Newsletter No. 10 - Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage ...

The front page piece by LindsayPaish in this edition of HERITAGElike so many historical andheritage based stories is in partwritten as a result of research inSydney’s magnificent MitchellLibrary which earlier this yearcelebrated its centenary.On following pages, John Lowalso writes about a Blue Mountainsconnection among the OneHundred treasures on display atthe Mitchell.It is all but impossible to write orread about Australia, the Pacificand the Antarctic without incurringdebts of gratitude to the Mitchell.Libraries are the most personalpublic institutions. History neverforgives those who destroy themand it remembers those who arebook donors such as David ScottMitchell.The State Library of New SouthWales traces its origins to 1826,with the opening of the AustralianSubscription Library. In 1869, theNew South Wales Governmenttook over responsibility for theLibrary and created the SydneyFree Public Library. In 1895 it wasrenamed the Public Library of NewSouth Wales, and in 1975 itbecame the State Library of NewSouth Wales.The Australian SubscriptionLibrary soon outgrew its premises,and a new wing was built in themid-1880s. By the turn of thecentury this too was outgrown, andplans were prepared for acompletely new ‘national’ librarybuilding.PinchgutPinchgut Island (now Fort Denison)once boasted Sydney’s finest weightloss cure – if you could stomach aweek’s solitary confinement.As early as 1788, convicts were putonto Pinchgut for petty crimes such asstealing food. Back then, the placeFrom the president’s pen......The magnificent MitchellLibrary a researcher’s dreamThe stimulus for this was DavidScott Mitchell’s offer of his immenseand unrivalled collection ofAustraliana to the people of NewSouth Wales. One condition of hisoffer was that a new building beerected to house the collection as aseparate library.Mitchell, book collector and nationalbenefactor, became one of the firstundergraduates of the University ofSydney (BA, 1856; MA 1859). InDecember 1858 he was admitted tothe Bar but never practised thoughhe is said to have later declinedappointment as attorney-general.Mitchell had been reared in acultivated household; never robust,he preferred books and intellectualinterests to business or politics.By 1866 he had won some reputefor scholarship in English literatureand for the next 20 years hecollected mainly English literaryworks, including many fine editionswhich in 1900 exceeded 10,000volumes.From about 1886, he turned almostsolely to the record of Australia andits surrounding region.Book-collecting, which had been anintellectual pastime in youth and ascholarly vocation in maturity,became his all-absorbing purpose.Perhaps it could be said, Mitchellwas favoured: he had wealth,leisure and position, with usefulsocial connections yet was freefrom outside distractions.His scholarly knowledge of books,coupled with education, experiencewas little more than a desolate rockyoutcrop in Sydney Harbour.The history of the name Pinchgut is alittle hazy. It was named Pinchgut byGovernor John Hunter, It is both an oldnautical term for the point where astream channel narrows and a word forbeing hungry.and a talent for book-collecting,approached genius.After 1895 he was aided andencouraged by HCL Anderson,the principal librarian, who hadseen Mitchell as the chief rival ofthe Public Library of New SouthWales and set out to combineforces.Apart from Mitchell, the library hadthe best Australasian collectionand had demonstrated a capacityand will to develop it. Mitchell wasaging and in poor health, with norelations of like interests to hisown.In 1898 he offered to bequeath hiscollection to the library trustees.The offer was immediatelyaccepted and eventually hisconditions were met: the trusteeswere incorporated in 1899 and theMitchell wing of the new librarybuilding was begun in 1906.Mitchell died in 1907 andbequeathed to the library trusteeshis entire collection with anendowment of £70,000. Despitehis fine memory and erudition hewrote nothing and left as his onemain memorial the Mitchell Library.When opened in March 1910 ithad some 60,000 volumes andmuch other material. It remainsunrivalled in its field and is one ofthe great national collections inthe world.John Leary, OAMPresident, Blue MountainsAssociation of Cultural HeritageOrganisations Inc.HERITAGE 2July- August 2010