Item #80725 History of the First Bushmen's Club in the Australian Colonies, established at Adelaide, South Australia. Compiled from various sources, and furnishing in detail its origin and progress up to the present year, 1872; also miscellaneous readings, letters, etc. William Marks HUGO.
History of the First Bushmen's Club in the Australian Colonies, established at Adelaide, South Australia. Compiled from various sources, and furnishing in detail its origin and progress up to the present year, 1872; also miscellaneous readings, letters, etc
History of the First Bushmen's Club in the Australian Colonies, established at Adelaide, South Australia. Compiled from various sources, and furnishing in detail its origin and progress up to the present year, 1872; also miscellaneous readings, letters, etc

History of the First Bushmen's Club in the Australian Colonies, established at Adelaide, South Australia. Compiled from various sources, and furnishing in detail its origin and progress up to the present year, 1872; also miscellaneous readings, letters, etc

Adelaide, 'published by Superintendent of Club', 1872.

Octavo, viii, [9]-408 pages (the last 8 being advertisements) plus 2 frontispiece lithographs ('Present Bushmen's Home' and 'Proposed Bushmen's Home').

Original flush-cut dark green cloth with the short title in gilt on the front cover; cloth lightly marked and rubbed at the extremities, with slight wear in a couple of places; spine a little sunned; inner hinges cracked but firm; endpapers a little marked, with some scuffing and silverfish damage to the front flyleaf; small stain to the bottom edge, bleeding very slightly into some bottom margins; very occasional foxing; three smallish areas on pages 167-70 lost to silverfish, with two patches affecting some 25 words of text (now supplied on an insert); a very good copy.

A note (dated January 1879) in pencil on the flyleaf gives some details of the anonymous author, a cousin of the somewhat more famous Victor. Ferguson 10643 (recording only 'blue morocco cloth boards'). 'By 1866 a ravaging northern drought accelerated the need to succour bush workers, who were often victims of their own excesses and were preyed upon between jobs. Hugo pressed for a "bushmen's home", like a seamen's home, as a quiet, sober refuge. Opposition came from those who saw it as a squatters' movement, but his canvassing, bushmen's subscriptions and philanthropic support enabled the home to open in Whitmore Square, Adelaide, in May 1870' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). Provenance: P. Curzon Clement, with his armorial bookplate on the pastedown. Peake ('Australian Personal Bookplates') 983, recording John Shirlow as the artist.

Item #80725

Price (AUD): $500.00

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