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Presentation
of the Alfred Deakin Papers 1965
photograph
Pictorial Collection
(Robert Menzies far right)
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White's
administration also coincided with the end of the period of fiscal restraint
imposed by the war years and the Depression. The close working relationship
established between politicians and the Parliamentary Library would also
prove useful. As Burmester records, Robert Menzies, Prime Minister from
1949 to 1966, was very supportive of major and expensive acquisitions,
such as the Nichol Smith Collection:
When
Menzies received the submission he noted it ‘The Eighteenth Century! How
could I refuse!’ He was similarly generous with the Clifford Collection.
Clifford
Burmester’s unpublished memoirs, Manuscript Collection
Menzies
made a cryptic reference to White's powers of persuasion when opening
a Nan Kivell exhibition at the festival of Adelaide in 1962:
But
I think I ought to say a word or two to you about Mr Nan Kivell. I'd heard
about, I've seen some of his remarkable collection. I’d been told [about
it by] Mr Harold White, the Commonwealth Librarian, who has a prehensile
grip on anything that matters from the point of view of Australian history
and recordsmarvellous! A grip like a pawnbroker, do you know what
I mean?
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Harold
White receives a portrait of Henry Handel Richardson by Rupert Bunny
presented by Lady Casey
April 1969
photograph
Pictorial Collection
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Although
capable of great charm, it was White’s tenacity that led to the success
of many of the acquisition negotiations during this period. Finding the
money was, of course, a central issue for a Library in the process of
expanding its collections, yet throughout the 1950s and well into the
1960s the other problem that faced the Library was space. Without a building
to unite the collections, the Library remained dispersed around Canberra.
As Clifford Burmester has commented:
It
never ceased to amaze me that people had the faith to entrust these papers
to an institution still without a home.
Clifford
Burmester's unpublished memoirs, Manuscript Collection
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