An interesting item in the Douglas Stewart Fine Books , Melbourne , offerings at the fair which runs for four days from April 18 in the Malvern Town Hall , is the No.1 ,l932 , 96pp, edition of Ink , produced in Sydney by the Society of Women Writers of New South Wales ,containing two original woodcuts by Margaret Preston, $4400
It is described as an extraordinary gathering of women writers and artists who are listed on the vibrant cover, including May Gibbs, Katherine Susannah Prichard, M. Barnard Eldershaw, Mary Gilmore, Ethel Turner, Dulcie Deamer, Gladys Owen, Amy Mack, Margaret Preston, Thea Proctor, Zora Cross, Esther Paterson, Pixie O’Harris, Myra Morris, Ella Dwyer, and others, complemented by male compatriots including Kenneth Slessor, Unk White, Harry Julius, Will Mahoney, A. G. Stephens et al.
Provenance : Walter Stone, eminent bibliophile, with a signed letter to him from Helen Frizell, former literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, thanking him for lending her the book, noting ‘It was infinitely more interesting than Ink 2, I’m afraid’, along with a newspaper cutting from the paper on Oct. 5, 1977, where Frizell reviewed Ink No. 2, the second issue published by the Society 45 years after Ink No. 1
Another object of interest in the bookshop list , price reserved , is the following oval portrait miniature ,75 x 60mm , of Robert, Lord Hobart , 4th Earl of Buckinghamshire (1760-1816) , painted by Henry Bone , enamel painter to the Prince of Wales .
Early in his career he served in the British army during the American Revolutionary War. From 1784 he served as aide-de-camp to successive Lord Lieutenants of Ireland.
He sat in both Irish and English Houses of Commons, from 1787 and 1788 respectively, and was appointed to the Privy Council in 1793. He gained valuable experience in colonial service during the period he served as Governor of Madras between 1793-98. After his recall in 1798 he entered the House of Lords after inheriting the Hobart title from his uncle. From 1801 to 1804 Hobart served as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, displaying ‘a better grasp of the local or colonial conditions, and a more active spirit than did some of his successors'.
The bookshop outlines his significant connection to Australian settler history. In 1803, under instructions from Philip Gidley King, Governor of New South Wales, the recent settlement in Van Diemen’s Land at Risdon Cove on the River Derwent had been named “Hobart” in honour of Lord Hobart, the incumbent Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.
When the settlement was abandoned a short time later, David Collins, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land (then under the jurisdiction of New South Wales) appropriated the name for the new settlement at Sullivan’s Cove, which he called “Hobart Town”. This name first appears in a General Order issued on 15 June, 1804. Hobart was proclaimed a city in 1842 and became the capital of the state of Tasmania at Federation in 1901.
