Edward Petherick

Edward Augustus Petherick
Born	Template:Birth date England
Died	September 17, 1917(1917-09-17) (aged 70)
Occupation(s)	Bookseller, bibliographer, publisher, book collector, archivist
Known for	Founder of the Petherick Collection at the National Library of Australia

Edward Augustus Petherick, (6 March 1847 – 17 September 1917), was a distinguished Australian bookseller, bibliographer, publisher, book collector, and archivist. His amassed materials became the cornerstone of the Australiana collection at the Commonwealth National Library, now known as the National Library of Australia.

Career

Originally from England, Petherick relocated to Australia at the age of five. In 1862, he began his career with bookseller George Robertson and later traveled to London in 1870 to act as a purchasing agent. During his tenure with Robertson, he assembled a comprehensive bibliography of Australian and Pacific literature and developed what came to be recognized as the Petherick Collection.

By 1886, residing in Brixton Hill, Petherick contributed to the cataloguing of the York Gate Library, which was published under the title Catalogue of the York Gate Library formed by Mr S. William Silver: An Index to the Literature of Geography, Maritime and Inland Discovery, Commerce and Colonisation. That same year, he obtained a notable archive of correspondence and documents belonging to Sir Joseph Banks at auction; these materials are now predominantly preserved within the National Library of Australia's Petherick Collection.

In 1887, Petherick established the Colonial Booksellers' Agency in London and initiated publishing ventures including "Petherick's Collection of Favourite and Approved Authors" and "Petherick's Collection of Popular European Authors". Despite these efforts, he declared bankruptcy by 1894. However, assistance from relatives and acquaintances enabled him to maintain possession of his private holdings.

The Australian historian George William Rusden was a frequent visitor to Petherick’s library located at "Yarra Yarra," his residence on Brixton Hill, often spending extended intervals there while composing his History of Australia.

For close to twenty years, Petherick endeavored to sell his collection to the Commonwealth of Australia. Although its significance was acknowledged, the Commonwealth hesitated due to Petherick’s stipulation that he be employed to continue his extensive but incomplete bibliography, Bibliography of Australia and Polynesia, which remained unfinished at his passing. Considered too advanced in age for public service during his sixties, he was ultimately appointed following the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library’s acquisition of his collection in 1909. The enactment of the 1911 Petherick Act facilitated his role as Archivist with an annual pension of £500.

Legacy

The collection assembled by Petherick and acquired by the Commonwealth is preserved within the National Library of Australia in Canberra as the Petherick Collection. It comprises around 10,000 books along with approximately 6,500 pamphlets, maps, manuscripts, and images centered on Australia and the Pacific region.

Additionally, the National Library houses the Petherick Reading Room, its sole reading room named in honor of an individual, highlighting Petherick’s enduring contribution to Australian bibliographic heritage.

Further reading

• Parliamentary Debates, Commonwealth of Australia, 1910
• Debrett's Peerage, 1917
• C. A. Burmester, "Petherick, Edward Augustus (1847–1917)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, Melbourne University Press, 1974
• John Thompson, "Petherick's Australian legacy", National Library of Australia News, April 1997
• Marie Joan Cullen, Edward Augustus Petherick: a bio-bibliographical study to August 1887, Ph.D. thesis, Monash University, 2000
• Wallace Kirsop, "Behind the Scenes in Publishing in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Australia", in Mary Russell (ed.), The Indexing Life: Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers Conference, 2007

External links

• Petherick Collection hosted by the National Library of Australia
• Edward Augustus Petherick (1847–1917) profile at the National Library of Australia
• Catalogue of the York Gate Geographical and Colonial Library (1882), published by John Murray, London
• Catalogue of the York Gate Library (second edition, 1886), John Murray, London
• E. A. Petherick’s papers and letters held at the National Library of Australia
• Edward Augustus Petherick, entry in the Collingwood Notables Database