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Past and Passing Ships: The Malcolm M Brodie Collection
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From State Library of Victoria News No. 12, March 2000 - May 2000
The State Library of Victoria owns one of the finest collections of illustrations and photographs of sailing ships, the Malcolm M Brodie Collection. The collection, Past and Passing Ships, comprises eight leather bound volumes plus index. The majority of the 6000 photographs and newspaper cuttings have individual captions inscribed beneath them. There is also a collection of nineteen glass negatives. Some of the photographs in the Brodie Collection are duplicated in the Library's other shipping collections, notably the Allan C Green Collection. |
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Malcolm McCaul Brodie bequeathed his collection to the then Melbourne Public Library and it was acquired by the Library on his death in 1946. Who was this man who gave to the people of Victoria such a rich, interesting and irreplaceable resource? Brodie was born on 27 June 1865 in Glasgow, the son of Robert Brodie, a solicitor. He was educated in Glasgow and commenced work with the shipowners Raeburn & Verel. In 1889, as a young man of 24, he migrated to Australia on the P&O vessel Parramatta and joined the staff of John Sanderson & Company, Melbourne wool merchants and shipping agents.
Malcolm Brodie was married in 1896 to Edith Jane Espinasse. Sadly, Edith died in January 1898 after the birth of their first child, Robert. In 1909 Brodie was made a partner in John Sanderson & Co and also became a director of associated companies. He served on the Boards of the Melbourne Steamship Company Ltd, Imperial Chemical Industries and Bryant & May. He was also a member of the Board of the Alfred Hospital, President of the Braille Library for the Blind and the first patron of the Shiplovers' Society of Victoria. |
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Brodie's interest in shipping was that of an enthusiast. When visiting ships in the course of his work he would ask for photographs of the vessel. As his interest became known, ships' masters would collect photographs from other ships on his behalf, forwarding them to his office. In Wool and ships: the story of John Sanderson and Co, Joan Gillison described Brodie as giving 'every spare moment...to cataloguing and adding to his magnificent collection of illustrations and photographs of sailing ships.'
It is most likely that Brodie purchased standard 'Victorian' photograph albums (produced between 1870 and the 1920s) in which he carefully stuck the photographs and did the artwork and titles himself. The colours of the leather albums vary, as do the endpaper patterns, suggesting the albums were purchased and compiled over many years.
Famous wool ships such as the Cutty Sark, Thermopylae, Mermerus and Salamis are represented in the collection along with many migrant ships to Australian shores. There are views of ships in foreign ports, shipping disasters, ships on the high seas, rounding Cape Horn, Australian and overseas wharves, and life at sea. The collection is a delight for any ship lover, maritime historian or genealogist looking for that elusive ship that brought great-great grandfather to Australia.
Illustrations
Top and below: A selection of photographs from the Malcolm M Brodie Collection. |
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