John Alexander Ferguson: Preserving our Past Inspiring our Future
Address by Senator Russell Trood
Launch of the Sir John Ferguson's biography
National Library of Australia
15 June 2011
Welcome
It is a great pleasure to be here to help launch James Ferguson's biography, John Alexander Ferguson: Preserving our past, inspiring our future. James is Sir John’s grandson.
Sir John, without doubt, is one of Australia's foremost bibliographers. His name stands alongside those of David Scott Mitchell and William Dixson and even perhaps Rex Nan Kivell as amongst the greatest collectors, recorders and chroniclers of the Australian experience.
It’s fair to say that these names do not enjoy household fame. But they ought to. Without their labours, Australia's knowledge of its history would be impoverished, the national record of our growth as a country so much less complete and many of its seminal documents would be almost certainly in the hands of others.
Sir John Ferguson not only stands among giants in his own country, he (with widespread agreement) published 'one of the world's great bibliographies’, the Bibliography of Australia (1941-1969). Of course the National Library of Australia owes a special debt to Sir John. Both during his lifetime and after, the National Library of Australia was the preferred recipient of his collection. When finally transferred, the collection amounted to 34 000 pieces- the largest the library has received. The significance of the bequest was recognised in the Ferguson Room - one of only two named rooms in the Library.
In the biography, James brings all this history and a great deal more to life in a fascinating way.
The Life
Sir John was born in Invercargill in New Zealand in December 1881. His ancestry was Scottish (both Mitchell and Dixson were as well). His parents moved to Sydney in 1894 when John was 12. He subsequently went to Sydney University and graduated in Arts and Bachelor of Laws with honours in 1904.
Soon after he went to the bar, Sir John established a strong practice in industrial relations with regular appearances before the High Court. In 1936 he was appointed to NSW Industrial Commission and established an enviable reputation as conscientious judge.
Sir John married twice: first to Bessie, the daughter of George Roberston of Angus and Robertson fame. Some years after Bessie's death, he married Dorothy a lady some 35 years his junior, but one who shared his passion for history and bibliography.
He died in 1969 at the very respectable age of 88.
Literary Life
It is perhaps not difficult to write a biography about a person who was such an obsessive collector and left a substantial record.
James' achievement in this book is way he is able to balance the biographer's obligation to relate the more mundane aspects of his subject's life with desire to tell the rich, indeed, extraordinary story of Sir John's passion for history and collecting.
As you read through the pages, a sympathetic picture emerges about a man who grew up in a reverent, even, pious (Presbyterian Church) and austere literary household where ideas and education were highly valued. As James says, Sir John:
a gentle –mannered man of moderate and careful expression. He was never heard to curse or lose his temper and if at all possible, he avoided confrontation… He had a clear view of humanity's failings, but also a compassion for people in misfortune … most of all he had a strong commitment to justice to the rule of law… (and as James adds) in the politically charged atmosphere of the industrial court he maintained careful political neutrality.
The bibliographer
Sir John was a man of moderation, except when it came to his passion –collecting. As James writes, his interest in history and passion for collecting started early, “he showed surprising determination in pursuing what he wanted in his collecting activities.”
I think this rather understates Sir John’s obsession for collecting. In Sydney, he was a common visitor to book shops and antiquarian dealers as he searched for prized articles. In London, for a Privy Council case, he appears to have spent less time looking at the sights than many hours trawling through the tempting book shops of Tottenham Court Rd.
And he went further. In a practice (some might see as rather insensitive and one I am not sure we would approve of today) he was more than prepared to contact the widows and executors of estates if he thought a recently deceased person might have items worthy of collection. As James says:
aim as a bibliographer being to make available information on material that might be helpful to researchers and to indicate where copies of the material might be found.
It is fair to say that: to this task he was obsessively dedicated all his adult life.
This all came together in his great study A Bibliography of Australia which emerged in seven volumes. The first appeared in 1941 and the last was published posthumously in 1969. In an especially poignant section of book James recounts the completion of the last volume:
He finished the correction of the proofs … on 25 April 1969, Anzac Day. He burst into tears and fell back exhausted, finally realising that he had at last completed his life's work, a task that had consumed him daily for 40 years, but the origins of which went back almost 70. …. He never recovered his strength, slowly sinking over the next few days. He knew he was dying; he thanked Dorothy for all she had done for him, went to sleep and died peacefully.
From the first volume the bibliography was published to create acclaim both here in Australia and overseas. And rightly so. Not just because it was comprehensive and punctiliously researched, but as James points out because it was not just a dry and tedious listing of sources. The listings came with extensive notes. In 21st century parlance it might be said to be "a good read” or perhaps even "a page turner".
James gives examples of the way these notes enliven the bibliography. I especially like a reference to material from Volume 1 relating to the convict, one Thomas Wainwright, sent to Australia for forgery in 1837. The bibliographical note says:
In addition to forging signatures of the trustees of his mother’s estate in order to obtain money for his extravagances, it is accepted that he had for the same purpose, in 1829 poisoned his uncle, and in 1830 his mother-in-law, and his beautiful sister-in-law, Helen Abercrombie…It was announced in the Hobart Town Gazette for November 17, 1844, that Wainwright had been recommended for a conditional pardon. Any liberty he may have obtained was soon terminated, however, by his death on August 17, 1847, of apoplexy. Towards the end of his life he was heard to say that all he wished to live for was to go home and murder the person who had transported him.
Perhaps there was a degree of eccentricity in some of these notes, but not surprisingly it was gems like this that made the bibliography so fascinating.
Over seven volumes, the bibliography contained tens of thousands of items and a many were part of his own impressive collection which eventually found their way into the National Library of Australia.
As James says, the bibliography was too important to languish after Sir John's death. In 1975, the National Library of Australia purchased the copyright and published a facsimile in 1986 with an addendum for the years 1784 – 1850.
The wider history
The book, John Alexander Ferguson: Preserving our past, inspiring our future, is about Sir John, his family, his work, his bibliography and his dedication to the law.
Like all fine biographies, what makes it so interesting is the insights it gives into contemporary facets of Australia's literary life including the early years of the venerable booksellers and publishers Angus and Robertson.
It also highlights the long term competition and sometimes tension between the National Library of Australia and the preposterous pretensions of the Mitchell Library to be Australia's foremost library.
In addition it gives the reader an insight into the steady, ineluctable rise to prominence and respect of the National Library of Australia. Here I note some ‘interesting’ arrangement for accounting. James writes, “in May 1964, John wrote to White to say he has received a cheque from the Library but was not sure what it was for.”I’d be very surprised indeed if that sort of thing happened today!
The story also includes some periodic averting to the changes in industrial relations climate and the development of workers rights and benefits.
In short, this is a very rich book that offers more than just an account of a distinguished Australian life. Since this is about the dedication of a giant of Australian bibliography, the last words should be those he chose to paraphrase from Rudyard Kipling in volume VII of the Bibliography, when he referred to the legacy of the Anzacs and the example that they gave to the nation:
There’s a Legion that never was ‘listed,
That carries no banner or crest,
But split in a thousand detachments,
Has carved out the way for the rest.