Guide to the Papers of Harry Pearce, 1875-1984

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Summary

Collection number:
MS 2765
Creator:
Harry Pearce
Extent:
23.20 metres and (1 small phase box [MSR] + 91 ms boxes + 1 large volume + 4 folios + 6 small folio boxes + 1 medium folio box + 2 large folio boxes + 1 medium phase box + 1 large phase box)
Language:
English
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Harry Pearce, National Library of Australia, MS 2765, [series/ile/item number]'.
Availability:
Available
Access conditions:
Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The collection comprises both personal papers of Harry Hastings Pearce and papers of mainly early twentieth century Australian literary figures collected by Pearce.

Pearce's personal papers include family and general correspondence; diaries; family and biographical papers; notebooks; scrapbooks; writings by Pearce including poetry, articles, speeches and pamphlets; subject files, photographs, drawings, articles, publications and other papers. The papers primarily relate to Pearce's lifelong interests in Australian poetry and literature, folklore, book collecting, the rationalist and free thought movements in Australia and New Zealand, and his works 'The true John Shaw Neilson' and On the origins of Waltzing Matilda. The collection also contains biographical files and papers, papers relating to the Eureka Stockade and New Australia Settlement, and records relating to organisations in which Pearce was involved including the Henry Lawson Memorial and Literary Society, Bread and Cheese Club, Australian Poetry Lovers' Society and the Folklore Society of Victoria.

The manuscript material collected by Pearce includes correspondence, literary manuscripts, notebooks, scrapbooks and other personal papers of Bernard O'Dowd, E.J. Turner, Henry Lawson, Ethel and G.W. Fielding, John Shaw Neilson, Alfred John Jarvis, Edward Harrington, Marie Pitt, E.J. Brady, J.K. McDougall, J.M. Neild, Marjorie Aubrey, Kate Baker, Charles Fawcett (Harold Charles), Louis H. Clarke, W.H. Davies, Mary Gilmore, Jim Grahame (J.W. Gordon), Victor Kennedy, Marion Miller Knowles, Roderic Quinn, Tom Tierney and others.

Biographical Note:

Harry Hastings Pearce was born in Creswick, Victoria on 27 Aug. 1897, the son of Herbert Hastings Pearce (b.1859) and Harriet A. Williams (b.1867). Pearce attended school at Hollinwood, a mining settlement north of Creswick. He worked as a gold-miner and farm labourer in Creswick until the end of the First World War. In 1919 he moved to Melbourne, and joined the Hume Bros Cement Iron Pty Ltd (later the Hume Pipe Company), Maribyrnong, for whom he worked for 46 years until his retirement in 1965. During that time he managed the Company's factories in Tasmania (1920-22), Queensland (1923) and in New Zealand (1924-38). In 1939 he returned to Melbourne and bought a house in Nicholson Street Footscray, where he lived for the remainder of his life.

Pearce met Creina Elizabeth Traill (1894-1986) in Launceston in about 1921 and married her in Otorohanga, New Zealand on 15 October 1925. The couple had no children.

Throughout his life, Pearce was active in the rationalist movement and published several pamphlets in support of his views. He started collecting literature in 1919, much of it on the rationalist movement. Pearce's personal library grew to include material on freethought, atheism, folklore, mythology, legends, ballads, religion, and Australian poetry and literature.

Pearce was a committee member of the Melbourne Bread and Cheese Club, life member and Secretary of the Henry Lawson Memorial and Literary Society (he was editor of The Lawsonian until 1984), and a member of the Folklore Society of Victoria, the Book Collectors' Society, the Friends of the State Library of Victoria, the Australian Literature Society, the Victorian Secular Society, the New Zealand Rationalist Association and the Humanist Society of Victoria. He was also Treasurer and Secretary of the Australian Poetry Lovers' Society in 1948-73 and edited the Society's magazine, Poetry lover in 1955-73 and a collection of members' poetry entitled Poems (1952).

Pearce published two collections of poetry, The song of nature and other poems (1948) and Dreams and arrows (1969). He also wrote a narrative poem 'Thomas Kennedy's march from Creswick's Creek' (1954) to commemorate the centenary of Eureka; On the origins of Waltzing Matilda (1971) and The Waltzing Matilda debate (1974), and The history of the Australian Poetry Lovers' Society, 1934-1973 (1973).

Pearce died on 20 December 1984.

Provenance:

This collection is an amalgamation of material previously held at MS 2765, MS 6248, MS 1657, MS 1737, MS 1528 and MS 2563. The earlier components of the collection were received from Harry Hastings Pearce in seven instalments between 1965 and 1983.

Pearce's library, comprising over 14,000 books, serials, pamphlets and manuscripts, was transferred to the Library in two instalments in 1984 and one in 1985 and has been held together as a collection. The manuscript component was separated from the published materials and transferred to the Manuscript Collection in 1986 and 1987.

Loose cuttings were discarded from the collection.

Indexed terms

Names:
Harry Pearce

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:
Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn771590).
Conditions Governing Use:
Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Harry Pearce, National Library of Australia, MS 2765, [series/ile/item number]'.
Location of this collection:
Parkes Place
Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Contact:
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