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NLA News - home July 2006 Volume XVI Number 10

Catching Minnows

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Red Cross Appeal brochure  September 1941
Ephemera Collection

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Invitation and tickets for various events in Kiama, New South Wales [between 1896 and1907]
Pictures Collection
 
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Richard Stone samples the rich resource of printed ephemera in the Ferguson Collection

The average Australiana collector today must be content with catching sprats rather than mackerel, minnows rather than marlin.’ Writing in 1954, Sir John Ferguson, the doyen of collectors of Australiana, was commenting on the increasing prices for Australian material in the antiquarian book trade. Ferguson had already amassed the bulk of his collection of rare Australian books, manuscripts, newspapers and maps from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, netting the big fish of Australiana.

Amongst the sprats and minnows left were ephemeral publications which Ferguson embraced in his collecting—invitations, tickets, single sheet advertisements, programs, leaflets, brochures and stickers. Ferguson valued ephemera in the context of contemporary social history and local history. It was also probably inexpensive to acquire, an important factor for Ferguson who was the archetypal Scot in his sense of monetary value.

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For Freedom. Have You Bought A War Loan Bond?
Part of World War II ephemera material
Ephemera Collection

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It is unusual for a collector of Ferguson’s stature to actively collect everyday ephemera on a significant scale parallel with acquiring great rarities, manuscripts and early imprints. While such contrasting items do not necessarily live together physically within the Ferguson Collection as it is housed today in the National Library, they have, at some stage, been part of the acquisitive mind of the same collector.

The acquisition, processing and cataloguing of the entire Ferguson Collection by the National Library was a monumental task spread over many years. The ephemera component was the last to be processed when it was integrated into the Library’s Ephemera Collection. Each item is accompanied by a Ferguson bookplate to identify its source. This proved extremely useful as I scanned the Ephemera Collection to select material for Fragments of the Everyday, published by the Library in 2005. In the process I came to appreciate the great extent to which the Library’s collection has been enriched by ephemera from the Ferguson net.

Ferguson gathered ephemera from many sources including the book trade and his network of contacts and dealers. His collecting has a personal dimension that reflects his career and life as a prominent figure in the Presbyterian Church and in the legal fraternity as a Judge of the New South Wales Industrial Commission. Ferguson must have been on many invitation lists. One example is the invitation from ‘The Directors of General Motors Holden’s Ltd’, a modest card enticing the Fergusons to ‘celebrate the inauguration of Australia’s new Automobile Industry’. The event was the preview of the new Holden car at the Wentworth Hotel Ballroom in Sydney on 7 December 1948.

A decade earlier, 1938 marked Australia’s 150th anniversary, and 26 January was a busy day for Justice Ferguson. In the morning he made his way to watch a spectacular patriotic pageant in Sydney, ‘Australia’s March to Nationhood’. Ferguson’s entree card (which he kept) showed he had seat A 47 on the upper verandah of the Mint building, a prime position to view the pageant in Macquarie Street. In addition, he received a car sticker identifying it as ‘Special Car - M - Mint Building’, and a map showing parking available in Elizabeth and Castlereagh Streets. In the evening Ferguson went to a mayoral reception in the Sydney Town Hall to celebrate the anniversary. The invitation, which is held in the collection, is distinguished by three photographs including an aerial shot of Sydney.

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Help Your University: 75th Anniversary Appeal  1927
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Ephemera Collection

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Ferguson’s professional status led to his involvement in many public spirited appeals such as the Sir Henry Parkes National Memorial Appeal launched in Tenterfield on 24 October 1953. It commemorated the anniversary of Parkes’ speech on Federation delivered in the Tenterfield School of Arts in October 1889. The Appeal had support from Prime Minister Menzies and official patronage by eminent figures such as Sir John Latham and Sir Robert Garran. It aimed to raise £20 000 to preserve the School of Arts building and convert it into a national history museum. Ferguson was on the Appeal committee, one of 28 notable figures (men only) from the world of law, politics and academia. Ferguson kept the informative single-sheet leaflet describing the Appeal and listing all the participants.

As a much younger man, he joined a similar group of eminent people for the University of Sydney 75th Anniversary Appeal, launched in 1927 to raise £250 000 in benefactions to assist the university’s development. His association with the university was long and productive. A graduate in Law and, later, Arts, he also won the University Medal in Philosophy. His collection includes a large number of invitations and programs for events at the university, including the 1927 Appeal. Ferguson was on the committee for the Appeal and was naturally a subscriber. Among the important ephemeral pieces on the 1927 Appeal are two editions of the ‘Alphabetical Register of Graduate Subscribers’, circulars and letters from the vice-chancellor, a large pictorial sticker with the slogan ‘Help your university’, an invitation to a 1928 reunion, an original blank pink form (with envelope) with which to make a donation, and a set of stamp-sized stickers with portraits of 16 prominent men associated with the university.

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The Honor Flag. Seventh War Loan [Subscription Certificate]
Part of World War II ephemera material
Ephemera Collection
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Stickers also feature in Ferguson’s collecting of ephemera from both World War I and II. There are several large sheets of stamp-sized war loan stickers in mint condition featuring nine different designs exhorting Australians to buy war loans and support the war effort. Other ephemera illustrates life on the domestic home front during wartime, such as a small advertising flyer from the 1940s encouraging maintenance of cars in the interests of petrol rationing: ‘Let us tune your engine for more miles per gallon—keep it efficient by using Wakefield Castrol Motor Oil and help the British war effort.’

Charity appeals to help occupied foreign populations, such as the Belgians and French in World War I and the Poles in World War II, were advertised on flyers, as well as appeals for organisations such as the Red Cross and later the Legacy War Orphans Appeal. Commemorations and celebrations associated with war and peace feature strongly in the collection as Ferguson targeted collecting programs for early ANZAC commemorations, battalion reunions and peace celebrations. The collecting of this particular ephemera is a by-product of his stated aim to collect widely on Australia’s wartime experience.

Once again the personal dimension of the collection is exposed when we find that the war loans stickers are accompanied by two war loan certificates issued to Ferguson and his son, George. This pattern continued throughout Ferguson’s long collecting life. In 1952, Ferguson travelled from Melbourne to Launceston on Australian National Airways; the fare was five pounds. He kept the ticket, but more importantly he also kept a flight folder presumably given to passengers. It contains a route map, flight schedules, fare and freight tables, an invitation to make comments (with envelope) and a 12-page brochure with air travel information and, as an added bonus, a series of photos of plane interiors. Through this ephemera a snapshot is provided of the airline and its services at the time.

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Program with cards attached for The Bondman, Bland Holt Amusement Company, Theatre Royal, Sydney, 31 July 1909
Ephemera Collection
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However, Ferguson’s ephemera didn’t all have personal connections; the bulk of it was probably collected in the course of his routine acquisitions. For example, there is no known close personal or family connection between Ferguson and Kiama, a coastal town south of Wollongong in New South Wales. Yet there is a collection of 25 invitations, tickets, dance cards and notices from local events between 1896 and 1908 involving the local agricultural association, cricket club, hospital and, notably, the Kiama School of Arts. Social events such as ‘A Plain and Fancy Dress Ball’ were popular. The opening of the new School of Arts building in May 1901 was honoured with a ‘Bazaar, Poultry, Luncheon and Chrysanthemum Show’ promising ‘Amusements for young and old too numerous to particularise’. In May 1907, a sacred cantata entitled ‘Under the Palms’ was performed in the Church of England School Hall by a choir of 40 voices. The purpose, as stated on ticket number 15 which cost 1/6d, was ‘The aid of Sunday School repairs & Catechist’s bicycle’. Another gem is a vehicle pass (measuring only 3.8 x 5.6 cm), presumably for carriages, which simply states ‘4 wheels 2s’.

Ferguson was not known as a theatregoer, yet his collection contained several hundred theatre and concert programs. Probably acquired as a unit from a dealer, it represents a broad coverage of popular theatre and some classical music concerts spanning from 1901 to 1950, with emphasis on the 1900 to 1930 period. The productions of comedies, musicals and dramas are almost exclusively those staged by J.C. Williamson, the firm which dominated mainstream popular theatre in Australia last century.

Among the many routine programs is one for a melodrama, The Bondman, staged by the popular actor–manager Bland Holt in 1909. What distinguishes this copy is the presence of three colour postcards of the production which are still attached to the program as it was sold to patrons. It is rare to find single copies of these types of postcards, let alone an original trio of them intact. It is a further illustration of the strength of the collection. Ferguson’s remarkable collecting instincts embraced ephemera irrespective of whether or not it possessed personal significance. Ephemera expanded the breadth of his collection which, in turn, has greatly enriched the National Library’s Ephemera Collection.

RICHARD STONE is a consultant on ephemera and Australian performing arts. His book, Fragments of the Everyday: A Book of Australian Ephemera, was published by the National Library in 2005

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