Yet another desirable offering in the June Douglas Stewart Fine Books ,Melbourne, acquisitions list is Across Australia by Motor ,the illustrated account of the epic 1908 Adelaide to Port Darwin car journey by Henry Hampden Dutton and Murray Aunger, in a 25 horsepower, four cylinder Talbot .
It is priced at $2500 .The Duttons were a prominent South Australian family , into sheep, widespread investments. Francis Dutton, was SA premier on two occasions . There was even a large steam yacht .
A pastoralist, Henry Dutton , called Harry , had rowed at Cambridge , inherited the family homestead , Anlaby , near Kapunda, in South Australia, in 1914. Early in the trail blazing trip across the continent, he called in at Anlaby .
The book passed into the possession of his son, Geoffrey (1922-1998) , author , poet , historian, publisher and republican . He also inherited Anlaby along with its fine furniture , antiques, first editions.
During WWll he was an RAAF pilot who served in the Northern Territory and survived a plane crash in New Guinea . A book of his poems, Night Flight and Sunrise , was published in 1944 by Max Harris , later a columnist in The Australian .
During his time at Anlaby , Geoffrey entertained many literary figures including Patrick White and the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
In the past, Little Darwin has run a series of articles on Anlaby, Geoffrey Dutton , Max Harris and the Ern Malley Hoax . This included the fabulous February 1978 two-day clearance sale of contents at which a mixed bundle of receipts and letters from the Anlaby office , for the period 1905-1917 , was sold and ended up on Magnetic Island , Queensland , revealing investment opportunities in Papua plantations, Broken Hill mining , even a proposed correspondence course based on one in America .
An Anlaby footscraper also ended up on the island .
The writer of this post called on subsequent new owners of Anlaby who had brought across from Victoria a collection of horse-drawn vehicles, including a hearse . Poking about in an outbuilding on another occasion , hanging from a peg on a wall , a battered tyre was found , a note saying it came from the first crossing.
