The Society's Library
Manuscripts

Collection of manuscripts
Maps
Collection of Australian and Overseas Maps
Photographs
Photographic Collection
Relics
Exploration equipment etc

Public enquiries are welcome. Hours:    Tuesday to Friday  10 am to 1 pm

Librarians:  Kevin Griffin, Phyl Twigg, Michael Dover, and David Wald..

Phone: 08 82077266    Fax: 08 82077225  Email:  library@rgssa.org.au 

Location:  The Library and the Society’s office are located on level 2 of the Mortlock Wing of the State Library of South Australia, North Terrace, Adelaide.  (PO Box 419 Adelaide, 5001) 

(Directions: Enter the main State Library entrance, cross the walkway to the old building and proceed to the far (southern) end of the display hall. The RGSSA Library and Office are located at the top of the stairs.)

By prior arrangement Library material can be made available for reading in the State Library’s Somerville Reading Room.  

Catalogues

Most of the Library’s Australiana collection and rare books (‘specials’) are catalogued on the State Library’s website; (http://www.catalog.slsa.sa.gov.au/screens/opacmenu.html) 

  If you type in the words 'York  Gate Australia' in a key word search at this site a listing of many of the Society's Australiana rare books are obtained, or 'York and Gate' will list most of the rare volumes

RGSSA books are indicated by the following location information in the catalogue record: 

 * RGS Australiana collection  These books are housed in the Library. Most books in this category published after 1900 are available for loan to members.   

  * RGS Special Collections. Housed in the Library.  

The Society's library is based on four private collections that have given it a broad base in historical geography, colonial history, anthropology and travel.

More details - contact the Society's Librarian at library@rgssa.org.au

THE LIBRARY

The Society's Library contains a most delightful collection of some of the rarest and earliest works on the subject of geography. The ancient Greeks held the belief that the earth was a sphere and indeed, the astronomer, geographer and mathematician Eratosdienes had, in the 3rd Century BC, calculated the circumference of the earth to with in 320 kilometres of the accepted modern measurement. We know this from the extensive writings of Strabo (63 BC - 23 AD) a Greek philosopher, geographer and historian in Roman times.

In the Society's Library is a handsome leather- bound Latin version of the commentaries of Strabo's Geography 'newly translated from the Greek original by Conrado Meresbachio and published in 1523 in Basle by Valentinus Curio. Strabo's books describe, and therefore preserve, the works of the early geographers up until this time.

Early works on geography The Society's Library contains a most delightful collection of some of the rarest and earliest works on the subject of geography. The ancient Greeks held the belief that the earth was a sphere and indeed, the astronomer, geographer and mathematician Eratosdienes had, in the 3rd Century BC, calculated the circumference of the earth to with in 320 kilometres of the accepted modern measurement. We know this from the extensive writings of Strabo (63 BC - 23 AD) a Greek philosopher, geographer and historian in Roman times. 

In the Society's Library is a handsome leather- bound Latin version of the commentaries of Strabo's Geography 'newly translated from the Greek original by Conrado Meresbachio and published in 1523 in Basle by Valentinus Curio. Strabo's books describe, and therefore preserve, the works of the early geographers up until this time. 

Contact the library library@rgssa.org.au

The York Gate Colonial and Geographical Library
In 1905 the Society purchased the York Gate Library of S.W. Silver, a London shipping merchant. This collection is largely made up of explorers' accounts, colonial histories and handbooks, and rare atlases, including Abraham Ortelius's world atlas of 1598 and Arnold Colum's Zee-atlas of c.1650. 

The York Gate Library also includes Sir Joseph Banks' manuscript diary of his expedition to Newfoundland in 1766 and original watercolours by George French Angas.

Contact the library library@rgssa.org.au

The Library is available for reference by the general public. 

There are reading room facilities for study and trained librarians are on hand to assist with enquiries. 

Over 860 volumes were printed prior to 1801, the largest specialist geographical library in Australia, now numbering 30,000 volumes, 800 maps and 150 periodical titles, some on exchange with other Geographical Society's around the world. As an aid to researchers, the Library has produced a series of bibliographical references for sale. One of the most popular of these Sources for Genealogy Held in the Library... was brought out in 1987. 

The Library has a surprising number of records, which are of particular interest to genealogists, and holdings include biographical, genealogical and historical material relating to Great Britain, all the Australian States and Territories and New Zealand. A series of Annotated Bibliographies was produced in 1991, each listing the works held in the Library relating to a particular South Australian explorer. The first four volumes cover the Library's quite considerable holdings on Babbage, Mc Douall-Stuart, McKinlay and Sturt.

In the opinion of a Rare Books Librarian for the State Library of South Australia;
'The Library, and in particular the York Gate Library, is known nationally and internationally, and helps to bring acclaim and public attention to the Society. Many of its pre-twentieth century books, as well as some of the periodicals and, obviously, the manuscript items, (refer to the catalogue of some items) are not held elsewhere in South Australia or Australia. The Society's Library makes a significant contribution to the State and national information resource'.
The York Gate (Library);
'A source of special pride is the Society's ownership of the world-famous Library York Gate Library which is part of the Society's Library. Purchased in 1905 this remarkable collection of books and manuscripts relating to many aspects of Pacific exploration, geography and culture, contains original explorers' accounts, British colonial histories, rare maps and atlases and scientific periodicals. The York Gate Library was a private library amassed over a lifetime of collecting by Stephen William Silver (1819-1905), a London shipping merchant. The collection was housed at No 3 York Gate, Silver's London house in Regent's Park. Silver was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London and for many years was a member of the Council. He became personally acquainted with many of the explorers who were completing the geographical knowledge of the unknown parts of the world. So extensive did Silver's collection become that a catalogue of the York Gate Library was published in 1882 with a second edition in 1886. The author, noted bibliographer Edward Augustus Petherick, described the collection as 'The literature of geography, maritime and inland discovery, commerce and colonisation'.

The Library of Thomas Gill
The library of Thomas Gill was acquired by the Society in 1924. This collection is particularly rich in South Australian and Australian exploration.

The Library of F. Lucas Benham
The library of F. Lucas Benham, added in 1939 has strengths in anthropology, geography and travel.

The Jim Faull Library
In 1990 Jim Faull donated to the Society his personal collection on South Australian local history.

New books continue to be purchased for the library, with some books and periodicals being obtained by gift and exchange. In addition to the books and periodicals there are over 800 maps (see maps) and some 250 manuscripts, (see manuscripts) including:-

John McDouall Stuart's diary of his 1860-61 expedition

Daniel Brock's diary of Charles Sturt's 1844-46 Central Australian expedition.

William Gosse's account of his discovery of Ayers Rock (Uluru) in 1873.

These are described in Catalogue of the manuscripts in the Library of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (South Australian Branch) Inc., compiled by Phyllis Mander-Jones, and published in 1981. Copies of this are available from the Society or the Society's manuscript holdings can be searched on-line on the Register of Australian Archives and Manuscripts (RAAM).

Recent additions to the manuscript collection, including letters from explorers John McDouall Stuart, Larry Wells and J.Manton to R.H.Edmunds are also available and are in the process of being prepared for RAAM.

Bibliographies of resources held in the Library are available for the explorers Benjamin Babbage, John McDouall Stuart, John McKinlay, Charles Sturt, and the Voyages of discovery of Matthew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin in Australian waters, 1800 -1804.

The Society's Library is an active centre for geographical and historical research and use of its library by the public is encouraged.

SOME MORE OF THE RARE LIBRARY BOOKS
The work of the German geographer and historical cartographer, Philipp Clüver (1580-1622) is also represented in the Library. He was a principal figure in the revival of geographical learning in Europe and attempted to write the first comprehensive modern geography. His Introductio in Universam Geographiam (Introduction to Universal Geography) printed in Amsterdam in 1697 was a standard reference work through to the 18th century. The Society also has an impressive Cluverius Atlas, Tabulae geographicae, quius universa geographia vetus continetur, published in Padua in 1699.

With the emergence of the geographical discipline as an academic study in the universities in (lie late 18th and early 19th centuries, the German natural scientist, Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), was among the first to write and teach as an academic geographer. His books attempted to order and arrange all geographical knowledge in a systematic fashion. 

A first edition of Alexander von Humboldt's major work the two volume Kosmos, published in 1845-47, came to the Society through Dr Richard Schomburgk, a distinguished botanist and foundation member of the Society. Humboldt had presented this set to Schomburgk, then Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, who had been associated with him in scientific researches in South America. 

Voyages and travels Particularly noteworthy in this area is Johann Theodor de Bry's rare series of Eastern and American voyages, Collectiones peregrinationum in Indiam Occidentalem et in Indiam Orientalem, published in Latin in Frankfurt from 1590-1634. The books are magnificently illustrated with many very fine drawings depicting the customs of native peoples encountered, together with some marvellous maps. 

The de Bry volumes, many of them first editions, contain the journals of a great number of early navigators. Alongside Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Drake and Cavendish, is the account of Willem Schouten and Jakob Le Maire's voyage of 1615-17 during which Cape Horn was discovered. It was a voyage of importance to Australia for had it not been for Schouten's reluctance to continue west as Le Maire had intended the east coast of Australia might have been discovered long before Cook. Instead, they sailed north-west, falling in with the south coast of New Guinea.

The Society's de Bry works were recently consulted by a United States researcher to assist in the location of a Spanish treasure ship, which sank off the coast of Chile. Two of the best-known collections of voyages of the 16th and 17th centuries in English are those by Richard Hakluyt and Samuel Purchas. Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation first appeared in London in 1589 and was the Elizabethan geographer's major publication. The Society also owns this much enlarged three volume folio edition of 1599. 

Hakluyt, regarded as the first professor of modern geography at Oxford, compiled his work by reading and copying every account of a voyage he could find. He consulted with many mariners of the day together with the celebrated Flemish mapmakers Abraham Ortelius and Gerardus Mercator. Hakluyt was a superb editor and translator and his prose reads like poetry, making his Voyages one of the great works in the English language.

 Purchas published Purchas his Pilgrimage in London 1613 and the Library has the third (1617) edition. Purchas his Pilgrim, Microcosmus or the Histories of Man followed in 1619. After Hakluyt's death in 1616, Purchas acquired a great many of his papers and published them in live volumes in 1625 as Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes; conlayning a history of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells, by Englishmen and Others. Sadly, Purchas was no editor of the calibre of Hakluyt, and many accounts of the voyages, which he edited, are garbled and truncated. Nevertheless, his books, which are all in the Society's Collection, contain first accounts of voyages and travels not to be found elsewhere. 

One of the books in the Library from Cook's era is a Catalogue of the Different Specimens of Cloth Collected in the Three Voyages of Captain Cook to the Southern Hemisphere compiled by Alexander Shaw and printed in London 1787. It has a particular interest as it is bound with over 30 specimens of actual tapa or bark cloth swatches. 

Early works on Australia  - In addition to having the well known accounts of voyages by Cook, Flinders, Peron and Freycinet, (most of which are first editions), the Society's Library has a number of rare and unusual volumes with very early descriptions of the Southern Continent. An early Dutch book is Francois Pelsaert's tragic Ongeluckige Voyagie van't schip 'Batavia' 1628-29 published in Amsterdam in 1648, describing the bizarre saga of the Batavia, which was wrecked, on a reef of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands off the coast of Western Australia in 1629. 

Another important volume is William Dampier's New Voyage Round the World, London 1697. During this voyage in the Cygnet in 1688, Dampier became one of the first Englishmen to set foot on mainland Terra Australis.

Dampier's account of his second voyage to Australia in the Roebuck was A Voyage to New Holland in the Year 1699, published in London in 1703. The work gave him greater acclaim than the voyage itself, which had failed to achieve much in the way of new discovery. Dampier's works aroused great public interest, which indirectly contributed to the British discovery and early settlement of eastern Australia. 

Charles de Brosses, a judge and politician of Dijon, Burgundy, collected accounts of all the voyages made to the South Seas by Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and British mariners, translating them into French. His work was originally published as the two volume Histoire de Navigation aux Torres Australes in 1756. The first English version, which appeared in 1766, is in the Library and, interestingly enough. Cook had a copy with him. It was one of the most carefully- studied books in the Endeavour's Library. 

First or early editions of most of the inland Australian explorers' published journals are held in the Library. Those of Major Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Count Paul Edmund de Strzelecki, Frederick Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt, diaries of Augustus Gregory and William Landsborough are but a few. Of South Australian interest are a number of first edition accounts by Sturt, Eyre, Stuart and McKinlay. 

Amongst fictional works of interest to South Australians in the library is the 1751 edition of Jonathan Swift's celebrated satire Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver. 

Interestingly, the latitude and longitude of the Irish author's Land of Lilliput equates exactly with Saint Peters Island of the Nuyts Archipelago in the Great Australian Bight. Discovered and named in January 1627 by Dutchman Pieter Nuyts, supercargo on the Gulden Zeepaard under the command of Francois Thyssen, they are the oldest place names in South Australia. 

Natural history volumes illustrating nature and culture - Illustrations are important in many scientific publications and some of the most attractive are to be found in 18th  and 19th century books on natural history.

The oldest and rarest of the Library's volumes on Australian natural history is the splendidly illustrated Birds of New Holland with their Natural History, collected, engraved and faithfully painted after nature by John William Lewin, London 1808. 

This edition of exquisite hand-coloured engravings is extremely rare as all but six of the books printed were lost. Only the English subscribers to the work, of which Sir Joseph Banks heads the list, received their copies and the 56 copies sent to Australia were lost at sea.

The Society also owns a copy of Lewin's very rare Prodromus entomology; natural history of Lepidoplerous Insects of New South Wales which was published in London in 1805. The 18 hand-coloured plates depict an assortment of moths and their larvae, the '...first fruits of the labours of Mr John Lewin, who spent near eight years in the Colony, solely occupied in the pursuit of Natural History...' The plates had been engraved in Sydney in 1803 (the earliest produced in Australia). 

The riches of John Gould's works are also well represented. Holdings include the complete set of his beautifully illustrated eight-volume epic Birds of Australia, completed in 1869 with a grand total of 681 colour plates.

 The volumes are rare because many were broken up to allow the plates to be sold separately. The three-volume Mammals of Australia, 1863 is also in the collection. The Society's volumes are in extremely good condition, having been subjected to little use over the years, enhancing the opulent grandeur of the plates.

 In the same category of handsome folios and of special interest to South Australians is George French Angas's South Australia Illustrated, a series of hand-coloured lithographs depicting the scenery, ethnography and early social life in the Colony, published in London 1847. There are seven other publications in the Library by Angas containing illustrations of his sojourns in New Zealand and South Africa. These books are superb examples of the art of lithography which readied its zenith about the middle of last century.

The Society also has ten of the original Kaffir paintings from his The Kaffirs Illustrated and eight Rio de Janeiro scenes, painted opportunistically by Angas when his ship put in there for repairs en route to England in 1846. The set was intended for his 'Scenery of Rio Janeiro in a series of sketches' and includes a design for a title page. It was never published.