Redmond Barry: Larger than Life

The statue reinforces a link that will be commemorated this year on 3 July. On that date 150 years ago, Governor Hotham set out in procession – first to the site of the University, where he duly laid the foundation stone, and then to the allotment set aside by Lt Governor La Trobe for the Public Library, where another stone was laid. Hotham famously remarked that of the two buildings begun on that day, “…the Library is the most important for the people”.

For Redmond Barry, emigration to Australia at the age of twenty-six was a good decision. A younger son in a family that still owned land but no great fortune, his first choice of a military career was frustrated by a period of peace, while his second choice of a career as a lawyer was choked by the crush of young hopefuls at an overcrowded bar. Snubbed in Sydney because of his indiscretion in conducting an affair with a married woman in the hardly private circumstances of the emigrant ship The Calcutta, he took his chances and sailed to the tiny settlement of Melbourne in the Port Phillip district, arriving on 13 November 1839.

Barry set about building a legal practice as best he could in the new settlement and combined his work with a seemingly inexhaustible energy for social improvement. He helped to found the Philosophical Institute, the Philharmonia Society, the Melbourne Club, the Horticultural Society and the Melbourne Hospital. In 1843 he was appointed Commissioner in the Court of Requests – a minor-case tribunal – and in 1852 was appointed as a judge to the newly created Supreme Court of the Colony of Victoria.

To his disappointment Barry was not elevated to the position of Chief Justice on the retirement of Sir William a’Beckett. Perhaps the decision to appoint the devout and worthy William Foster Stawell to the position had something to do with Barry’s flouting of convention in maintaining a relationship with Mrs Louisa Barrow without the inconvenience of marriage – even after Mr Barrow’s death.

A civilising institution

Redmond Barry poured his energy into the great projects of his life: the University where he was founding chancellor, and the Library where he was founding President of the Trustees. At the Library he took a very direct role, overseeing the details of the building, the selection of books, the specification of colours of the bindings, the instigation of an ingenious security system, and a constant advocacy with Government for funds for further additions and improvements. For Barry, the Library was a great civilising institution – one that could embrace art and museum collections as well as more and more books. He famously espoused a policy of admitting everyone over the age of fourteen without the need for introduction on the proviso that they signed the visitors’ book and entered with clean hands.

The minute books for the Trustees of the Library record an almost perfect record of attendance by the president; indeed, he was often the only Trustee present. Barry’s confidence in his position was given public display in his decision to have his family coat of arms carved over the entrance to the Library, together with the arms of the four original trustees. Parodied in Melbourne Punch, who suggested that the Library was seeking a license to sell liquor and would henceforth be known as the Barry Arms, the decoration caught the attention of members of parliament. In his defence, Barry pointed out that he was merely continuing a tradition that dated back to Roman times, when Senators emblazoned public buildings with a record of their achievements. Barry’s arms and those of his fellow trustees are there to this day.

Whatever the views of politicians, at his death on 23 November 1880 Barry was widely mourned, and the decision to cast a colossal statue in his honour was widely supported. He is remembered in street names; in buildings at the University; in the great reading room that bears his name; and in an award given by the Australian Library and Information Association. This award is made from time to time to a person who is not a professional Librarian and who has significantly helped the interest of public libraries. Of all the posthumous honours bestowed on him I suspect this would most please Sir Redmond Barry.

Illustrations

Top left: John Botterill, Portrait of Redmond Barry, Pictures Collection
Top right: The unveiling of the statue of Sir Redmond Barry, [August 1887]
Below: Funeral of the late Sir Redmond Barry, [4 December 1880], Pictures Collection