Recent years have seen many significant donations to the College Library, including to its significant rare books collection, and to the College Archives. We are deeply grateful to the generous donors.
Thanks also to generous donors, the rare books collection is now housed in three purpose-built cabinets in the College Library. The College Archives are now located in a very substantial new compactus in the Library Stacks.
In this article, the Librarian and Archivist, Ms Amanda Ward, and Director of Learning, Dr Katrina Stats, give an overview of the history of the Library, and discuss some of the most significant recent donations to the rare books collection and Archives. We are grateful to our former Librarian of 34 years, Ms Pirjo Rayner, for her contributions to this story. If you spot something we have missed, please let us know!
St Mark’s College Library
St Mark’s College, the oldest of the South Australian residential university colleges, is exceptional in many ways and for many reasons, not least because of our impressive Library and its remarkable collection of rare books, which serves as a visible reminder of the vision and benevolence of all those who have believed in, contributed to, and shaped the College over the past century.
Today, the St Mark’s College Library is housed in the modern, purpose-built Ian and Pamela Wall Academic Centre, named for the most significant donors to the East Wing redevelopment, which was completed in 2015. The Academic Centre is a favourite study space amongst our students, who can study independently or companionably in its open study spaces and collaboratively in the well-appointed Simpson Tutorial Rooms, named in honour of another Old Collegian, Antony Simpson, who also contributed significantly to the construction of the building.
Our Library was designed and is managed to meet the evolving educational needs of our students, to facilitate their intellectual, cultural, and social development, and to support their recreational needs. It also serves to conserve for the future those parts of the collection that have value beyond their immediate, short-term usefulness.
While we have an active, thoughtful, and diverse acquisition policy, much of the collection, especially our rich rare books collection, has been and continues to be generously donated by both those with a strong connection to the College and others who know St Mark’s to be a responsible custodian of these precious items.
History
The collection was initially established by prominent individuals such as Sir Tom Bridges, then-Governor of South Australia, who, according to the St Mark’s College Record of December 1927, “kindly presented some eighty books to the College Library”, as well as some of the founders of the College including the first Master, Sir Archibald Grenfell Price, an Australian geographer, historian, and Member of Parliament; the distinguished Australian surgeon and Chair of the College Council from 1926-1953, Sir Henry Simpson Newland; Sir Josiah Symon, who was Attorney-General of Australia, Senator for South Australia, and Attorney-General of South Australia; and the renowned pastoralist, soldier, and Australian politician, Charles Allan Seymour Hawker, after whom Hawker House was later named.
The nascent collection was housed in the imposing Symon bookcase, donated by one of Sir Josiah Symon’s sons, which still stands in the Ballroom, and later in the beautiful shelving bequeathed to the College by John Andrew Tennant Mortlock, after whom the beautiful Mortlock wing of the State Library of South Australia is named. Bob Lewis, successor to Sir Archibald Grenfell Price and Master from 1957-68, and his wife Betty continued to build the collection, personally donating many books over the years. Bob Lewis’s vision to create a library along the lines of those in Oxford and Cambridge was realised after the Grenfell Price Hall was built in the early 1960s to commemorate the College’s first Master, and the Library (and Archive) took residence on the top floor of the new building (now the Learning Commons).
The rare book collection continued to grow with further significant contributions from (amongst others) Canon Julian Bickersteth MC, whom the first Master described as “the foremost founder” of the College; Sir Henry Simpson Newland; J. Angus Maitland, one of the College’s first students; Lance Milne, who donated a large and impressive collection of Australiana before he departed for London to be Agent-General for South Australia; author and historian, Geoffrey Dutton, who was a resident student at St Mark’s in the early 1940s; Dr Charles Reginald Schiller Harris, a popular lecturer in Medicine and the Humanities at the University of Adelaide Medical School, who resided at St Mark’s in 1959 and then again between 1961-65 and later became an Honorary Fellow of the College; Sir Archibald Grenfell Price and his son, Kenneth Price; the distinguished legal expert, William Anstey Wynes; the Anglican Archbishop Dr Thomas Thornton Reed, who had been a resident tutor at St Mark’s; Colin Kerr, biographer of Archibald Grenfell Price, and his wife Margaret Kerr; Professor Peter Angas Parsons AM, a highly respected geneticist who was a resident student at College from 1951-5 and later served as the long-time Chair of the Library Sub-Committee; the personal library of Old Collegian and former South Australian Premier Don Dunstan AC QC after his death in 1999; the eminent architect, Dr Gavin Walkley, who was an early student at St Mark’s and who later served as Chairman of the College Council from 1961 to 1982 and for whom Walkley Cottage is named; the distinguished Australian diplomat Robin Ashwin, who served as Master of St Mark’s College from 1991 to 1999; and his wife Okche Ashwin and her family, who donated hundreds of books to the College Library after his death in 2019 that reflected his interest in Australian politics and global affairs.
Rare Treasures
Amongst its many treasures are three significant volumes by George French Angas, the son of George Fife Angas, an English banker who played an important role in the establishment of the province of South Australia. George French Angas was an explorer and painter whose paintings are held in important Australian public art collections: South Australia Illustrated, which was produced in 1847 and contains 60 magnificent hand-painted lithographic plates of his paintings of the early colony, and the companion volumes, New Zealanders Illustrated (1847), and The Kafirs Illustrated (1849). These precious volumes were donated by Professor Peter Angas Parsons AM, a descendant of Angas, and a great champion of the College Library. According to Valmai Hankel, the former Keeper of Rare Books at the State Library, South Australia Illustrated is “perhaps the most important and certainly the most beautiful book ever published on South Australia”.
A small, unassuming copy of another George French Angas volume, Australia: A Popular Account of its Physical Features, Inhabitants, Natural History and Productions, is regarded as priceless, because of the unique hand-written inscription that explains that the teetotaling Angas family, offended by a sketch of them at a picnic with empty wine bottles strewn around them, hunted down and destroyed all but ten copies of the original book. It was donated to the College in 1982 by Colin Kerr.
The oldest book in the collection is a 17th century Latin edition of the works of Abelard and Heloise that was published in France in 1616 and donated by Mrs Lucia Harris in 1990 in memory of her late husband, Dr Charles Reginald Schiller Harris. The collection boasts a number of other items from the 17th century including A Latine Dictionary in Four Parts by the renowned Latin lexicographer Adam Littleton published in 1684 that was donated by the former Master Robin Ashwin.
Following the construction of a rare book display cabinet in 1996 that was funded by library donations generously supplemented by Professor Parsons AM, the Hon. Rod Matheson AM QC presented the College with a treasure worth displaying: an exquisite four-volume edition of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene from 1758.
Another significant holding is Voyage towards the South Pole and Round the World by Captain James Cook, published in two volumes in 1777, that was just one of several hundred books given to the College by Old Collegian Andrew Mander-Jones (1966-68) in 2008 from the private library of his late aunt, Phyllis Mander-Jones, herself a librarian and archivist of note. As rare books librarian Valmai Hankel said in a talk about the St Mark’s College Library Rare Books Collection that was subsequently published in the 2001 and 2002 December editions of the St Mark’s College newsletter, “there is something spine-tingling about holding a book like this, published two years [before] Cook was killed and 11 years before the first fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour”.
We also have original 1814 copies of both volumes of Matthew Flinders’ Voyage to Terra Australis, his sea voyage journal detailing his circumnavigation of Australia aboard the HMS Investigator, the shipwreck of the HMS Porpoise on which he was returning to England as a passenger, and his six years of imprisonment by the French on Mauritius between 1804 and 1810 but not the accompanying Atlas to Flinders’ Voyage to Terra Australis required to complete this significant set. This was remedied when, in 2020, the Hon. Bruce Debelle AO QC, who has been an enthusiastic supporter and contributor to the College Library over the years, donated an immaculate and complete limited-edition facsimile collection produced in 1966 to the Library. Other treasures the Hon. Bruce Debelle AO QC has entrusted to the College Library include The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth by Sir John Quick and Sir Robert Garran from 1901, which, in addition to its historic significance, remains an essential resource for scholars of Australian history, law, and politics today; an original copy of Lempriere’s Bibliotheca Classica from 1842; and a beautiful facsimile edition of The First Folio of Shakespeare: Based on Folios in the Folger Shakespeare Library Collection.
A more modern treasure is the significant Angry Penguins collection, which features a selection of publications written by Paul Pfeiffer, who became a resident tutor at St Mark’s in 1940, and Donald Beviss (Sam) Kerr, a resident student, and Max Harris. These avant-garde poets, who met in Pfeiffer’s rooms at St. Mark’s College, became known collectively as the “Angry Penguins” and were at the vanguard of Australian modernism. Author and associate Colin Thiele described their meetings as “volatile… intense with argument about literature, art and international politics… with claret of doubtful vintage lubricating minds and tongues till well after midnight”. Founded in 1940, the Angry Penguins magazine challenged the cultural conservatism in Adelaide at the time. In his obituary for Pfieffer, who served in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and was tragically killed in a training flight before the end of the war, Harris wrote that “Donald Beviss Kerr, Paul Pfieffer, and I created this channel of expression because we each felt we had something to say”. Kerr, who was regarded by some as “close to the borders of genius”, also served in the RAAF and was killed in an air operation in New Guinea in 1942 at just 23 years of age.
The collection comprises editions of the Angry Penguins magazine and its precursor, the radical literary magazine, Pheonix which was published by the University of Adelaide Student Union between 1935 and 1939, as well as their individual published collections of poetry. This includes a pristine copy of Hymeneal to a Star, a booklet of Paul Pfeiffer’s poetry, that was gifted to the College by Ian Grenfell, who was Vice Master of St Mark’s from 1959 to 1961, and Sam Kerr’s own copy of his book of poetry, Death, Be Not Proud, which was donated to the College Library by his niece Heather Kerr, along with other books from Sam Kerr’s personal collection, in 2007.
The College is also the proud custodian of a complete set (ten volumes in 12 books) of the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, which later became known as The Oxford English Dictionary, produced by Dr James Murray and his dedicated team of lexicographers and published between 1888 and 1928. This extraordinary undertaking was depicted in Adelaide-based author Pip William’s novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words, which was last year staged in a brilliant production by the Sydney Theatre Company. This remarkable first edition set (pictured below) was donated in 1934 by Carril Hector Symon, son of Sir Josiah Symon.
Redevelopment
In the new millennium, the old Library was deemed to be overcrowded and outdated and not able to provide the study requirements and technology required by modern university students. In 2013, the East Wing Appeal led by the Hon. Bruce Debelle AO QC was launched to fund the redevelopment (amongst other things) of the Library and to transform it into a dynamic place for students to study and use technology creatively in group work or private research, with three tutorial rooms, as well as custom-built space for the College’s special collections and rare books.
The Ian and Pamela Wall Academic Centre was officially opened in 2015 and has been a popular and much-valued study space for almost a decade now. The beautiful American white oak rare book cabinet, however, soon proved insufficient to store and display for all the treasures of our every-growing rare books collection, and many remained in the Stacks beneath the Library.
Richard Watson Rare Book Cabinet
Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of the family of Richard Watson, these rare books now have pride of place in our Library in the Richard Watson Rare Book Cabinet, which was constructed in his memory in 2023.
Richard Watson was a medical student at St Mark’s College from 1956 to 1961, and later served the College in many capacities, including as a member of the College Council from 1976 to 1993, in which year he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the College.
A keen reader and collector of books, Richard was passionately involved with the College Library and was integral to the establishment in 1988 of the Library Sub-Committee, which he chaired until he went to Oxford in 1993 for graduate studies, and re-joined it in 2001, serving until 2009. He had a strong commitment to the modernisation of the Library, including the security and expansion of the collection, and the preservation and display of the rare books.
The Richard Watson Rare Book Cabinet is therefore a fitting way to honour his long and varied service to the College, his enthusiastic support of the Library, and his passion for books and reading. A plaque bearing Richard’s name and tribute outlining his many achievements and contributions to the College was mounted on the cabinet earlier this year.
Between the Richard Watson Rare Book Cabinet and a new matching cabinet in the neighbouring tutorial room, both designed by Cheesman Architects, all of our rare books are now either on display or stored safely with space for the collection to further grow.
And grow it does indeed!
The Bruce Thorpe South Pacific Collection
A substantial bequest from the late Bruce Thorpe has enabled the College to establish a new specialist South Pacific collection that is now housed in the rare book cabinet in the southern tutorial room.
We are very grateful to Dorothy Thorpe and her late husband, who was Principal of Woodlands Church of England Girls Grammar School (CEGGS) from 1980 to 1994, for the gift of his extensive collection of books about the South Pacific to the St Mark’s College Library. Their son Jeremy was a resident student at St Mark’s College between 1992 and 1994.
Bruce and Dorothy travelled to Western Samoa in 1972 with Australian Volunteers Abroad to serve and equip the schools of Samoa, their students, and their teachers. Bruce was employed by the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa Education Department to conduct teacher in-service training and in 1974 he became the Principal of the Leulumoega Fou College in Apia, Samoa. Dorothy taught English as a second language and became Head of English at the College. During their four years in Samoa, both Bruce and Dorothy Thorpe taught, lead, and inspired hundreds of students and teachers.
This substantial collection, a total of 292 volumes, includes works on the geography, history, commerce, politics and culture of Samoa, Fiji, Tonga and the Cook Islands. In addition to contributing important historical and cultural knowledge to St Mark’s College, it is hoped that the Bruce Thorpe South Pacific Collection will attract interest from researchers and scholars from the wider academic community.
Ann Price and the Kenneth Price Collection
As it approaches its Centenary year, St Mark’s College continues to welcome and gratefully receive donations to its Library, Archives, and art collections.
We are indebted to the wonderful Ann Price, who has generously donated many books from her late husband Kenneth Price’s personal collection to the College Library, which has a special collection of books relating to his work in the Intelligence Bureau, his role as Mayor of Walkerville, and other works that reflect his interests in history, politics and geology. Ann has also provided a generous financial donation for the purchase of additional rare books or other items of value to the Library.
Kenneth Bonamy Price was the second son of Sir Archibald Grenfell Price and Pauline (Kitty) Grenfell Price (Lady Grenfell Price). He attended St Mark’s College in 1946 and completed a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Adelaide, followed by further study at Oxford. He enlisted in 2/9th Australian Armoured Regiment A.I.F. and served as Lieutenant in New Guinea and Japan. In 1975, he was elected to the Town of Walkerville Council, representing the Medindie Ward. He served as the Mayor of Walkerville from 1977 to 1982. After he retired from Local Government, Kenneth became Warden of Christ Church, North Adelaide, and served on several boards, including the Diocesan Superannuation Fund and Anglican Insurance Company.
Ann and Kenneth’s son, James Price, who was a resident student at St Mark’s in the early 1980s and serves as President of the St Mark’s College Foundation, recently donated a copy of Abbott and Mansfield’s Greek Primer which was published in 1905 and was previously owned by his grandfather, Sir Archibald Grenfell Price (pictured below).
Clive Brooks Collection
The College is grateful to Jane Brooks and the family of her late husband, Clive Brooks, who was a resident student at St Mark’s from 1960 to 1963 while he studied law at the University of Adelaide, for the donation of Clive’s St Mark’s anniversary College blazer and an extensive collection of law books. These include a run of South Australian Statutes beginning from the then-colony’s earliest days, that will be of interest to historians and legal scholars alike.
The College’s commitment to building a significant and useful collection and to being a good custodian of its holdings also attracts donations from people with no prior personal connection to the College. Most recently, the St Mark’s Library gratefully received from Kirin Moat a complete collection of the facsimile editions of early English children’s books from the Osborne Collection published by the Toronto Public Library. This beautiful collection of books, originally published between 1766 and 1910, will be of interest to our current and future English literature and education students and, we hope, to other scholars and visitors to our Library as our holdings become better known.
Restoration and Repair
As well as donating books, since the Adopt-a-Rare Book program was launched at a Library Sundowner in November 2017, a number of benefactors have elected to fund the repair or restoration of damaged rare books, including the Hon. Bruce Debelle AO QC, Robert Cheesman, Léonie Matheson, James Price, the late Michael Shearer AM, and Dr Jane Walkley.
Angela Bannon, the wife of former Master and State Premier, the late Hon. John Bannon AO, and a generous donor and great supporter of the College, has been involved in organising the repair of many of our rare books through the Friends of the State Library of South Australia under the guidance of conservation expert, Anthony Zammit. Angela has been personally responsible for the restoration of The Origin and Process of the Art of Writing by Henry Noel Humphries, published in 1853 and kindly loaned to the College by Old Collegian Richard Scott Young (St Mark’s, 1956-57). A great friend and Honorary Fellow of our College, Richard has always shown a great interest in our Library and Archives and generously donated many items over the years.
We are also grateful for the regular contributions we receive to our St Mark’s Collection, which contains publications by or about the people associated with St Mark’s College past and present, and to our general collections. A recent donation of The Centenary Companion to Australian Federation by Mr Barry Fox adds to our specialist holdings on the subject of “Australian Federation”, while Not for Glory: A Century of Service by Medical Women to the Australian Army and its Allies by Dr Susan Neuhaus AM with Sharon Mascall-Dare is a thoughtful contribution to our Australian history collection. Barry Fox (St Mark’s 1960-63) has generously donated many other items, some noted specifically elsewhere in this article. Dr Neuhaus, who is a General Surgeon and oncologist as well as an Associate Professor in Conflict Medicine, herself served in the Australian Army and also served in the Australian Army Reserve. Her elder daughter, Grace, was at St Mark’s from 2021 until 2022 when she was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Australian Army, and her younger daughter, Emma, is a current Collegian.
College Archive – Preserving the Past for the Future
The College Archive actively preserves and promotes the heritage of St Mark’s College, maintaining and caring for these collections for current and future generations. It contains a variety of artworks, photographs, artefacts, textiles, and documents that record and represent the history of the College and the people associated with it, such as Reverend Canon Docker, who held a very important role in the history of the College and was loved and respected by all.
Reverend Canon Wilfred Brougham Docker MA studied at St Paul’s College, Sydney, later becoming Acting Warden of St Barnabas College, Adelaide. He was a member of the St Mark’s College Founders’ Executive Committee from May 1922 and a member of the first Council from 1925. Later on in his life, having returned to Adelaide, he held the position of College Chaplain from 1948 to 1952, in residence from 1951 and returning briefly in 1954 after Reverend Drysdale resigned as Chaplain.
We are so grateful to his granddaughter, Louise Manifold, who donated a selection of early photographs, Canon Docker’s original thesis, his books, and some of the items used during his work as College Chaplain including his ecclesiastical vestments embellished with hand embroidered gold, and a sterling silver travelling communion set.
Another welcome addition to the collection is a print of the etching of the Grenfell Price Dining Hall made by John C. Goodchild and given as a commemorative gift given to Sir Archibald Grenfell Price at the opening of the Hall in March 1961. The print was previously owned by the late Reverend Malcolm McKenzie B.A., who was the third Master of St Mark’s, and was recently donated by his son, Chad McKenzie. Malcolm McKenzie, who passed away in January 2022, first joined St Mark’s as its Chaplain, later taking on the role of Master (1968-77) after the retirement of Bob Lewis.
We are grateful also to Dr Guy Verney (St Mark’s 1974) for also donating a copy of the Goodchild print, and to the Parliament of South Australia for giving us the copy which had been given at the time to the Premier of South Australia, Sir Thomas Playford, who opened the Grenfell Price Hall in 1961.
Old Collegian Barry Fox, who was in residence from 1960-63, thoughtfully gifted the College a framed certificate of vote in the referendum for an Australasian Federal Constitution in July 1899. It has found a home in Downer House, the former home of Sir John Downer, twice Premier of South Australia and one of the members of the Drafting Committee for the Constitution at the 1897 Federal Convention held in Adelaide. It is believed that some of the discussions of the drafters took place in Downer House, while Sir Edmund Barton (another member of the Drafting Committee, who later became the first Prime Minister of Australia) was staying with the Downer family.
Dr Glenn Cardwell, a dietician who was resident at St Mark’s from 1973 to 1977, shared an entertaining advertising poster from the 1970s, promoting St Mark’s as the College of choice in bright 1970s orange.
We were grateful to receive two college year group photos from 1952 and 1953, mounted on board, from the estate of one of our distinguished alumni, Emeritus Professor Russell (Sam) Estcourt Luxton, who was a resident student at St Mark’s from 1952-1955.
Towards our second century
In the December 2002 edition of the St Mark’s College newsletter, Valmai Hankel, the former Keeper of Rare Books at the State Library, wrote that “the St Mark’s College Library is such a treasure trove… [and] a major unsung contribution to South Australia’s information resource as well as to our documentary heritage. This library is very special and should never be taken for granted.” We certainly do not take our remarkable Library for granted or our responsibility as custodians of its treasures lightly.
From the building in which they are housed, to the treasures they hold, and the shelves that display them, the College Library and Archives are a reflection all who have supported and benefited from collegiate education at St Mark’s over the past century. We are grateful to all our generous benefactors. Our remarkable collections been built and shaped by their interests, their expertise, their passions, and their generosity. We are honoured to be the custodians of these collections, and proud to showcase their treasures. They connect us to the past, inspire awe and gratitude, and provide the foundation on which the students of today build new knowledge, skills, and create the artefacts of the next century in the College’s history.
