A conference of librarians of Mechanics’ Institutes in all parts of the State was opened on Thursday afternoon, 3rd November 1904 at the Swan River Mechanics’ Institute, Hay St. By most accounts, this was an earnest affair, designed to enhance and promote the acquisition of knowledge in all areas of Western Australia, and to endeavour to ‘educate the Public Taste’: also, to ask for State funding for libraries. Mr J S Battye, Chief Librarian, was in the Chair. Papers were read – including one on ‘the Library Movement’. The photo I found shows the dignified gentlemen attending, amongst them Mr C E Hutton, of Lake Austin, a gold-mining town (now ghost town) near Cue, WA. He is the one, pictured on the right, with the whiskers.
However, one newspaper report gave a rather different slant on the proceedings, treating the subject of Mechanics Institutes and Libraries in a factious tone. The delegate for Lake Austin, Mr. C E Hutton, seems to have been disconcertingly frank in his report as written up in the Evening Star, Boulder, Wednesday 9th November 1904. Under a sub heading ‘Melancholy Meditations of the Bookworms’ Lake Austin was described as a ‘… weird, desolate (or maybe dissolute, the spelling is uncertain) township… on the Murchison…consisting of two stores, a pub, and the Institute.’
Mr. Hutton apparently reported during the conference: “I don’t care wot rules you make.” said the Austin librarian resignedly. “It can’t hurt our institoot. They ain’t scarcely no one there to roll up to it; and if they was. they wouldn’t see much, (and the) literatoor- ain’t too frequent. All I seen on tha table when I left was the “Day Dawn Chronicle.” …As fer books, everythings oot except (Encyclopedia) Brittannier, and they won’t take that ‘caus I got it bolted to the wall.”3
Sources
- SOME OF THE DELEGATES TO THE RECENT LIBRARIANS’ CONFERENCE. (1904, December 3). Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 – 1954), p. 27. Retrieved August 21, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article37804587 ↩︎
- The delegates in the photo are:
Front Row: J Rushton (Victoria Park), W T Bray (Perth), J S Batty (Public Library, Perth), J L Nanson (Northampton), A S McClintock (Kalgoorlie), Rev J McPhee (Armadale),
Middle Row: H S Ainsworth (Day Dawn), J S Armstrong Boulder, G N Clarke (Coolgardie), S Solomon (Northam), C E Hatton (Lake Austin)
Back Row: R W Patrick (Cue), J Hansen (Bonnie Vale) ↩︎ - Librarians’ Conference (1904, November 9). The Evening Star (Boulder, WA : 1898 – 1921), p. 2. Retrieved August 21, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article204536689 ↩︎
People of Western Australia's Ghost Towns 