The books were a presentation to Dear Lindsay from a person identified as "Auntie Edna", an obvious lover of books, a handwritten inscription in one quotes John Muir,1838-1914: " Handle a book as a bee does a flower ,extract its sweetness but do not damage it ."
The volume on the left displays the steel-engraved armorial bookplate which incorporated the family crest of Bernard Gore Brett (1901-l996) , whose grandfather arrived in Melbourne in 1853 and the next year was appointed the First Deputy Sheriff, at Beechworth, later made Sheriff and gold receiver.
He was present at the capture of bushranger Ned Kelly and in office at the time of his hanging . Bernard Gore built up a massive collection of Australiana .
The other volume sports the armorial bookplate of Dr John Orde Poynton (1906-2001) who came from a family who back in England used to buy up large amounts of books , art and prints for very little. An ancestor is said to have contributed books to the early Harvard University library in America .
It was only natural therefore that John Poyton inherited a deep interest in books and collectthg . While at Cambridge he read economics under John Maynard Keynes and studied bibliography under Keyne's younger brother , Geoffrey ; obtaining a medical degree, he went to sea as a ship's doctor on various liners and travelled far and wide .
He lobbed in Malaya in l936 where he became involved in the health system and did research on tropical diseases While there he collected Chinese art and antiquities .
With the outbreak of war , in the British Army , he was sent to Australia in l940 to give lectures on tropical diseases . Captured by the Japanese in the fall of Singapore, he spent more than three years in Changi prison in which the Changi Gaol Literary Society was started by Sergeant David Griffin of the AIF, later Lord Mayor of Sydney and a lawyer.
After the war, Dr Poynton came to Australia , made a pile investing and built up a massive, highly valuable collection of books and prints, much of which was given to the Melbourne University, along with large financial bequests.
