Australian Scholarly Editions Centre Projects (ASEC)

Keith Adkins [email: kadkins@southcom.com.au]

Maria Medland Wedge, writing from her home Leighland near the northern township of Perth, in Van Diemen's Land, in August 1844, remarked:

I have been reading, lately, d'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, which I have found most interesting and instructive; but here we have a sad lack of good books. I don't think we are generally a reading community.¹

Recently arrived in the colony, as governess, with Bishop Nixon and his family, Maria's marriage to Mr Wedge had separated her from companions in Hobart Town. Despite her obvious melancholy, these comments are in sympathy with those of another recent emigrant. Louisa Anne Meredith, reminiscing on life on the east-coast of Van Diemen's Land during the summer of 1842:

Sometimes, but very rarely, were we so fortunate as to obtain the loan of a new book, and great was the delight of such an acquisition, for our reading was usually limited to the old familiar volumes of our own small library, and the English newspapers, with which the kindness of our home friends supplied us.²

Louisa's story has been told elsewhere³, for Maria, sadly, childbirth was to claim her life within a year; had she lived she would soon have found encouragement in the presence of another recent emigrant, the Rev. Robert Russell, a young Presbyterian minister from Scotland, recently settled at Evandale, just a few short miles from where Maria was then living.

Russell was a product of the Scottish enlightenment, a student of the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, and particularly of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, the Scottish preacher and educator. Russell followed members of his family to the colony, acting as tutor to the children of Captain Patrick Wood of Bothwell.

During Russell's brief time at Bothwell he shared in the life of that small, predominantly Scottish, rural community, spending time with his half- brother Philip, a pastoralist and also founding treasurer of the local literary society. The Bothwell Literary Society, founded in 1834, was Australia's earliest such institution.

Russell subsequently accepted a Call to minister to the Presbyterian community at Evandale. Following the building of a church and manse, Russell set about establishing a local subscription library. The church was constructed in a style familiar to students of neo-classical architecture. The library was housed, initially, in the Police Office, as was the case at Bothwell. The Library was formally constituted in July 1847, the first borrowings were recorded in February of the following year.

Whereas surviving early records of the Bothwell Library show the activities of the management committee, the Catalogue of the Evandale library records the Donors, the Books, the Borrowers, and their Borrowings.⁴ For Evandale, the period in which the data is particularly inviting is from the inception of the Library in 1847 through to 1861, at which time the books were re-catalogued. More significantly perhaps, for some short time prior to 1861 the precision with which the records were kept seems to have been waning.

The Catalogue of the Evandale Library lists the donation of 281 books. Although there is no dating of volumes into the library, it is likely most donations were made quite early on. Russell donated 30 volumes. Of particular interest is the donation of 46 volumes by John Glover and a further 10 by his widow. Glover is known to have suffered from poor eye-sight in his latter years. He died 9th December 1849. Robert Russell was co-executor of his estate. It is likely that the donation of the Life and Works of Dr. Johnson, in 10 volumes, by Mrs Glover, came following the artist's death, and from her late husband's library. Of the 25 known donors almost all became borrowers. Glover's eldest son, John Richardson Glover, was to become a regular borrower with 376 titles between March 1848 and October 1861.

The Catalogue lists books under categories by title, each title being numbered. The categories will be familiar, namely: Encyclopaedias; Magazines, Essays and Letters; Philosophy and Metaphysics; Agriculture and Botany; Theology; History; Biography; Arts and Sciences; Travels; Fiction and Poetry; and Miscellaneous.

The Library commenced with almost 50 subscribers, retaining around 35 active borrowers throughout the period. Under the name of each Borrower is listed the number of each title borrowed and the date, mostly also the date the volume was returned. In this manner the Catalogue records the Borrowing habits of 115 individuals over almost 14 years.

In the 1850s the township of Evandale and its environs possessed perhaps 3000 souls. Today the number is much less. However, due to the particular complexion of the settlement it is hoped to identify most borrowers. This work is still in progress. It is the last 20% that are proving elusive: a group which holds special interest for it is the less conspicuous about which we often know so little.

Research is revealing a considerable variety of occupations and professions among borrowers. Apart from prominent landowners, clerics and medical practitioners, there are publicans, millers, blacksmiths, storekeepers and ex-convicts.

From the Catalogue it has been possible to identify just 5 women borrowers. Of these Mrs Bruce and Mrs Beveridge were sisters. Mrs Bruce was the borrower of just 9 titles, in a five moth period in 1858. Mrs Beveridge the borrower of 98 titles, between October 1848 and April 1853. By comparison, their brothers John and Matthew Ralston were consistent and heavy borrowers throughout the period, recording 365 and 426 titles respectively. Another family member Elizabeth Ralston with 150 borrowings between March 1848 and January 1857 being the third woman borrower.

While the Ralston family and their borrowing invite a series of questions, so do the remaining women borrowers in a seemingly male domain - Mrs Sutton and Mrs Hood. Mrs Hood was a borrower from March 1858 to November 1861 with 129 borrowings. We have record of Mrs Hood renting a house to a John Desmond, in 1860, for 40 pounds a year, also a house to one Thomas Hannay four years later. This may or may not be the same house. Elsewhere she is listed as owning the Royal Oak Hotel, in Evandale, from 1864 to 1875.⁵ By contrast, Mrs Sutton is among those that remain elusive.

There is also the problem of defining the reader rather than the borrower. Clearly library membership was a male activity. To what extent it was primarily a social function or even statement, remains unclear. Hopefully, close analysis may reveal to what extent books were intended for other family members.

The manner in which the borrowings are recorded in the Catalogue invites the type of analysis made more possible by electronic database. The Catalogue has contributed to the construction of a Database which, now complete, records 11,660 borrowings. Less than 1% of the Catalogue entries are considered doubtful due to illegibility or possible duplication.

The Database has been programmed to report on the borrowing habits of subscribers and on the borrowing of individual titles. Firstly, as regards the former, it has revealed significant variations in borrowing as to season, and between the years. The graph shows that for the 14 year period: December and January record an even pattern of borrowing; a drop in February; a fresh peak in March; April shows a drop which continues into May; while June, July, August and September show progressive rises reaching a peak in October; which falters for November; leading to a sharp drop into December.

In seeking to explain this pattern we must take into account that a rural community such as Evandale lived by the seasons and that Tasmanian winters brought shorter days and colder nights.

Seeking to explain the yearly trends requires less speculation. The borrowing of 882 volumes in 1848 is for just 10 months, with the earliest borrowing taking place in late February. The graph illustrates that 1849 experienced a healthy increase, to 1525 volumes; while 1850 reached a peak of 1767. From there we see a sharp drop to 1172 in 1851; the fall continuing into 1852 with 449 borrowings; then two flat years - 324 in 1853 and 330 in 1854; an increase to 566 in 1855 and again in 1856 with 644 borrowings; a drop to 324 for 1857; then a climb out of the trough with 754 in 1858, 974 in 1859, 972 in 1860, and, 939 in 1861.

The explanation rests partly with the colony's history and the lives of individuals. With the last convict ship's arrival on 26 May 1853 marking the end of transportation, the colony experienced labour shortages - particularly on the land - requiring landowners to make other arrangements. The problem was compounded by the discovery of gold in Victoria and the exodus of free settlers and ex-convicts from the colony. While there is little indication that the Library lost subscribers, the public record indicates that subscribers were hard pressed to run their businesses and farms in the face of economic pressure, likely taking toll on their time.

Furthermore, the borrowing records of individual subscribers - supported by contemporary newspaper reporting - confirms that with the move to representative government towards the middle of the decade, many subscribers had their minds on other matters. For example, James Cox of Clarendon borrowed 56 titles in 1849 and 43 in 1850. Between 1851 and 1855 his borrowing was only 21 in total. The demands of his estate and his election to the colony's first elected parliament in 1856 likely provide the reasons. By 1859 he was resuming old habits with 22 borrowings made. Cox was just one of a number of Evandale subscribers known to be politically active at this time.

The Database shows that in 1849 there were on average 39 books borrowed per subscriber, in 1853 the figure was 9, by 1859 it had recovered to 30.

It would be naive to suggest that these circumstances account for all the borrowing variations. The drop in 1857 is likely to be the result of disruption caused when the library moved into new premises - from the Police Office to the School, with William Hepburn Kidd, the school master, becoming the librarian. Kidd replaced John Saffery Martin, the Police Clerk who had held the post since the Library was founded and when housed in the Police Office. Martin was clearly a most competent clerical officer and administrator - his recordings in the Catalogue are a pleasure to examine. Also in 1857 a printed catalogue was first produced, partly perhaps to comply with regulations for some minor government funding. Kidd was a most able and respected educator, a man highly regarded by Russell and of Scottish background. It is likely that Kidd contributed towards the consolidation in borrowing noted late in the period. It is also likely that new titles entering the library during Kidd's incumbency stimulated the borrowing.

Of the titles most borrowed it will come as no surprise that Fiction and Poetry accounted for almost half the total borrowing with 49%; Magazines, Essays & Letters came next at 14 %; then Biography at 9%; History 8%; Voyages and Travels 6%; Encyclopaedias & Libraries also 6%; with the remaining categories accounting for the remaining 8%. It is noteworthy that Agriculture and Botany accounted for less than 1% in what was primarily a rural community.

The titles most borrowed, with three titles sharing that position, were William Hamilton Maxwell's The Bivouac; or, Stories of the Peninsular War ; Samuel Warren's Ten Thousand a Year; and Samuel Lover's Rory O More - all fiction. Of these titles Warren's Ten Thousand a Year was the result of a single donation, from a Miss Miles, of whom nothing else is known.

The likely reason that the Waverley Novels as a group take second place in the borrowing at Evandale is likely because many subscribers possessed personal copies or borrowed those of others. We know from the work of Elizabeth Webby that the Waverley Novels were especially popular purchases in the colony in 1840s, and my own research has uncovered copies once owned by subscriber families.

As a postscript, the Library survived for one hundred years with just one further change in location, in 1885. Following the second world war the library was found to be no longer in demand, with an aging book stock, missing and neglected volumes, it was closed down. Although many of the books were distributed among public institutions I have so far located only some 300 volumes. Subsequently, the State Library system provided a local service, then a Bookmobile, which was then closed due to budget restraints. As a further irony, in recent years the Evandale community has re-established a subscription library in the township, located in the community centre and conducted voluntarily, where subscribers may borrow from a mostly donated and regularly changing book stock.

NOTES

1. N.Nixon, The Pioneer Bishop in van Diemen's Land (Hobart: Walsh, 1953), p.30.

2. Louisa Anne Meredith, My Home in Tasmania, during a residence of nine years (London: John Murray, 1852), vol.1, p.168. Morris Miller suggests My Home in Tasmania 'is still one of the best authorities on Tasmanian life and society during the forties of last century.' E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature from its beginnings to 1935 (Melbourne: OUP, 1940), vol.1, p.216.

3. Vivienne Rae Ellis, Louisa Anne Meredith (Hobart: Blubber Head Press, 1979).

4. For the material upon which this study has been made possible I am particularly indebted to the Director and staff of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston.

5. Refer files Evandale History Centre.