Business was suspended for the day in public offices throughout the state. Private offices closed their doors and lowered their blinds. Sporting competitions and theatrical amusements were abandoned. Courts were adjourned. Flags drooped at half-mast.
The Melbourne Public Library closed its gates and drew the blinds on each of the windows in the Queen's Hall building. The imposing columns at the entrance were draped in black and purple cloth, wound around each column like large and sombre candy canes.
Four months later the drapes were gone and the Library literally shone. Between the 6th and 11th of May, the Library was one of a number of city institutions specially illuminated in celebration of the opening of the first Commonwealth Parliament at the Exhibition Building, and the visit of their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York.
For one luminous week in 1901, throughout the night, a line of lights cast their glow across the Library walls. The building swept into the sky, its columns lit like candles, and people gathered in the street to marvel at the sight.
Through its participation in the illumination of Melbourne, the Library was associated with the relatively advanced technological achievement of electric lighting and the symbolic end to a prolonged period of collective mourning. It also shared in marking the commencement of an optimistic chapter in the life of a newly constituted state in a federated nation.
Illustration
The Public Library of Victoria draped in black and purple on the day of Queen Victoria's funeral in 1901. |
