History
Artworks and photos
Artworks and photos: a self-guided tour
If you walk up the steps and through the front door of the library, then pause a moment in the foyer and look to your left, you’ll find one of the many artworks and photos that adorn the Athenaeum’s walls. Presented to the library in 2003, this piece of fabric art was created by the Maldon Village Quilters to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the discovery of gold that lead to the establishment of Maldon.
Now go through the swing doors into the hallway. Directly ahead is a fabric art quilt made and donated by library member Mary Dalton in 2023. It depicts shelves of books, the date the Athenaeum was founded, and reminds us we are on Dja Dja Wurrung Country.
But don’t linger in the hallway just yet. Instead, turn left through another set of swing doors into the Reading Room. The first artwork to catch your eye will probably be the large oil painting hanging directly to the left of the librarian’s desk. Painted by Edith May Rewell in 1915, ‘While the Billy Boils’, depicts a group of woodcutters taking a break from their work. It hung for many years in the artist’s family home at nearby Welshman’s Reef before being donated to the library in 1971. Descendants of the artist still visit the library to see it.
We don’t know the provenance of the other paintings and prints that add to the ambiance of this room, but, turning to the left, is a picture of Queen Victoria. This may be the one recorded in the minutes of January 1948 as being donated by Mrs C. Stewart but we can’t be sure as the library has several pictures of Queen Victoria and the minutes do not describe the donation. This portrait hangs near two stained glass windows in the art nouveau style, which are reputed to have come from a hotel in Melbourne being demolished in 1934 at the time of the rebuilding of the library after the original was destroyed by fire.
The two portraits of men in this room are Robert Dent Oswald (on the chimney) and his son Robert Dent Oswald junior (to the right of the doorway). Architectural historian Miles Lewis describes Oswald senior as Maldon’s most successful mining entrepreneur with a fortune derived from the Parkin’s Reef and the North British Mines. The portraits remind us that for much of its existence, our library was also a mining museum.
Leave the Reading Room now and enter the room housing the fiction collection. Walking through this room, you’ll go past a quilted depiction of books, plants and ornaments. This quilt was also created and donated by library member Mary Dalton in 2023.
Above the doorway at the other end of the room is a photograph, probably taken in 1907, of Athenaeum trustee William John Adams holding his son. The photo was donated by Jed Rowland who, in his accompanying letter (also on display), describes Adams as having provided an interest-free loan to pay for the new building after the 1934 fire. Rowlands may have been mistaken in this as there is no other evidence, but Adams was nevertheless a generous benefactor who, on his death in 1953, left his residence to the Athenaeum, the Maldon Hospital and the Maldon Methodist Church in equal shares.
Passing under Adams’ photo takes you back into the hallway, where reproductions of engravings by J. MacFarlane (1857−1936) are hung. Although it is unclear when the Athenaeum obtained them, they used to hang on the walls of the small Nuggetty School which officially closed in 1945 due to very low enrolments.
They are a slice of social history providing an example of what adorned the walls of small rural schools between the two World Wars. The engravings depict scenes of nineteenth century Australian exploration and colonisation, such as McDouall Stuart planting a Union Jack on a mount he named after himself in 1860. No doubt they hung on the schoolroom walls to instil a sense of pride and nationhood.
However, one of the set of six has been moved into storage for fear it could cause offence to First Nations people. Entitled ‘Sturt’s Party Threatened by Blacks at the Junction of the Murray Darling 1830’, it shows a European man in a boat aiming a gun at a group of Indigenous men with spears on a river bank. Hanging alongside the pictures of other exploratory heroes, it could imply that violence against the traditional owners is also an heroic and celebratory part of history.
The removal of this picture reflects the current world-wide debate about what should be done with controversial monuments that celebrate pioneering heroes while overlooking colonial violence and dispossession. Some favour destroying them, some their removal into storage, and some prefer that they remain but are contextualised with additional information providing a fuller picture of history. In removing this picture are we guilty of denying the violent history of colonial conquest? What do you think?
Another piece of social history in the hallway is a photo hanging to the right of the swing doors that still carry the name of the solicitors who once rented a room in the Athenaeum. The photo is of five young women who took part in the Maldon Athenaeum Popular Girl Competition held in 1936, which aimed to raise money after the rebuilding of the library in 1934.
Before you leave, take a look in the Children’s Library, to the left of the swing doors. On the old chimney is a whimsical mural of Australian animals painted by local artist and library member Sally Roadknight when the room was first set up for young readers in 2004. The room is also home to a kangaroo named ‘Edna’, created in 2023 by members of the Maldon Artist Network as part of a competition to raise money for charity. Another of the art nouveaux windows throws a soft light into the room.
Winsome Strickland with Lynda Achren
on behalf on the Maldon Athenaeum Library
2024
References
(All books are available at the library. Find them in our catalogue.)
James, Ken & Barnett, Sue (2018). A history of seventeen Central Victorian schools. Nuggetty Land protection Group, Nuggetty, Victoria. Page 316.
Rhule, Brian (2019) Maldon: A new history 1853−1928. Exploring History Australia, Bendigo, Victoria.
Lewis, Miles & Morton, G.H. (Mick) (1988) The essential Maldon. Greenhouse Publications in association with the National Trust of Australia (Victoria), Richmond. Page 92
Library minutes and correspondence held in the Maldon Athenaeum Archive Collection. For use within the library only.
On-line sources:
Nathan Sentance (2022) Whose history: the role of statues and monuments in Australia – The Australian Museum
National Library of Australia Digitised Newspapers − trove.nla.gov.au
The Tarrangower Times and Maldon, Newstead, Baringhup, Laancoorie and Muckleford Advertiser, November 11, 1891, page 2
With special thanks to the Maldon Museum and Archives for the information on the Popular Girls Competition and William Adams.
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This quilt commemorating the 150th anniversary of the discovery of gold, was created in 2002−2003 by Maldon Village Quilters Maree Clark, Karen Dickson, Phyllis Dyball, Joyce Harvey, Joan Mann, Judy Ross and Cecilia O’Bryrne (designer).
Robert Dent Oswald senior was born in 1825 at Lauriston, Scotland. He and wife Margaret arrived in Melbourne in July 1854 at the height of the gold rush and moved to Maldon in the early 1860s. Dent amassed a fortune from mining in Maldon, mining investments throughout Australia and real estate in Melbourne and Maldon. At the time of his death in 1891, he had assets worth £140,000 but much of this fortune was subsequently lost by his sons James and Robert.
Mary Dalton’s quilt hangs in the Fiction Room. Some of the books Mary has chosen to depict include classics by Jane Austin, Miles Franklin and Agatha Christie as well as the children’s classics ‘Winnie the Pooh’ and ‘The Muddle Headed Wombat’.
Letter dated August 1973 from the National Trustees and Executors Agency informing the Athenaeum that William Adams’ will could now be finalised as his niece, for whom the property had been held in trust during her lifetime, had recently died. The Athenaeum, the Hospital and the Methodist Church could now – twenty years after Adams’ death – take possession. The property was subsequently sold and in September 1973, the Athenaeum received a cheque from the executors for $938.34.
Popular Girl competitions were a common form of fund raising in the 1930s. The ‘girls’ organised events to raise money for charities and community projects. The Athenaeum competition, organised by the Athenaeum ‘ladies committee’, raised £146 mainly though dances and euchre nights staged by the young women, with the most (£37) raised by Cath Baxter (bottom left), who was proclaimed the Athenaeum’s Popular Girl.