Alice, in the Fryer collection, was published in 1982 accompanied by the illustrations of Charles Blackman. An important Australian artist and member of the Antipodeans group, he is most famous for his School days and Alice in Wonderland series. The fiftieth anniversary of the Alice paintings was celebrated by the NGV in 2006.
The catalogue from this exhibition is also held by Fryer; it describes how the paintings drew inspiration not only from the Carroll's text, but from Blackman's personal experience.
6. In looking-glass country
Now often combined with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there was equally as popular when published in 1871; still being reprinted in 1877 by Macmillan. This "forty-fourth thousand" printing is the last to include the incorrect chess diagram, which Dodgson discovered and pressed his publisher to correct by reinstating the missing kings. (The incident is documented in Lewis Carroll and the house of Macmillan4.)
The edition contains fifty classic Tenniel illustrations and of course, Alice's memorable encounter with the White Queen, where she is encouraged to believe impossible things:
'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast'5.
Interested in Alice?
• The annotated
Alice
• The Alice behind
wonderland
• The diaries and
letters of Lewis Carroll
• The place of Lewis Carroll
in children's literature
• The Illustrators of Alice
in Wonderland and Through the looking glass
• Alternative Alices:
visions and revisions of Lewis Carroll's Alice books
References
1. Alice in Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland (1865).
2. Alice in Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland (1865).
3. Charles Blackman quoted in the 'Introduction'
to his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Nadine Amadio (1982) Reed,
Wellington, p.7.
4. Cohen MN & Gandolfo A , eds, (1987)
Lewis Carroll and the House of Macmillan, Cambridge, pp. 147-8.
5. The White Queen in Through the
Looking-Glass and what Alice found there (1871).
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Collection Spotlight for June: The Bruce Dawe Papers
June is the final month for entries in The Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize 2013, administered by the University of Southern Queensland. So for our June collection spotlight, biographer Stephany Steggall explores Fryer's Bruce Dawe papers...
I began my biography of Bruce Dawe (Bruce Dawe: Life Cycle 2009) with a poem, 'Kid Stuff'. This poem is classic Dawe: direct, challenging, and personal. The original typescript - '2 leaves with handwritten emendations and 2 leaves handwritten' - is kept in Fryer Library's large and well-ordered Collection of Dawe's Papers: UQFL111, Series B: Literary Manuscripts. The series comprises almost 600 typescript and handwritten poems, published and unpublished.
Dawe would have written most of these sitting at the dining room table or somewhere equally casual. He disliked the oppression of an office, imagining that the walls were saying, 'OK, now you're here, let's have it!' Once he scribbled a few lines on the white tablecloth of a Melbourne restaurant, much to the manager's indignation!
Most of us associate Dawe with the protest poem or the statement about a social justice issue. The Fryer Library has many of the originals, like 'The Wholly Innocent'. I have always been disappointed that somewhere along the way a draft of the well-known 'Drifters' did not make it to the library. Dawe can't remember now where or why he wrote that poem. I have not seen a draft of 'Life-Cycle' either, the title poem for my book; however, a companion piece, 'Old Full-Backs' is in the Fryer Collection.
Despite his rugged exterior and his assertion that he didn't write 'hearts and flowers stuff', Dawe has written deeply felt 'love' poems. Who could read 'For Eileen' (1 leaf typescript), 'To Katrina' (1 leaf handwritten, some corrections,) or 'All that you ever did was love me' (1 leaf handwritten, in section of Untitled Poems) without entering into the pain of the writer? Reading them in a handwritten draft is particularly poignant.
Image: Bruce Dawe by Sven Roehrs, Fryer Library, University of Queensland Library. By kind permission of the artist.
Naturally we connect poetry with the name of Dawe, but the Fryer Collection includes much more, like his literary and personal correspondence. For many researchers the words of John Henry Newman hold true: 'A man's life lies in his letters. They are the most accurate form of biography.' I can't claim to have read many particularly revealing letters in the Fryer Collection, although letters are generally a good guide to dates, names and events. Dawe's more confidential correspondence was with Philip Martin, kept at the Australian Defence Force Academy Library, Canberra. In all of my biographical research I am amazed at just how personal some of the letters are and wonder at the sender or recipient putting them in a library. Sometimes there are restrictions placed on these files.
If you have a chance to read just one Dawe item in the Fryer Collection, I recommend his signature poem, 'Sometimes Gladness'. You will find it in UQFL111, Appendix 5 of the Poetry in Series B, Literary Manuscripts:
'…Down the aisle / come all my years, none altogether miserable, none / without the saving grace of some mistake that bent me / in the sly shape I recognise…'
***
Stephany Steggall is a University of Queensland graduate and the current recipient of the The Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship. Her published works include: Can I call you Colin? : the authorised biography of Colin Thiele (2004); The loved and the lost : the life of Ivan Southall (2006) and Bruce Dawe : life cycle (2009). Copies of the latter are available by contacting the author.
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Collection Spotlight for May: The Bell Family Papers
For this month's Collection Spotlight, guest writer, Sue Bell, shares her experiences of researching her great-grandmother's letters in the Fryer Library's collection.
Records of women's lives in the 19th century are very sparse in comparison with those of men or at least 'important' men. Women were usually invisible with few or no signs that they had lived and even wives of 'important' men were only recorded when they were attending social occasions or accompanying their husbands to events.
So to have a collection of my great-grandmother's letters from the 1890s in the Bell Family Collection, Fryer Library has always seemed significant. The majority of letters cover a period of five years commencing at the beginning of 1892 and finishing at the end of 1896 (a few letters cover the years after this). They were written as Queensland's economic fortunes deteriorated during Australia's severe economic depression in the 1890s.
These letters are in the Bell Family Papers, which my father, Francis Bell, donated to the Fryer Library in the 1980s. Late last year the papers of my father's sister Lyn Young (nee Bell) were also donated to this collection by her sons Don and Tony Young.
My great-grandmother was Margaret Bell, the wife of Sir Joshua Bell whose family owned Jimbour Station on the Darling Downs for about fifty years. The letters were written about ten years after Joshua's death, to her third son, Colin, who was working on Ayrshire Downs a property near Winton in western Queensland. The only mode of communication at that time was through letters and the occasional telegram, as Jimbour had a local post office which had telegraphic communication with Dalby. So there was no immediate communication, unlike now, which could reassure a mother that her son was well.
Ayrshire Downs in the 1890s, The Bell Family Papers, UQFL79, box 4, photograph 10.
The letters are difficult to decipher and many of the pages were misplaced, so the first job was to transcribe and sort them. While doing this, I have become increasingly interested in some of the events and personalities which are mentioned in the letters, so I have commenced researching newspapers and texts of the time to find out more about the people she writes about and to provide more context for the letters.
Margaret was a woman in her early to mid fifties at the time the letters were written. She had adult children and the letters reveal something of the relationship she had with all of them and, typical of all mothers, each of them worried her in different ways. The letters provide an insight into the family's deteriorating financial position and the various responses to this within her family. They also reveal something of the writer.
Margaret Bell with her five children - Colin is third from the
left
The Bell Family Papers, UQFL79, box 4, photograph 22.
She was a devout person who believed in God and this religious faith comes through in her letters. She was also a very sociable and outgoing woman who previously had a wide circle of friends but, as you read the letters, it is clear her impoverished position made it increasingly difficult to mix with people unless they were long held friends. She stayed often for months at Jimbour without seeing anyone as there was no money for her or Maida (her daughter) to have the 'change' that she often writes about. You feel that Joshua's death and other tragedies in her life must have changed her from the confident and carefree woman she had been.
She was determined to sort out her family's financial difficulties. This must have been a very difficult thing to do as a woman at that time and in this endeavour she had little support from her sons. From the letters, it is unclear whether they thought the situation was irretrievable or whether they just did not want her to 'rock the boat'. This applied particularly to her eldest son, Joey, who entered Parliament as the member for Dalby during the 1890s.
Sometimes reading these letters, I feel as if I am trespassing on her privacy as she was a very private person. She would say 'entre nous' to her son Colin, which meant that this particular piece of news or information was private and not to be repeated. And she often provided him with various pieces of motherly advice, such as considering his behaviour with women, never touching 'stimulants' (alcohol) and not allowing himself to take on rough bush ways!
Margaret's last contact with her son Colin, Christmas
1913
The Bell Family Papers, UQFL79, box 1.
I have really enjoyed getting to know my great-grandmother, albeit in a small way, through reading and transcribing these letters. I know more about her story now and I realise, even more than I did, how her life changed during her lifetime from one of comfort and privilege to one of insecurity and loneliness. However, considering her situation, she remained stoical and only shared her emotions on rare occasions with her son.
-- Sue Bell
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Collection Spotlight for April: Illuminated leaf from a book of hours, ca. 1450
In March this year, the Fryer Library acquired an illuminated page from a book of hours, expanding our collection of rare and special items to support teaching and learning at UQ.
The page provides an excellent example of some key features of medieval manuscripts. Both verso and recto contain fourteen lines of Latin text, with initials rubricated in red and blue and heightened in gold. Each side also has a decorative and colourful floral border.
The page would have originally been part of a book of hours, a devotional Christian text usually used in a private context. A central part of these texts is the eight hourly prayers to the Virgin Mary. The structure of these prayers is based upon the Divine Office, which was celebrated by clergy and members of the religious orders at the canonical hours (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Compline).
During the thirteenth century, books of hours were highly popular with both men and women of the lay elite. By this period, the books usually contained a range of devotional material in addition to the hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary, such as psalms, Litany of the Saints, the Office of the Dead, Hours of the Holy Spirit and Hours of the Cross. This page displays part of the Hours of the Holy Cross, with hymns for Sext, Nones, and Vespers.
Dating from circa 1450, it was produced when books of hours were still popular and increasingly in demand by a prosperous middle class, as both a religious and status item. While some vernacular examples are extant, the dominant language of books of hours continued to be Latin. The modest size (185 x 138 mm) of Fryer's example is also typical, as it is practical for personal devotion.
To view the manuscript or to consult any of the Fryer's research collections, simply contact fryer@library.uq.edu.au or visit the Fryer reading room on the fourth floor of the Duhig Tower (building 2), St Lucia Campus.
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Collection Spotlight for March: St Patrick’s Day Bash, Brisbane, 1948
Amongst Fryer's manuscript collections is a folder of papers relating to the 1948 St Patrick's Day clash in Brisbane. The papers form part of the collection of Connie Healy, whose husband, Mick Healy, was secretary of the Trades & Labor Council of Queensland at the time. Mick Healy was the leader of the protest march that was met with such violence by the Queensland police.
On the morning of 17 March , a group of about 200 trade unionists began a street march from the Trades Hall building down Edward Street towards the centre of Brisbane.
They were protesting the Industrial Law Amendment Act introduced by Queensland's Labor government a week before. Reacting to the strike by railway workers which had commenced in early February, the Hanlon government invoked State of Emergency legislation on 27 February. It now sought even greater powers to combat what it labelled civil unrest by militant communist-led unions. This additional legislation prevented picketing, marching and demonstrations, and extended police powers to the arrest without warrant of strikers and those who encouraged their activities.
The unionists were met by more than 200 baton-wielding policemen. The onslaught led to multiple injuries and arrests, with a number of marchers being taken to hospital. One of the injured was Fred Paterson, MLA for Bowen, barrister, and the only Communist parliamentarian ever in the history of the British Commonwealth. Paterson had been observing the march and taking notes when he was felled with a blow from behind by Detective Sergeant Jack Mahoney. He was later taken to Royal Brisbane Hospital for treatment for concussion and a suspected fractured skull.
Fred Paterson standing behind lawyer Max Julius taking notes.
Greg Tippert being arrested, having had his nose broken by police
In the following days there was mass protest over the incident with more than 10 000 union sympathisers gathering in King George Square.
In June the government announced the repeal of the act which had brought the demonstrators to the streets. But the anti-communist paranoia which manifested itself in this brutal police action on Edward Street, Brisbane, on the morning of St Patrick's Day 1948 continued to be mobilised over the subsequent decades.
More about the 'St Patrick's Day Bash' can be found in Found in Fryer: stories from the Fryer Library collection.
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Treasure of the Month: 'The universal conchologist'
In the seventeenth century, many members of the upper classes collected objects for 'cabinets of curiosities', amusing their guests with rare and unusual specimens of natural history. Shells were one of the most popular objects among collectors, and in the eighteenth century, as major voyages of discovery made available new and previously unrecorded species, these shells came to be studied in a more scientific way. One of the most beautiful products of this new scientific enthusiasm was Thomas Martyn's The universal conchologist (1789), a high quality publication intended for an elite and wealthy audience.
Martyn was present at the return of Cook's third voyage and bought two-thirds of the shells available for purchase for the large sum of 400 guineas. Rather than simply selling them on to wealthy collectors, however, he intended to produce an illustrated catalogue of all the shells of the world 'with a new systematic arrangement by the author'. Martyn's first difficulty was in finding artists experienced enough to make the detailed hand-coloured illustrations his book required. Despairing of obtaining enough artists with the proper skills, Martyn established at 10 Great Marlborough Street, Westminster, an 'Academy for Illustrating and Painting Natural History' where he trained ten young boys to produce the drawings he required.
Such was Martyn's fanatical perfectionism that when seventy copies of the first two volumes of the work were ready, each containing forty plates, he declared them to be of poor quality and started again. Complete four-volume sets of The universal conchologist containing all 160 plates are extremely rare. The work is most commonly found as two volumes bound as one, with eighty plates illustrating the shells brought back from the voyages to the South Seas. Fryer's copy takes this form.
More about Thomas Martyn and The universal conchologist can be found in Found in Fryer: stories from the Fryer Library collection.
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