George Frederick Folingsby, Sir Redmond Barry, c 1880, oil on canvas, State Library of Victoria.

Redmond Barry arrived in Melbourne in 1839 and was elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1852. He was elected the first chancellor of the University of Melbourne and became a trustee of the Public Library in 1853, holding both positions until his death. Under his watch the Library, gallery and museums became a beacon of learning in Melbourne’s cultural landscape. 

Joseph Reed, architect, The Public Library, Melbourne, 1854, lithograph with tint stone, State Library of Victoria.

Joseph Reed’s design for the Melbourne Public Library is a building in the Italian Renaissance manner. In its rectilinear composition, its symmetry and its portico based on the elevation of a classical temple, it shows the influence of Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–80). Reed expected the trustees to understand the significance of these classical allusions and to recognise their appropriateness for a public institution.

Joseph Reed, Letter to Redmond Barry with an estimate of expenses, 1853, manuscript, reproduced with the permission of the Keeper of Public Records, Public Record Office Victoria, VPRS 84/P0000, Unit 1.

While Joseph Reed’s suite of competition drawings for the Public Library has not survived, these letters addressed to Redmond Barry are rare evidence of the genesis of his design. The estimate of building costs is a breathtakingly brief list covering such items as ‘paving, excavating etc’.

Owen Jones, The grammar of ornament, London, Day and Son, 1856, State Library of Victoria.

Owen Jones was an architect and one of the most significant design theorists of the 19th century. He published The grammar of ornament in 1856 to improve the taste of contemporary designers by revealing the universal design principles that lay behind all historical ornament. Edward La Trobe Bateman worked on the book with Jones and its influence can be seen in his decorative schema for Queen’s Hall.

Workmen employed during the construction of Queen’s Hall, 1862, manuscript, State Library of Victoria.

This document names the workmen employed on building the north wing of Queen’s Hall, listed under their trades. These representatives of the building trades were the first in the world to strike for, and win, the eight-hour day in 1856. Fiercely anti-democratic in politics as he was, Barry nonetheless recognised the men who had built his favourite institution and he recorded their names for posterity.

JW Lindt, Joseph Reed, c 1880, albumen silver photograph, State Library of Victoria.

This photograph is from an album created in memory of Joseph Reed. It brings together photos of Reed with those of his widow, Hannah, and the son she had with her second husband, whom she named Joseph Reed Stradivarius Boase.

Nicholas Chevalier, The Public Library, 1860, watercolour, gift of Mr McEwan, 1965, State Library of Victoria.

Nicholas Chevalier’s splendid view of the proposed new wing, dominated by a huge dome, reveals the grand vision for the Library. Chevalier was born in St Petersburg and studied painting and architecture in Europe before arriving in Victoria in 1855. He was a brilliant linguist and a talented musician, like architect Joseph Reed. Possibly music as well as architecture connected these two men.

Barnett Johnson (later Johnstone), Queen’s Reading Room, Melbourne Public Library, 1859, albumen silver photograph, State Library of Victoria.

Redmond Barry commissioned Barnett Johnson to record this first image of the Library just after completion of the south wing. It shows Augustus Tulk, the Chief Librarian, sitting at the end of the table with his assistants and the workmen employed on the building posing as readers.

Catalogue of the Public Library, Melbourne, Victoria, part 1, London, JJ Guillaume, 1854, State Library of Victoria.

With each consignment of books for the Library, the bookseller JJ Guillaume had agreed to prepare a printed list. This is the first. The lists were published as small pamphlets, recording the books alphabetically by author and title, so the Library was sure it received all it had ordered and paid for.

Philip Lindo, Portrait of the late Mr Augustus Tulk, 1852, oil on canvas, gift of Mrs Jane Tulk, 1878, State Library of Victoria.

Augustus Tulk arrived in Melbourne with his family in 1854 and was appointed the first librarian of the Melbourne Public Library in May 1856. When Tulk took up his duties, the Library had been open to the public for only three months and contained about 4000 volumes. When he died 17 years later, the Library had more than 80,000 volumes.

Books given to the Public Library from his Excellency CJ La Trobe, 1853, manuscript, reproduced with the permission of the Keeper of Public Records, Public Record Office Victoria, VPRS84/P0000/1.  

Books for the Library were ordered from London, interstate and local booksellers; they were also donated. This list is testimony to Charles Joseph La Trobe’s interest in the physical sciences, in particular geography, geology and the theories surrounding glaciers, volcanoes and the history of the Earth.

John Gould, The birds of Australia: in seven volumes, London, John Gould, 1848, State Library of Victoria.

Englishman John Gould was one of the most significant ornithologists of the Victorian age. Gould travelled to Australia in 1838 with his wife Elizabeth and collector John Gilbert. The birds of Australia is one of Gould’s greatest achievements, not only for its scale but also for the beauty and accuracy of the hand-coloured lithographs, many completed by Elizabeth.

Reed & Barnes, architects, Intercolonial Exhibition buildings, 1866, ink and watercolour wash on linen-backed paper, reproduced with the permission of the Keeper of Public Records, Public Record Office Victoria, VPRS 3686/P0001, Unit 397, Item LM 1.42.

The Intercolonial exhibition was held between 24 October 1866 and 23 February 1867. The two main buildings, the Great Hall and the Rotunda, were designed by Reed & Barnes as temporary structures and were constructed behind the Public Library. This drawing shows the La Trobe Street and Little Lonsdale Street elevations.

Samuel Calvert, engraver, ‘The works at the Intercolonial Exhibition Building, Melbourne’, from Illustrated Melbourne post, 27 August 1866, State Library of Victoria.

Melbourne was proud of its new exhibition buildings, and the press regularly reported the progress of building works. In this carefully composed illustration, engraver Samuel Calvert shows the building under construction, with masons shaping the foundation blocks in the foreground, bricklayers building walls in the middle ground and carpenters and others erecting the timber roof over the hall in the background.

Edward La Trobe Bateman, Memorial of the Intercolonial exhibition, held at Melbourne, 1866–67, lithograph and ink on paper, State Library of Victoria.

Design reformer Owen Jones recognised the value of medieval, Asian and Middle Eastern principles of flat, non-figurative pattern design, and The grammar of ornament is full of examples. In this illuminated address, Bateman adheres to these principles with the elaborate border illumination in full colour and gilt, framing the interior text. It was presented to one of the exhibition’s commissioners, the Count of Castelnau.

Frederick Grosse, engraver, ‘The rotunda, Intercolonial exhibiton’, from Australian news for home readers, 20 November 1866, State Library of Victoria.

Intercolonial exhibitions were a 19th-century phenomenon. Among the multitudinous and heterogeneous displays in the Rotunda were novelties and fancy goods; jewellery, including a large diamond found at Beechworth; musical boxes; models of ships and buildings, the latter in shells and plaster; roller skates; objects made by prisoners at Pentridge; carved emu eggs; leatherwork; sculpture; and metalware.

Samuel Calvert, engraver, ‘Telegraphy school, Technological Museum, Melbourne’, from Illustrated Australian news, 18 June 1872, State Library of Victoria.

The Industrial and Technological Museum opened in Melbourne in 1870 with Harvard-educated industrial chemist James Cosmo Newbery as scientific superintendent. He introduced courses in chemistry, metallurgy, geology, physiology, astronomy and telegraphy. Australia’s first telegraph line was erected between Melbourne and Williamstown in 1854. The technology provided new employment opportunities for women as telegraph operators and the museum provided the necessary training.

Unknown photographer, Institute of Applied Science, 1872, albumen silver photograph, State Library of Victoria.

This photograph shows the Industrial and Technological Museum housed in the Great Hall in 1872. The large space was divided into various areas and the northern half was organised ‘to be instructive to the student of Mineralogy and Geology, and also the miner, agriculturalist, and manufacturer’. The mining models transferred from Frederick McCoy’s National Museum of Victoria were intended to explain the processes of manufacture covered in this section.

Unknown photographer, Display of animals and fossils in McCoy Hall, c 1910, gelatin silver photograph, State Library of Victoria.

The Natural History Museum opened in 1854 at the Government Assay Office in La Trobe Street, but by 1856 had been transferred to the University of Melbourne by Frederick McCoy, a professor of natural science. Renamed the National Museum, it held significant natural history material gathered from all over the world. In 1899 the collection was transferred to the Public Library site and displayed in McCoy Hall.

Display case of 203 species of hummingbirds, c 1857–76, mixed media, source: Museum Victoria, photographed by Ben Healley, image copyright Museum Victoria 2013.

Frederick McCoy bought in excess of 5000 birds from John Gould in England between 1857 and 1876 for his National Museum. In 1849 Gould had begun A monograph of the Trochilidae, or family of Humming-birds for which he had been collecting samples. Gould did not see his first live bird until 1857.

Robert Herdman, A fern gatherer – West Highlands, 1864, oil on canvas, purchased by the Commissioners of Fine Arts for Victoria, 1864, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, p300.15-1.

In 1859 parliament voted 2000 pounds for the purchase of artworks. In 1864 the Commission on the Fine Arts was established and 11 commissioners were appointed with Redmond Barry as chair. They used advisors in London – including the eminent director of the National Gallery, Charles Eastlake – who selected A fern gatherer – West Highlands for the Picture Gallery from the 1864 Royal Academy Exhibition.

Frederick McCubbin, Autobiographical reminiscences, c 1910, manuscript, State Library of Victoria.

Frederick McCubbin attended the School of Design when it opened in 1870, studying under Thomas Clark and then OR Campbell. In 1886, McCubbin became master of the school, a position he held for the rest of his life. This notebook covers his early years, and at this opening he recalls the tedium of the regime under Campbell compared with that of Clark, whom he liked and admired.

Charles Nettleton, Gallery of casts from the studio of Brucciani, London, 1869, albumen silver photograph, commissioned by trustees of the Library, 1869, State Library of Victoria.

The gallery of casts was situated in the north wing of the 1866–67 Intercolonial exhibition building. Here they are in company with a selection of the statues that came to Melbourne in 1860. They were supplied by Domenico Brucciani, who established his cast studio in Covent Garden in 1837 and become the leading supplier of plaster casts of ancient and modern statues in London.

Bernard Hall, The artist in the studio, 1924, oil on canvas, private collection, Melbourne.

Bernard Hall was master of the School of Painting between 1892 and 1935. This is one of four studio ‘portraits’ painted by Bernard Hall in the 1920s in the Little Lonsdale Street wing of the art gallery. Septimus Power (1877–1951), who had just completed the mural War at the top of the Library staircase, smokes nonchalantly on a sofa beneath the windows.

Bates, Peebles & Smart, architects, New reading room and stack rooms, western elevation, 1909, pen, ink and watercolour on linen-backed paper, reproduced with the permission of the Keeper of Public Records, Public Record Office Victoria, VPRS 3686/P0001, Unit 397, Item LM 1.72.

This drawing of the domed reading room was part of a series that would have shown all aspects of the building. The elevation is a view seen from one side, here the western face. However, the Library is polygonal, not rectangular, so the elevation shows on a flat plane all the parts of the building that are seen from this side.

Unknown photographer, Construction of the domed reading room, 1909, gelatin silver photograph, State Library of Victoria.

This photograph is part of a sequence that forms an extraordinary record of the construction of the domed reading room, revealing its structural characteristics and something of the building practices at the time. We follow the work from the excavations for the footings and scaffolding to the first gallery level, built in brick. As bricklayers bend to their task, a fellow worker swings past, clinging on to a piece of masonry being lifted by a crane. No safety gear in sight.

Bates, Peebles & Smart, New reading room and stack rooms, roof plan, c 1909–13, ink and watercolour on linen, Bates, Smart & McCutcheon Pty Ltd Collection, 1968.0013, The University of Melbourne Archives.

Architect Norman Peebles put together the partnership of Bates, Peebles & Smart in 1907 to secure the contract for the domed reading room. He was responsible for drawing up the initial plans for the domed reading room, but whether or not he was the sole designer is unknown.

Unknown photographer, Inspection of windows by architect Norman Peebles and clerk of works, c 1913, gelatin silver photograph, State Library of Victoria.

Of all the photographs that chart the building of the domed reading room, this one, probably taken in 1913, reveals the modernity of the building in its structure and materials, even if classical ornament was employed to embellish the interior.