Our Nation's Album: Link to home page
Birth of a Library

Birth of a Library
Bush Capital Pioneers
A Great Public Library
Our Heritage Revealed
From the Bush to Beyond
Housing the Collection

Parliament House Melbourne c. 1900

enlarge imageParliament House Melbourne c.1900
photograph
Pictorial Collection


In 1901 a Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was established to serve the newly formed Federal Parliament of Australia. In time, this Library would evolve into the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library and the National Library of Australia, but the drive to collect and document the Australian identity was there from the beginning.

Between 1901 and 1927 the Federal Parliament of Australia occupied the Victorian Parliament building in Spring Street, Melbourne. Although the Commonwealth Government had access to the Victorian Parliamentary Library, it soon became clear that provision had to be made for the time when the Commonwealth Parliament had a separate building and therefore needed a separate library.

In 1901 the two houses of Parliament selected a Library Committee to be responsible for the establishment of a Commonwealth Parliamentary Library. Arthur Wadsworth, Head Librarian of the Victorian Parliamentary Library, was appointed interim Commonwealth Parliamentary Librarian until such time as the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, and the Parliament that it served, found a permanent home.

   
next page