Financial papers, 1904-1952

Component identifier:

Series 2

Content Summary:

Hughes' financial papers consist of quite a large body of correspondence, receipts, cheque butts, bank books, income tax forms, company circulars and prospectuses, and lists of donations. The series has been arranged in date order, although in some instances, where accounts and receipts have been clipped together, these have been filed by the date of the initial account. The series ends with a bundle of loose cuttings titled 'Private finance'.

Where appropriate, financial papers have been filed in other series. All accounts addressed to Dame Mary Hughes (regardless of who settled them) are in Series 13. Cheque books used by Hughes during his trips overseas are in the series devoted to them. Some miscellaneous cheque butts and books can also be found in Series 50. Financial correspondence with Amalgamated Wireless of Australia Pty Ltd is in Series 31.

Hughes' financial correspondents include car hire firms, companies of which he was a shareholder, the Taxation Commissioner, business houses, tradesmen, the Public Service Board, municipal councils, publishers, newspapers, assurance companies, the Commonwealth Bank, the Clerk of the House of Representatives, and the Department of the Prime Minister, share-brokers such as Arthur Long, E. L. C. Baillieu, W. F. Dawson, and Arthur Tilley, and solicitors such as D. R. Hall Co. and Blake Riggall.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The W. M. Hughes Papers were presented to the National Library of Australia by Dame Mary Hughes in 1953. The collection was received in two consignments. One consisted of papers taken from the Perpetual Trustee Company comprising material from Hughes' Lindfield home and from his office rooms at the Commonwealth Offices, Sydney; the other came directly from Lindfield. Lists of the contents of both consignments are held in the Library's Manuscript Branch. With the agreement of the executors and the Library, much of the collection, was for a time, held at the Australian National University by Fitzhardinge. He was permitted sole access to the collection while writing the biography Hughes commissioned in 1951. Fitzhardinge's own papers documenting the writing of the biography are also held by the Library (MS 5400). The papers transferred to the Library in 1953 are by no means the total collection of Hughes' personal papers, although it is impossible to say what proportion has survived. (see Fitzhardinge, p.936).

Names:

Hughes, W. M. (1862-1952)

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