'A Blood-Stained Corpse in the Butler's Pantry'
The Queensland Bush Book Club
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1375/qr.18.1.1Keywords:
Queensland Bush Book Club, Ralph Munn and Ernest Pitt, 1934, Australian Libraries: A Survey of Conditions and Suggestions for Their ImprovementAbstract
The Queensland Bush Book Club was already twelve years old when Ralph Munn and Ernest Pitt conducted their famous survey of Australian libraries in 1934. The questionnaires they sent out in advance of their travels were often returned with a personal plea to the Carnegie Corporation for funding. Other letters tucked into the survey forms might describe the local library’s sorry condition, express the town’s interest in a free public library or extend an invitation to Munn and Pitt to visit.
References
OM78-47, Queensland Bush Book Club Records, John Oxley Library (JOL), State Library of Queensland, Brisbane, Annual Report (AR) 1928.
JOL, AR 1927.
JOL, AR 1934.
JOL, AR 1939.
JOL, AR 1926.
JOL, AR 1934.
In 1934, Ralph Munn was invited by the Australian Council for Educational Research and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to conduct a survey of Australian libraries and report on their state and condition. He travelled throughout Australia with Ernest Pitt, Chief Librarian at the State Library of Victoria, from June through August 1934. They authored a report entitled Australian Libraries: A Survey of Conditions and Suggestions for Their Improvement (Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research, 1935).
State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, MS 9596, Box 1, Folder 17, Bush Book Club of Queensland.
JOL, AR 1933.
JOL, AR 1930.
JOL, AR 1930.
Schools of Arts, like Mechanics’ Institutes, Literary Institutes and Athenaeums, played an important part in the life of Australian communities. Among their roles was the provision of libraries and reading rooms. They also provided lectures and adult education. The libraries were open to members who paid an annual subscription, which allowed them to borrow books. The collections in most Schools of Arts were primarily fiction. The ‘librarian’ in charge often doubled as custodian, secretary and billiard marker. Many Schools of Arts had an adjoining games room, which generated income to keep the library afloat.
JOL, AR 1932.
JOL, AR 1933.
JOL, AR 1935.
JOL, AR 1936.
JOL, AR 1948.
JOL, AR 1939.
The club continued to operate out of the T&G Building until 1942. It was ejected from this location without much warning, possibly because the space had been requisitioned for war-related work. One writer in the 1943 Annual Report refers to a ‘frenzied search’ for new headquarters. Club headquarters ended up back at Victory Chambers, where it remained until 1964.
JOL, AR 1929.
JOL, AR 1936.
JOL, AR 1951.
JOL, AR 1946.
JOL, AR 1956.
JOL, AR 1954.
JOL, AR 1956.
JOL, AR 1936.
JOL, AR 1928.
JOL, AR 1924.
JOL, AR 1928.
JOL, AR 1952.
JOL, AR 1952.
JOL, AR 1954.
JOL, AR 1924.
JOL, AR 1924.
JOL, AR 1935.
JOL, AR 1926.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics, Yearbook Australia 23 (Canberra: ABS, 1930), p. 319 quotes data from the Census of 1921, From 1871 to 1921, the proportion per 10,000 of the population of Australia able to ‘read and write’ advanced from a little over 6000 to nearly 8500, while that of those able to ‘read only’ fell from about 1100 to under 30. Yearbook Australia 37 (Canberra: ABS, 1946–47), pp. 226–7 explains that ‘ The Census and Statistics Act 1905–1938 specified Education as a subject for inquiry at a Census, but does not indicate the nature or range of the information to be furnished. The Census and Statistics Act 1946… provided for the omission of read and write, but under the system of compulsory education the number of persons in Australia who reach maturity without being able to read and write is very small, and this question was omitted at the 1933 Census.’ Australians, Historical Statistics (Sydney: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon, 1987), p. 339 has a bar graph comparing Census data from 1861 and 1921 on children aged five to fourteen. In 1921, about one in 10,000 Australian children were unable to read. These figures do not include Indigenous people, who were not counted until 1971.
JOL, AR 1947.
JOL, AR 1930.
JOL, AR 1953.
John Arnold, ‘Reference and Non-Fiction Publishing’, in A History of the Book in Australia, 1891–1945: A National Culture in a Colonised Market, eds Martyn Lyons and John Arnold (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2001), pp. 282–97.
JOL, AR 1951.
Denis Cryle and Betty Cosgrove, ‘Rural Reading or Reading Rural: Everyday Print Culture in Post-War Queensland’, Queensland Review 8 (2001): 55–64 at 60.
JOL, AR 1953.
JOL, AR 1924.
Deana Heath, ‘Literary Censorship, Imperialism and the White Australia Policy’, in A History of the Book in Australia, 1891–1945, pp. 69–82.
Heath, ‘Literary Censorship’, p. 82.
JOL, AR 1939.
JOL, AR 1939.
JOL, AR 1950.
JOL, AR 1939.
JOL, AR 1930. ‘Curle’ probably refers to British writer Richard Curle (1883–1968). Primarily known for his scholarly writing on Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, Robert Browning and other authors, Curle also wrote a number of adventure tales, including Wanderings: A Book of Travel and Reminiscence (1920); Into the East: Notes on Burma and Malaya (1923); Unchanging Fez (1925); Caravansary and Conversation: Memories of Places and Persons (1937); and The Atmosphere of Place: Little Pictures from Five Continents (1945).
JOL, AR 1927.
JOL, AR 1928.
JOL, AR 1938.
JOL, AR 1941.
JOL, AR 1930.
JOL, AR 1930.
JOL, AR 1954.
JOL, AR 1952.
JOL, AR 1954.
JOL, AR 1951.
JOL, AR 1966.
JOL, AR 1926.
JOL, AR 1926.
JOL, AR 1936.
