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A White Gloves Event for the Maps Collection

Enthralled visitors to the Australia in Maps White Gloves Evening
Photo: Greg Power

Richardson & Wrench
Freshwater Beach Estate, Manly 1908
coloured map; 81.2 x 52.5 cm
Maps Collection; nla.map-lfsp1428

Mr Stuart Mackenzie speaking about real estate auction plans of early Sydney
Photo: Greg Power

On Friday 4 April the Friends of the National Library hosted a ‘Maps White Gloves’ evening, which was attended by over 110 visitors and invited guests.

The evening shone a spotlight on some rare items from the Library’s Maps Collection, and the recently released National Library publication, Australia in Maps: Great Maps in Australia’s History from the National Library’s Collection.

Books written about Australian historic maps are rare, and many of the visitors would have been unaware of the range, visual appeal and historic value of the Library’s maps, represented in the book and on display. Michael Pearson, author of Great Southern Land: The Maritime Exploration of Terra Australis, introduced the book, which includes essays on 52 selected maps dating from 1493 to the present.

Then followed a viewing of some 100 or so items from the Library’s rare maps collection, across four ‘themes’. Maritime historian Mr G. Allen Mawer presented ‘Ptolemy’s Terra Incognita: The Southern Continent that Wasn’t’, featuring some of the oldest maps in the Library’s collection. His display explained the European fascination with an imaginary southland, prior to the first Dutch charting in 1606. The National Library’s Curator of Maps, Dr Martin Woods, provided a display entitled ‘The Golden Age of Dutch Mapping’, which included some of the most beautiful printed and hand-coloured items in the Library’s collections from the 17th and 18th centuries, and a newly acquired original manuscript chart of the Dutch East India Company. Assistant Curator Damian Cole addressed the newly contested territory of ‘Terra Australis’ through comparison of British and French maps of the immediate post-Cook period. Remarkably, both Matthew Flinders and his French rival Louis de Freycinet mapped the same territory, and guests were able to see the freshly charted continent through divergent views.

Possibly the most evocative inclusions in the display were some from the remarkable Ferguson Collection of over 10 000 sales plans, covering the real estate auctions of early Sydney and the subdivision of vast tracts of unspoilt bushland on the harbour and beaches surrounding the city and beyond. Mr Stuart Mackenzie curated ‘Knights of the Hammer—Real Estate Auction Plans of Early Sydney’. The display traced the pattern of urban expansion from a small colonial outpost to a booming metropolis, with beach suburbs and ‘weekenders’ extending 300km along the coast from Jervis Bay to Port Stephens. Real estate agents, proclaiming themselves ‘Knights of the Hammer’, led the foray of suburban growth. Not only did these pioneering realtors ‘subdue the wilderness’ to offer it to the housing market, they significantly shaped early notions of the Australian suburban dream—the quest for home ownership and a love of the outdoors.

The array of material was truly impressive, a beautiful selection of maps, plans, atlases and globes, and guests stayed well beyond the advertised hour of closing. The success of the evening was testament to a great interest in maps and the light they shed on many aspects of Australia’s past through a union of cartographic science and art.

Many of the Library’s rare maps are available online via the Library’s website at www.nla.gov.au/digicoll/maps.html, while Australia in Maps: Great Maps in Australia’s History from the National Library’s Collection can be purchased from the National Library Bookshop or online at http://shop.nla.gov.au.

Dr Martin Woods
Curator of Maps